Today
would have been
Indira Gandhi's 92nd birthday, had she not been
assassinated by members of her own guard in her own backyard on October 31st, 1984 (I was
there in New Delhi in a cab when the driver suggested it might
be safer if he turned around and took me straight home). Often confused as a relative of the more famous Gandhi,
fashionable, stylish and well groomed Indira was actually the daughter of India's first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru and used her married name, although divorced from her
Parsi exhusband. Daughter and
mother of Prime Ministers of India, she herself held office with an iron fist,
remembered for the "
Emergency", a brief period of martial law often overlooked in the democratic vibrancy of Indian politics. Will Mrs Gandhi's
legacy of dynasty be
continued by her half Italian grandson?
posted by infini
on Nov 19, 2009 -
27 comments
