Indira Gandhi : the First Phase ( January 1966 to March 1977 )

 After the sudden and unexpected death of Lal Bahadur Shastri in January 1966 , once again , Gulzarilal Nanda was appointed the interim prime minister pending elections . Morarji Desai was a contender for the post of the Congress party parliamentary leader and , as a corollary , the prime minister .

 The Syndicate supported Indira Gandhi , Nehru's daughter , and most party members also were in favour of her . She won the election ; it is said most of the senior Congressmen supported her as they thought she was weak enough to be manipulated as they wanted . Time was to prove them wrong .

 Early Life

 Indira Priyadarshini was born on November 19 , 1917 in Allahabad to Jawaharlal Nehru and Kamala Nehru . India was in the midst of a struggle for freedom from the British and the Nehru family was fully involved in the struggle . So , almost from childhood , Indira was closely in touch with the events of those days of turmoil .

 It is reported that when bonfires of foreign goods were made during the freedom movement , Indira , then a child , gave up a doll made in England to be thrown into the fire . At the age of twelve , she brought together and led a group of children calling it the Vanar Sena - to do their bit for the freedom struggle . These youngsters addressed envelopes , made flags , helped put up nptices and carried messages to the freedom fighters .

 Indira attended several schools and colleges , sometimes just for brief periods : these included the Ecole de Bex in Switzerland . Rabindranath Tagore's Visva - Bharati university at Santiniketan , Bengal , and Somerville College , Oxford , U.K. , among others .

 In 1936 Indira joined the Indian National Congress , and in 1938 she became a member of the India League . It was during her stay in England that she met Feroze Jehangir Ghandy ( later changed to Gandhi ) , who was also a member of the India League and studying in London . Feroze was a Parsi . Indira returned to India in 1941 with Feroze Gandhi , and she married him in 1942.

 Feroze too was a member of the Indian National Congress and took part in the freedom struggle . Indira was an active participant in the Quit India movement and was imprisoned in Naini Central Jail for some time . Feroze and Indira had two sons Rajiv and Sanjay both of whom were later to be part of India's political scene in their different ways .

 Political Journey after Independence

 After independence , when the Congress party came to power and Jawaharlal Nehru became the country's prime minister , Indira often acted as her father's hostess for events and accompanied him on his travels . In the 1951-52 General Elections , Indira Gandhi handled the campaigns of Feroze , who was contesting from Rae Bareilly in Uttar Pradesh .

 Feroze was elected to the Lok Sabha . But they had differences in personal life and soon separated . Feroze soon became a major spokesman against the corruption in the government . He was instrumental in exposing a scam involving major insurance companies and the finance minister in Nehru's cabinet , T.T. Krishnamachari . He died in September 1960 .

 Indira joined the Congress party's working committee in 1955 , and in 1959 she was elected the party's president . Following the death of her father in 1964 , she became a member of the Rajya Sabha and was inducted into the cabinet by Lal Bahadur Shastri as the information and broadcasting minister .

 Prime Minister

 On January 19 , 1966 , Indira Gandhi became the third prime minister of India - the first woman to occupy the post in the country .

 The General Elections of 1967 came amidst economic problems stagnation and food crisis , rising prices , unemployment which caused much disenchantment among the people . The decision on devaluation of the rupee was criticised by many .

 Also political disputes obstructed the import of wheat from the US . In the 1967 General Elections , Indira Gandhi won the Lok Sabha seat from Rae Bareilly . The Congress party managed to win the elections but managed only a thin majority in the Lok Sabha . Indira Gandhi was now prime minister but also had Morarji Desai as deputy prime minister and finance minister .

 The Congress either lost power or failed to get a majority in several states in the assembly elections . The coalition governments that took power in many states , however , led to unstable governments and the practice of defections from party to party .

 Congress Split and Minority Government at the Centre

 In the following years , there was much turmoil within the Congress party . So far the Congress party had been accommodative of diverse interests . There was now a growing divide in ideology between the right and the left .

 The Congress right was in favour of tackling the protest movements and putting down the left , giving more space to the private sector in the economy and improving relations with the US . Indira Gandhi did not agree with many of the ideas of the senior leaders of the party . She was in favour of radical economic reform which did not meet the approval of the conservative senior members of the party .

