Indira Gandhi

Born : 19 November 1917
(Allahabad, United Provinces, British India )

Died : 31 October 1984 (aged 66)
(New Delhi, India )

Nationality: Indian

Political party : Indian National Congress

Spouse(s): Feroze Gandhi

Children : Rajiv Gandhi and Sanjay Gandhi

Religion: Hindu-Adi Dharm

Early life:

Growing up in India

Indira Nehru Gandhi was born on 19 November 1917 to Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru and Kamala Nehru and was their only child. The Nehrus were a distinguish Kashmiri Pandit family. At the time of her birth, her grandfather Motilal Nehru and father Jawaharlal were influential political leaders. Gandhi was brought up in an intense political atmosphere at the Nehru family residence, Anand Bhawan, where she spent her childhood years.

Growing up in the sole care of her mother, who was sick and alienated from the Nehru household, Indira developed strong protective instincts and a loner personality. The flurry of political activity in the Nehru household made mixing with her peers difficult. She had personal conflicts with her father’s sisters, including Vijayalakshmi Pandit, and these extended into her relationship with them in the political world.

In her father’s autobiography, Toward Freedom, he writes that the police frequently came to the family home while he was in prison and took away pieces of furniture as payment toward the fines the Government imposed on him. He says, “Indira, my four-year-old daughter, was greatly annoyed at this continuous process of despoliation and protested to the police and expressed her strong displeasure. I am afraid those early impressions are likely to colour her future views about the police force generally.”

Indira created the Vanara Sena movement for young girls and boys which played a small but notable role in the Indian Independence Movement, conducting protests and flag marches, as well as helping members of the Indian National Congress circulate sensitive publications and banned materials. In an often-told story, she smuggled out in her schoolbag an important document from her father’s house under police observation, that outlined plans for a major revolutionary initiative in the early 1930s.

Studying in Europe
In 1936, her mother, Kamala Nehru, finally succumbed to tuberculosis after a long struggle. Indira was 18 at the time and thus never experienced a stable family life during her childhood. While studying at Somerville College, University of Oxford, England, during the late 1930s, she became a member of the radical pro-independence London based India League.[2]