(Nov. 19, 1917, Allahabad; d. Oct. 31, 1984, New Delhi), in full Indira Priyadarshini Gandhi , politician who served as prime minister of India for three consecutive terms (1966-77) and a fourth term (1980-84). She was assassinated by Sikh extremists.
Born to Jawaharlal Nehru, the first prime minister of independent India, and Kamla Nehru, Indira attended the Vishva-Bharati University, West Bengal, and the University of Oxford, in England. In 1942 she married Feroze Gandhi (d. 1960), a journalist and a fellow member of the Indian National Congress. Elected to the largely honorary post of party president in 1959, she had been a member of the working committee of the ruling Congress Party from 1955. Lal Bahadur Shastri, who succeeded Nehru as Prime Minister in 1964, named her minister of information and broadcasting in his government.
On Shastri's sudden death in January 1966, Gandhi became leader of the Congress Party (and thus also prime minister) in a compromise between the right and left wings of the party. Her leadership, however, came under continual challenge from the right wing of the party, led by a former minister of finance, Morarji Desai. Winning on a slim majority in the election of 1967, she had to accept Desai as deputy prime minister. Triumphing on a sweeping electoral victory over a coalition of conservative parties in 1971, Gandhi strongly supported East Bengal (now Bangladesh) in its secessionist conflict with Pakistan in late 1971, and India's armed forces achieved a swift and decisive victory over Pakistan that led to the creation of Bangladesh.
After India's victory over Pakistan in March 1972, Gandhi once again led her New Congress Party to a landslide victory in national elections. Charged by her Socialist opponent for violating the election laws, on June 1975 the High Court of Allahabad ruled against her, which meant that she would be deprived of her seat in Parliament and would have to stay out of politics for six years. Retaliating, she declared a state of emergency throughout India, imprisoned her political opponents, and assumed emergency powers, passing many laws limiting personal freedoms. During this period she implemented several unpopular policies, including large-scale sterilization as a form of birth control. When long-postponed national elections were held in 1977, Gandhi and her party were soundly defeated, and the Janata Party took over the reins of government.
Spliting from the Congress Party in early 1978, she and her supporters formed the Congress (I) - "I" for "Indira" - Party. Gandhi was also briefly imprisoned (October 1977 and December 1978) on charges of official corruption. Regardless of these setbacks, she won a new seat in Parliament in November 1978, and her Congress (I) Party began to gather strength. Dissension within the ruling Janata Party led to the fall of its government in August 1979. The January 1980 Lok Sabha (Lower House of Parliament) elections saw Gandhi and her Congress (I) Party sweep back into power in a landslide victory. Her son, Sanjay Gandhi, who had become her chief political adviser, also won a seat in the Lok Sabha. All legal cases against Indira, as well as against her son, were withdrawn.
But, Sanjay Gandhi's death in an airplane crash in June 1980 eliminated Indira's chosen successor to the political leadership of India and Indira started grooming her other son, Rajiv, for the leadership of her party. During the early 1980s, Indira Gandhi was faced by threats to the political integrity of India. Coveting a larger measure of independence from the central government, the Sikh extremists in Punjab used violence to assert their demands for an autonomous state. In response, Gandhi ordered an army attack in June 1984 on the Golden Temple of Amritsar, the Sikhs' holiest shrine, which led to the deaths of more than 450 Sikhs. Five months later Gandhi was assasinated in her garden by a fusillade of bullets fired by two of her own Sikh bodyguards in revenge for the attack on the Golden Temple.
Adhering to the quasi-socialist policies of industrial development started by her father, Indira Gandhi established closer relations with the Soviet Union, depending on that nation for support in India's longstanding conflict with Pakistan.
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