Indira Gandhi : A Biography

It was after a long time that a book has captivated me, to such an extent that I would extend my normal reading hours in the night. I became so much engrossed in the book that I put on hold, a lot of works that I set aside to be done. For three days and nights, the book was a constant companion. The book bears a resemblance to the fast pace of modern fictional thrillers like Dan Brown’s Da Vinci Code, except for the fact that the book is not a work of fiction but essentially a look into the history of adult India through the life of Indira Gandhi.

The book is written byPupul Jyakar, a close friend and confidant of Indira Gandhi. She traces the history of the Nehru family right from the Mughal times, where an ancestor of the Nehru family occupied a position in the court of the Mughal Emperor, FarrukhSiyar. The book speaks on the journey of the ancestors of the Nehru family from the Kashmir valley to the court of the Emperor in Delhi and to their final settlement in Allahabad. The book also gives a good deal of insight into thefreedom struggle of India.

The book paints the picture of Indira Gandhi not as someone who needs to be eulogized for but of a shy lady who transforms into an iron woman but yet vulnerable and loveable. It brings to light the early shyness exhibited by Indira Gandhi, the reason being a crude remark made by her aunt Vijayalakshmi Pandit, by calling her an ugly girl. The book dwells on the German professor Frank Oberdorf who would court Indira Gandhi ceaselessly by reminding her of her beauty but she would not give in to the charms of the German. The book speaks the deep conflicts that Jawaharlal Nehru had with his daughter on account of Kamala Nehru. Her relationship with husband Feroze and son Sanjay is also covered lengthily in the book.

After reading the book,I come to the conclusion that people of India would always be grateful of the strongand gritty leadership that she gave to her nation. I wonder what wouldhave been the fate of India had she not come into the political scene. One truly wonderful deed that she would be ever remembered for apart from the Indo-Pak war of 1971 and the first Pokhran atomic blasts would be her removal of Emergency which she had herself imposed on the people of India. That singleact strengthened the Indian democracy. It laid to rest a common quote oftentold “No dictator was known to give up power except through a counter-revolution”. Indira Gandhi knew that giving up her power might ruin her but she went ahead for the good of the country. Sure enough she suffered a heavy loss but it also became very clear very soon that at that particular period in the history of India, there was no leader in the scene who could capture public imagination like the way she did and made a brilliant comeback.

Full of startling insights, Indira Gandhi: A Biography, paints a magnificent portrait—at once empathetic and unprejudiced—of one of the twentieth century’s most remarkable women.