Why is Indira Gandhi called the Iron Lady of India?

Feroze Gandhi was a lawyer and newspaper executive and became an independent member of Parliament. He died in 1960. They had two sons, Rajiv and Sanjay.

Gandhi became president of the Indian National Congress in 1959. The Congress had led the country to freedom and had then become its major political party. She had joined the Congress in 1938 and subsequently served as a member of its Youth Advisory Board and chairman of its Woman's Department.

Gandhi was named to its 21-member executive Working Committee and was elected with more votes than any other candidate to the powerful 11-member Central Election Board, which named candidates and planned electoral strategy.

In June 1964, following her father's death, Gandhi became minister for information and broadcasting in the Cabinet of Lal Bahadur Shastri and instituted an Indian television system. In January 1966, when Shastri died, she was elected leader of the Congress party in Parliament and became the third prime minister of independent India. She assumed office at a critical time in the history of the country.

A truce had ended the 1965 war between India and Pakistan only a week before. The nation was in the midst of a two-year drought resulting in severe food shortages and a deepening economic crisis with rising prices and rising unemployment. The political repercussions of these difficulties were profound. In the fourth general elections of 1967 the Congress retained majority control (and reelected Gandhi as its leader) but lost control in half the state legislatures. After 20 years of political dominance, the Congress party experienced serious difficulty.

Gandhi immediately set about reorganizing the party to make it a more effective instrument of administration and national development. Her goal was to achieve a wider measure of social and economic justice for all Indians

the Congress party split, with the younger, more liberal elements coalescing around Gandhi and the older, more conservative party leaders opposing her. This division came to a head in July 1969 when she nationalized the country's 14 leading banks in a highly popular move meant to make credit more available to agriculture and to small industry.

The split was formalized when Gandhi's candidate for the presidency of India, V.V. Giri, won over the party's official nominee. Although Gandhi took 228 members of Parliament with her into the New Congress

she held power only with support from parties of the left. In December 1970 when Gandhi failed to get the necessary support to abolish the privy purses and privileges of the former princes, she called on the President to dissolve Parliament. Midterm elections were set for March 1971, one full year ahead of schedule.

A coalition of three parties of the right and an anti-Congress socialist party opposed Gandhi, who made alliances with parties of the left and some regional parties

Her platform was essentially one of achieving social and economic change more rapidly in an effort to improve the quality of life of India's people. Her party won a massive victory with over a two-thirds majority in Parliament.

Gandhi faced major problems in the areas of food production, population control, land reform, regulation of prices, unemployment, and industrial production. The problems were exacerbated by the influx of almost 10 million refugees as a result of the civil turmoil in East Pakistan

In November 1971 Indian troops crossed into East Pakistan to fight Pakistani forces. On December 6 Gandhi announced diplomatic recognition of the Bangla Desh government set up by East Pakistani rebel leaders. Ten days later Pakistan's commander in East Pakistan surrendered to India.

In the state elections held in India in March 1972, Gandhi's New Congress party scored the most overwhelming victory in the history of independent India; however, her opponent accused her of violating election laws, and a high court upheld the charge in 1975

Gandhi declared a state of emergency and postponed elections. In the 1977 elections Gandhi and her party suffered major defeats; Gandhi lost her seat and the premiership

The following year she headed the Congress party faction as she returned to Parliament. In 1979 she again became Prime Minister. In efforts to prove India's nonalliance in the global community

she visited both the United States and the USSR. Internally, riots broke out among Muslim, Hindu, and Sikh religious sects. Sikh separatists secured weapons within their sacred Golden Temple in Amritsar, assuming religious protection

Gandhi ordered government troops to storm the temple, leading to many Sikh deaths. This led to her assassination on the grounds of her own residence and office October 31, 1984, by her own Sikh security guards

Biographies of Gandhi include Tariq Ali, An Indian Dynasty: The Story of the Nehru-Gandhi Family, Putnam, 1985; and Pupu Jayakar, Indira Gandhi: An Intimate Biography, Pantheon Books, 1993.

Almost from the moment she was born in 1917, Indira Nehru's life was steeped in politics. Her father, Jawaharlal Nehru, was a leader in the fight for India's independence from British rule, so it was natural for Indira to become a supporter of this struggle.

One tactic of India's nationalist movement was to reject foreign — particularly British — products. At a young age, Indira witnessed a bonfire of foreign goods. Later, the 5-year-old chose to burn her own beloved doll because the toy had been made in England.

When she was 12, Indira played an even bigger role in India's struggle for self-determination by leading children in the Vanar Sena (the name means Monkey Brigade; it was inspired by the monkey army that aided Lord Rama in the epic Ramayana).

The group grew to include 60,000 young revolutionaries who addressed envelopes, made flags, conveyed messages and put up notices about demonstrations. It was a risky undertaking, but Indira was happy to be participating in the independence movement.

Indira's father was a close associate of Mahatma Gandhi. However, the fact that Indira ended up with the same last name as the iconic Indian leader wasn't due to a connection with the Mahatma; instead, Indira became Indira Gandhi following her marriage to Feroze Gandhi (who wasn't related to the Mahatma). And despite the fact that Indira and Feroze were in love, theirs was a wedding that few people in India supported.

Feroze, a fellow participant in the struggle for independence, was Parsi, while Indira was Hindu, and at the time mixed marriages were unusual. It was also out-of-the-norm not to have an arranged marriage. In fact, there was such a public outcry against the match that Mahatma Gandhi had to offer a public statement of support, which included the request: "I invite the writers of abusive letters to shed your wrath and bless the forthcoming marriage."