Indira Gandhi – Iron Lady & India’s Top Leader #IndiaAt70

#IndiaAt70 – India’s 70 most influential people or leaders!

Today is going to bring an end to my one year long stories of Top 70 Indians since Indian Independence. It was on Aug 15th I started this journey where I wrote about revealing my list of 70 most influential Indians. It was filled with the discovery of different personalities, their hardships, sacrifices, inspirations and finally glory for the Nation. All these 70 people have built India to the level what it is Today. 69 personalities already revealed and now is the time, right before we celebrate 72nd Independence day to reveal the Top Indian leader as per me.

Indira Gandhi in all Smiles! 
India’s Number one leader:

Born to a family which had politics in the blood and lot of intellectual abilities. It was on 19th November 1917 in Allahabad, India’s best political leader was born to Jawahar Lal Nehru and Kamala Nehru. She is none other than Smt. Indira Gandhi ji. Nehru, as we know, is a great politician and Independence fighter and as well a lawyer. He had given Indira Gandhi complete freedom with respect to education and she studied in places like Pune University, Shantiniketan and also moved to Oxford University for a few months. She was in helpless position as mother Kamala Nehru was suffering from tuberculosis which actually killed her while her father Nehru was in Jail. This is her first biggest painful moment that she had suffered.

Her marriage was also a controversial event where she went against Nehru to marry Feroze Gandhi. Things turned on its head when Feroze Gandhi, a person who had nothing suddenly got into politics and won Rae Bareili seat to enter Parliament. Father words came true when Feroze Gandhi forced Indira Gandhi to stay with him in the house given by Govt Which was ignored by Indira Gandhi. She had to make a bold move of shifting to her father’s residence with her children, only to give them a better life and comforts.

Her biggest challenges though came when she went to become the Prime Minister and also the first Women Prime Minister for India. Before which she was the only advisor to Father Nehru. Things were bad and her lack of oratory skills gave her the name ‘Ghoongi Gudiya’. Which made her to think about her political life strongly and that was the day she decided to change herself. She held the office of PM from 1966 to 1977 and 1980 to 1984. It’s almost 15 years that she had the power of ruling India. In her reign of power, she was the one who had taken huge decisions like Nationalisation of Banks, Emergency, Green Revolution, hosting Asian games and as well the first step of Liberalisation.

Her extraordinary political strategies were the reason why people went with her in the elections. Like this, she kept on gaining momentum and things were going well for India. Then came an unimaginable problem in the name of a separate country called ‘Khalistan’ for Punjabis. These turned into total havoc and a lot of riots have happened. The leader behind this movement Bhindran Wala was hiding in the holy Golden Temple in Amritsar. Indira Gandhi then took the decision and started a mission called ‘Operation Blue Star’. A Step that nobody would have actually thought of, she sent the army inside the Golden Temple and killed all the militants including the Bhindranwale. Though this was a victory for her and India, she got portrayed as a villain for all the Sikhs for her decision of letting Army enter Golden Temple.

This act of her became the reason for her Death. Her two bodyguards who were also Sikhs were deeply affected. It was on 31st October 1984 morning at 9:20 am while she was taking a walk towards her office, she was killed by gunshots by the two bodyguards Beant Singh & Satwant Singh which pierced through her body and killed her. India lost the greatest leader ever after Independence.

Iron Lady Indira Gandhi was once equated to Goddesses Durga by Atal Bihari Vajpayee when she announced that Pakistan Army General had surrendered to Indian Army during the fight for the liberation of Bangladesh. That’s the power of this dynamic leader called Indira Gandhi. As people also call her the ‘Child of Destiny’.

If asked she would be the first person that I would ask God to bring back, her charisma, political strategy and the economic policy framework was so well welcomed by the World. It’s actually sad to see that after her India has not seen dynamic leaders like her. She has surely left with a tremendous amount of inspiration for the people and political legacy is respected with heads high.

#IndiaAt70 #IndiraGandhi #JaiHind

Published by Sriram

A Teacher trying to Learn new things and explore the world each day! Believe in Happiness by the virtue of sacrifice and forgiveness.

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