Indira Gandhi

Indira Priyadarshini Gandhi (born Indira Nehru; 19 November 1917 – 31 October 1984) was an Indian political leader who served as prime minister twice: first from 1966 to 1977, and again from 1980 until her assassination. She remains India’s only female prime minister and was a dominant force in the Indian National Congress. She also chaired the Non-Aligned Movement from 1983 to 1984, the first Indian to do so. The daughter of Jawaharlal Nehru, India’s first prime minister, and mother of Rajiv Gandhi, who later succeeded her, she held office for 15 years and 350 days across four terms—the second-longest tenure of any Indian prime minister, behind her father.

During Nehru’s premiership, Gandhi acted as his hostess and traveled with him abroad. In 1959, as president of the Indian National Congress—a largely ceremonial role she had been elected to that year—she helped dissolve the communist-led Kerala state government. After Nehru’s death in 1964, Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri appointed her minister of information and broadcasting; she also entered the Rajya Sabha that year. Following Shastri’s death in January 1966, Gandhi won the Congress parliamentary leadership election against Morarji Desai and became prime minister, making her the world’s second female prime minister after Sirimavo Bandaranaike. She led the Congress to victory in the 1967 general election, winning her first Lok Sabha seat, and secured a landslide in 1971—the party’s biggest since her father’s 1962 win—by focusing on poverty.

Gandhi was known for firm political stances and centralizing power in the executive. In 1967, she oversaw a military clash with China that repelled Himalayan incursions. In 1971, she went to war with Pakistan to support East Pakistan’s independence movement, resulting in Indian victory, the end of the Bangladeshi genocide, Bangladesh’s creation, and India’s rise as South Asia’s dominant power. Another military action, Operation Meghdoot in 1984, expanded Indian control in the disputed Kashmir region. She also initiated India’s first successful nuclear test in 1974. Her rule saw closer ties with the Soviet Union, formalized by a 1971 friendship treaty to counter perceived threats from U.S.-China warming. India received Soviet military, financial, and diplomatic support during the 1971 war. Although India led the Non-Aligned Movement, Gandhi made it one of the Soviet Union’s closest Asian allies, with mutual backing in proxy wars and at the United Nations.

In response to separatist movements and calls for revolution, Gandhi imposed a state of emergency from 1975 to 1977, ruling by decree and suspending civil liberties. Over 100,000 political opponents, journalists, and dissenters were jailed. The Congress lost the 1977 election amid strong anti-incumbency—its first national defeat—and Gandhi lost her own parliamentary seat. However, portrayed as a strong leader amid the Janata Party’s weak governance, her party won the next election by a landslide, returning her to power. During her fourth term, she faced a Sikh separatist movement and ordered Operation Blue Star, a military assault on the Golden Temple that killed hundreds of Sikhs. On 31 October 1984, two of her bodyguards, Sikh nationalists seeking revenge for the temple events, assassinated her.

Gandhi was cremated at what is now Shakti Sthal, marked by a large iron ore rock and commemorated as the “Iron Lady of India.” She is remembered as one of the world’s most powerful women. Supporters credit her leadership in victories over China and Pakistan, the Green Revolution, economic growth in the early 1980s, and anti-poverty efforts that earned her the name “Mother Indira” among the poor. Critics point to her cult of personality and authoritarian rule during the Emergency. In 1999, a BBC online poll named her “Woman of the Millennium,” and in 2020, Time magazine listed her among 100 women who defined the past century.

**Early life and career** Indira Gandhi was born Indira Nehru on 19 November 1917 in Allahabad (now Prayagraj), Uttar Pradesh, into a Kashmiri Pandit family during British rule. Her father, Jawaharlal Nehru, was a key figure in India’s independence movement and became the first prime minister. She was the couple’s only surviving child—a younger brother died young—and grew up with her mother, Kamala Nehru, at Anand Bhavan, the family estate in Allahabad. In 1930, the Nehru family donated the mansion to the Indian National Congress.