 A ten - point programme adopted by the Congress Working Committee under Indira Gandhi's aegis referred to the need for social control of banks , the government taking up foreign trade , nationalisation of general insurance , ceilings on property , public distribution of food grains , accelerated implementation of land reforms , provision of subsidised plots for housing the rural poor , etc.

 Indira Gandhi was in favour of abolishing the privy purses to former rulers of the princely states . Her decision to nationalise a set of banks without consulting her finance minister was not approved by the senior party members . In the end , Morarji Desai was forced to resign from the cabinet .

 With the death of President Zakir Hussain in May 1969 , things came to a head ; there were strong differences over the choice of candidates for the election to the post of President of India .

 The official Congress candidate was Neelam Sanjiva Reddy , a member of the Syndicate , but Indira Gandhi , now increasingly leaning towards socialistic ideology . and fearing that the Syndicate would use Sanjiva Reddy to get her out of power , was in favour of V.V. Giri ( erstwhile vice - president now standing as an independent candidate ) . V.V. Giri won the election and became the President of India in August 1969 .

 Consequently , in November , the Congress party president , S. Nijalingappa , expelled Indira Gandhi from the party on ground of indiscipline . India Gandhi managed to win over a majority of the party members to her side and created her own faction , the Congress ( R ) where R stood for Requisitionists ' , in 1969 while the other group was the Congress ( 0 ) with O for Organisation ' headed by Ram Subhag Singh .

 Indira Gandhi no longer had a majority in the Lok Sabha but , with the issue - based support of regional parties such as the DMK , the Akali Dal and the two communist parties , she retained power at the Centre .

 The 1971 Elections : Indira Triumphant

 Indira Gandhi found she could not take independent action as head of a minority government . Her efforts at progressive legislations were obstructed by the Supreme Court as well as the Parliament . She got the nationalisation of banks through a presidential ordinance after clearing the legal lacunae pointed out by the court .

 The abolition of privy purses not only failed to get passed in Parliament ( the constitutional amendment fell through just by one vote in the Rajya Sabha ) , but the presidential order derecognising the princes that Indira Gandhi brought in was nullified by the Supreme Court .

 In December 1970 , Indira Gandhi recommended dissolution of the Lok Sabha and called for early elections . The nation thus went to the polls in 1971. The catchy slogan of the Congress ( R ) was ' Garibi Hatao ' ( Remove Poverty ) . Indira Gandhi campaigned for social change and removal of disparities in income and for stability of government .

 The non - Communist opposition parties ( Swatantra , Congress - O , SSP ) came together in what was called the Grand Alliance with the election cry of ' Indira Hatao ' ( Remove Indira ) .

 Congress ( R ) won the election with a good majority , probably because the voters showed maturity in preferring to vote on national issues rather than fall prey to political patronage . Indira Gandhi was now well on her way to dominating the political scene for a long time to come .

 India's victory over Pakistan in December 1971 and the subsequent creation of independent Bangladesh out of the erstwhile East Pakistan in the liberation war gave a big boost to the image of Indira Gandhi .

 In the state assembly elections in March 1972 the Congress ( R ) came to power in many states . The elections of 1971 and 1972 had virtually reduced the importance of the Congress ( O ) and the Swatantra Party as significant opponents .

 Problems

 The huge enthusiasm for Indira Gandhi , however , started fading by 1973 , in spite of some important achievements of the government . Economic problems grew . The main issue was high inflation that followed from the war time expenses , drought in some parts of the country and the oil crisis of 1973.

 Food grains production declined due to poor monsoons , and low agricultural growth had its adverse impact on industry as well . As world crude prices soared , India was affected by high costs of import and the resulting high prices of petroleum products . Unemployment grew . There were strikes . the most notable one being the all - India railway strike in May 1974.

 Most the influential social classes got gradually alienated from Indira Gandhi - the rich peasants resented land reforms , the industrialists resented the wide scale nationalisation and socialistic policies , and the middle classes were deeply affected by the price rise and were critical of the spreading corruption among officials and politicians .

 The fact that Sanjay Gandhi , Indira Gandhi's second son , was entrusted with the venture of producing a small fuel efficient Indian car and was handed the contract and the exclusive production licence , though he had little experience in the field , was seen by most people as nepotism .