On the occasion of Indira Gandhi’s 41st death anniversary, I asked some friends and family the question I often pose at book discussions on my biography of the former prime minister: Do you remember what you were doing at the time Gandhi was assassinated?
The answers never fail to surprise me. All those who were old enough to recall 31 October 1984, the day Gandhi was slain by her Sikh bodyguards, remember exactly—and I mean exactly—what they were doing in those moments.
Someone was having a haircut. Someone else was buying a cake. A third was in a college canteen, sipping nimbu paani. A fourth recalled his mother was so shocked, she was unable to cook that day.
It’s as if for an entire generation of Indians, across the country, time somehow stood still at that moment of death. The clocks froze. Movement ceased. A country fell silent. A sense of collective shock hung in the still air. Indira Gandhi, dead? It was like a personal blow, a hit to the national solar plexus. For millions of those who grew up in the 1970s, the moment of her death has imprinted itself on our personal histories.
Why do so many people feel this way about Indira Gandhi? After all, 1984 was the pre-media age. There was no 24/7 audio-visual media, no social media, no WhatsApp chats, no breaking news frenzy to beam the death of a prime minister instantaneously into our homes, lives, and minds from our smartphones and TV screens. Or, for that matter, to blast Indira Gandhi images and memorabilia on us in a never-ending loop visual from every available communication platform.
Even without the prop of the media orchestra, without the drumbeat of social media chatter, how had this single woman prime minister so indelibly stamped her persona on an entire nation’s consciousness, in a way no post-Independence politician has so far managed to do?
Indira Gandhi, a pan-India phenomenon
I would argue that of all India’s prime ministers, including Narendra Modi, Indira Gandhi has the highest ever recall value. Her name evokes memories, not opinions. Her death evokes emotions, not analysis. Her life evokes identification and familiarity, not formalised hagiography or received wisdom. Indira Gandhi is unique among India’s prime ministers. In my 2017 biography, I described her as India’s most powerful prime minister, but she is also India’s most remembered prime minister.
No other prime minister has had the same, somehow undefinable aura. Jawaharlal Nehru was the colossus of his time, but he emerged out of the independence movement and was part of a wider constellation of extraordinary figures such as MK Gandhi and Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel. Lal Bahadur Shastri did not occupy the chair for a long period; his tenure tragically cut short by his untimely death. The octogenarian Morarji Desai was well past his prime when he ascended to prime ministership, and Charan Singh held the top job all too briefly. Rajiv Gandhi stormed to power with a massive majority, but was never quite able to shake off the shadow of the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty. And PV Narasimha Rao was a Congress veteran more associated with behind-the-scenes politics rather than in-the-spotlight charisma.
I have described former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee—the subject of my second biography on Indian prime ministers—as India’s most loved prime minister. However, Vajpayee was not able to command the pan-India, cross-class, cross-region popularity of Indira Gandhi. In many ways, he was unable to grow out of the geographical confines of the Hindi-speaking belt.
Modi, too, does not have the same pan-India appeal that Gandhi did, reliant as he is on his professionally organised media and social media machine. It keeps whipping up Modi publicity through expertly choreographed media campaigns and extravagant publicity blitzes.
Gandhi did not need media publicity teams. She remains the one leader who could win from the south (Medak, then in Andhra Pradesh) and north (Raebareli in Uttar Pradesh) in the same general elections of 1980. She was “Indiramma” in the south and “Indiraji” in the north. She was a daughter of Kashmir who grew up in Allahabad, a bahu of Raebareli, a comeback queen from Chikmagalur, and a heroine in Kolkata after the decisive military victory against Pakistan and the creation of a Bangla-speaking land. Her personality cult did not—and does not—wax or wane according to geographical region.
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5 reasons Gandhi is still remembered
So, what are the reasons for the phenomenon that is Indira Gandhi? Why is it that over half a century after her death, her rule, her life, and personality are still so alive and vivid, and her recall value is highest among all prime ministers? Here are my five reasons.
First, Gandhi was a publicly visible woman at a time when women were mostly missing from public view. True, the Gandhian freedom struggle had brought scores of women into activist roles, but women were largely on the margins when it came to corporate boardrooms, sports, civil services, media or the scientific and academic establishment. Today, the woman voter is seen as key to the fortunes of political parties, but in the 1970s and 1980s, women’s participation in electoral politics was low, with a 10 per cent gap in male and female voter turnout in 1980. In a society where discrimination, injustice, and marginalisation of women were widespread, Gandhi was a symbol of hope and a promise of opportunity.
