Indira Gandhi

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If more books have been written, and are still being writ ten, on Indira Gandhi than on her even more illustrious father, Jawaharlal Nehru, there are good reasons for it. In her life and career there were high drama and searing tragedy to a much greater degree than in his or, for that matter, anyone else's. Merely to hint at these sharp ups and downs, twists and turns and joys and sorrows should be enough to drive home the point. For instance, within a few years of being dismissed as goongi gudiya (Dumb Doll) after first becoming Prime Minister, she was hailed as Durga, the invincible goddess in the Hindu pantheon, understandably because of her splendid success in the 1971 General Election and even more glorious victory in the war with Pakistan later that year, which led to the liberation of Bangladesh. In another five years she had reached her nadir. A tidal wave of popular resentment against the Emergency she had imposed in the mid-Seventies had swept her out of power in the elections she had herself called in March 1977. Yet, in 33 months flat she had made spectacular a comeback, winning a two-thirds majority in Parliament and stunning those who thought that she had been "consigned to the dustbin of history".

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