Margaret Thatcher, Golda Meir and Indira Gandhi – those were the symbols of female power that the generation of children born in the 1980s, soon after Indira’s assassination, were brought up on. To comment on Thatcher and Meir would require another article and I will stick to Indira here.
That India was Indira became an entrenched idea in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Indira Gandhi nee Indira Priyadarshini Nehru had caught the nation’s imagination with her Garibi Hatao politics of populism and the transformation of the Goongi Gudia (the dumb doll, as she was first labelled) into an almost dictatorial ruler was dramatic and powerful. She transformed politics in India after her election in 1969, dangled a sword of Damocles over democracy in the mid-1970s and turned India nuclear. When she was assassinated 25 years ago, she would be remembered as many things – Nehru’s darling daughter, the “only man in the cabinet”, the mother of the family syndicate and corruption therefore, the negotiator of Bangladesh’s independence, the Prime Minister behind the Green Revolution, the one who took troops into the Golden Temple, the single largest threat to democracy in India.
What does all of this mean for a feminist? What did Indira Gandhi mean as a woman, for women, and in the realm of feminism? She has been held up as a model for women politicians and too often the “India has had Indira, we have no dearth of women politicians” rhetoric obscures reality. Her iron fist of populism on the one hand, and choking authoritarianism on the other, have been demonized and reified alternatively by different quarters. She has been analyzed as a wife, a mother, a mother-in-law and not least, as a daughter. In many ways, Indira Gandhi was a contradiction – her seeming commitment to development on the one hand contrasted with her strong authoritarian tendencies. She was the ideal woman leader in that she shook the Goongi Gudia mould off with admirable courage and came into her own, in spite of the existence of a syndicate of formidably powerful Congress leaders around her. But she is the wrong example to follow in that she handled and dispensed with power without grace or real understanding. She was, perhaps, a better campaign manager (for Nehru’s successful campaigns) than she was a Prime Minister.
Further, Indira, in many ways, further masculinised the Indian State if anything – hierarchy became a matter of importance under her, culminating in the emergency. The centralization of power in the person of the Prime Minister became far more authoritarian (moving from paternalistic to patriarchal) with Indira, in a radical transition from her father’s style of politics. Militarization and strength were suddenly more important than before. The Pokhran tests were conducted in the middle of international suspicion – Indira had to show Nixon. The victory over Pakistan in the Bangladesh war was more than a real victory for the people of East Bengal – it was a symbol of India’s physical strength over that of Pakistan. The state became a more aggressive body – its attitude towards industry was radicalized, taxes were raised and development came with a war cry on poverty.
However, in spite of all criticism, Indira did have a certain charisma, as Prime Minister that is enviable. She had a vitality that is perhaps what is missing from politics today. In many ways, she was a product of her upbringing and times – the fear of police as a child manifested itself perhaps in the need to control this all-punishing arm of the state, for instance. Is she the ideal woman politician? No, certainly not. However, she was indeed a powerful woman politician, worth remembering if for nothing else, then the way she swayed a whole nation.
Pic Source: BBC
The Author Sneha Krishnan is an economics-obsessed, pasta-loving history student bound for Oxford this fall. She is usually found curled up in sofas with her ever-present macbook perched on some surface in the vicinity. Sneha first started thinking about doing Sa when she and Shweta realized that they were ranting about the day's news/ happenings practically everyday and everything they said had something to do with their feminist convictions. So they wondered how it would be to write about these things and more... and KaBoom... seven months and laborious code-learning (trial and error, the only method for us) sessions later, Sa came to be. Sneha’s favourite pastimes, besides feminism and Sa, are reading the New York Times, playing Scrabble and watching every movie that looks remotely interesting.
by mistake the rating got 1 * ; actually i wanted to give 4 ****s .
Indira is India was started in the early 70’s by one sycophant called D.K.BAROOA ( I don’t know whether i got the spelling right ) , who subsequently was forced into the oblivion.
I G was a complex character for a common man like me; she had charisma ; but she was confused many times . She was a role model for many ; but nobody could become the same ( thankfully )
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