Indira Gandhi: Remembering country’s 1st female PM on her birthday

Today, November 19th, marks the 104th birthday of India’s first and only female Prime Minister, Indira Gandhi, also known as the country’s “Iron Lady.”

She was the daughter of the country’s first prime minister, Dr Jawahar Lal Nehru, and was born on November 19, 1917, as Indira Priyadarshini Gandhi. Throughout her life, she was instrumental in the operation of the Indian National Congress (INC).

India Gandhi was elected president of the INC in 1959. After her father died in 1964, she was appointed to the Rajya Sabha and served as the Union Minister of Information and Broadcasting in Lal Bahadur Shastri’s cabinet.

She succeeded Shastri as India’s next Prime Minister, outpacing other leaders in the leadership race. Indira Gandhi held office from 1966 to 1977, and again from 1981 to 1984, until her assassination at the hands of her own security guards. Indira Gandhi is the country’s second-longest serving prime minister after Jawaharlal Nehru.

According to reports, India Gandhi became such a dominant figure and left such an impression on the political landscape of the country at the end of 1977 that then Congress party president DK Barooah coined the phrase “India is Indira and Indira is India.”

Indira Gandhi was named “Woman of the Millennium” in 1999 by an online BBC poll. She was recently named by Time magazine as one of the world’s 100 most powerful women of the twentieth century.

The Prime Minister, Shri Narendra Modi has paid tributes to Prime Minister, Indira Gandhi on her birth anniversary.

The Prime Minister tweeted;

“Tributes to our former PM Mrs. Indira Gandhi Ji on her birth anniversary.”