She herself faced jeers and was sneered at. So entrenched were the patriarchal mores of the time that even as a young prime minister in 1966, she was derided as a “goongi gudiya” (mute doll) and a “pretty lady” on the floor of Parliament. But by the end of her career, the famous Raghu Rai photograph of the lone seated woman prime minister surrounded by a crowd of ingratiating male colleagues became iconic.
Indira Gandhi was the focus of admiration, a novelty, a miracle of possibility, and a complete break from the male Gandhi topi and dhoti. It was extraordinary, indeed a shock, to see a sari-clad petite figure in chappals, and sometimes with a covered head, striding so powerfully in a sea of men.
Second, Gandhi’s attraction lies in her being seen as a highly polarising figure who attracts strong emotional responses. Some are devoted fans of her stouthearted courage and strongly nationalist image; others are viscerally put off by her dictatorial tendencies and her inclination toward dynastic politics. Yet even those who loathe her love to tell anecdotes about her life.
She was the fulcrum of all political conversations in the 1970s and 1980s, and even today is harked to as the author of the ‘elected autocracy’ playbook. She was a consummate and bold politician who made and broke parties. As independent India’s first personality cult, she has placed her imprimatur on Indian politics forever. She occupies an emotional rather than an analytical space.
Third, Gandhi was India’s first populist leader, who crafted her image as a messiah of the poor. She was a mass leader in times when politics was dotted with grassroots people’s leaders, when it was seen as the foremost arena of national life. In the decades after Independence, Ram Manohar Lohia, YB Chavan, Devaraj Urs, Karpoori Thakur, and K Kamaraj were all highly popular figures because politics was then an and respected of everyday life. The cynicism and mockery directed at politics today were absent in the first few decades after 1947.
Gandhi’s “Garibi hatao” pitch, her mingling with the public, her daily public meetings, her fluent Hindustani and folksy parable-laden speeches, made her a unique creature. Nehru’s Oxford-educated aristocratic daughter, who made the poor her support base, an approachable, accessible (those were days without Z–plus VIP security), somewhat shrieky-voiced lady who sat down easily among common folk in public, and talked to everyone on equal terms. Never an orator, she was still able to strike a chord with massive crowds because of a direct, confiding manner.
Fourth, Gandhi was uniquely human. Her unhappy childhood, her failed marriage, the death of her father, widowhood, and the death of her son played out in public view. In her life, the personal and the political merged. She attracted sympathy for her woes, and happiness at her successes. Defeated in Raebareli in 1977, when she returned there a few months later, she was given a rapturous emotional welcome, readily forgiven for her sins.
Gandhi was not a remote figure appearing on stage behind a teleprompter and disappearing again by helicopter. Her domestic trials and tribulations laid bare her human frailties. She was humanised by tragedy—a forlorn, lonely figure after her defeat in 1977, humiliated at the Shah Commission hearings in 1977-78, then scripting a thrilling comeback in 1980, only to be faced with the death of her son, and estrangement from her younger daughter-in-law and grandson.
While writing her biography, I discovered what an anxious, insecure, and vulnerable figure Gandhi was, how she often let her suspicions and paranoia get the better of her—such as accusing her opponents of being “CIA agents”. Yet she was someone whose life’s ups and downs, triumphs and tragedies made her an identifiable and intimate figure in millions of lives. Because she was so intensely human, personal stories and anecdotes about her abound.
Fifth, Indira Gandhi is so well recalled because she shone on the global stage. Dignified and stylish, she sported bouffant hairdos and impeccably chosen tasteful saris overseas. She stood up to US President Richard Nixon during the 1971 Bangladesh War, declared “India stands upright” at a press conference in Washington, spoke fluent French, was a friend to Margaret Thatcher and Yasser Arafat. On her 1982 US visit, she stood next to Ronald Reagan, regal in fuchsia silk and superbly coiffed, almost looking down her nose at the American president.
Emerging from the colonial past, India was still unsure of its footing; we were yet to take our place at the global high table, and the Indian diaspora was yet to become the dominant force it is today. In the uncertain, timid times of the 1970s and 1980s, Gandhi sallied forth, radiating a formidable sense of India’s strength and more than holding her own among global heavyweights. No wonder she captured the attention of both international and domestic audiences.
In 2006, a nationwide survey by the think-tank CSDS ranked Gandhi as the second most-recognised Indian after MK Gandhi, ahead of even her own father. On her death anniversary every year, the flood of articles, video clips, soundbites, interviews, letters and photos attest to the fact that Indira Gandhi is not just a long-serving prime minister. She was and remains an enduring phenomenon of post-Independence India.
Sagarika Ghose is a Rajya Sabha MP, All India Trinamool Congress. She tweets @sagarikaghose. Views are personal.
(Edited by Prasanna Bachchhav)