Early life of Indira Gandhi
Indira Priyadarshini, was born on
November 19, 1917 to Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru and his young wife
Kamala Nehru. The
Nehru family can trace their ancestry to the
Brahmins of
Jammu and Kashmir and
Delhi. Indira's grandfather
Motilal Nehru was a wealthy barrister of
Allahabad in
Uttar Pradesh. Nehru was one of the most prominent members of the
Indian National Congress in pre-
Gandhi times and would go on to author the
Nehru Report, the people's choice for a future Indian system of government as opposed to the British system. Her father
Jawaharlal Nehru was a well-educated lawyer and was a popular leader of the
Indian Independence Movement. At the time of Indira's birth, Nehru entered the independence movement under the leadership of
Mahatma Gandhi.
Growing up in the sole care of her mother, who was sick and alienated from the Nehru household, Indira developed strong protective instincts and a loner personality. Her grandfather and father continually being enmeshed in national politics also made mixing with her peers difficult. She had conflicts with her father's sisters, including
Vijayalakshmi Pandit, and these continued into the political world.
Indira created the
Vanara Sena movement for young girls and boys which played a small but notable role in the
Indian Independence Movement, conducting protests and flag marches, as well as helping Congress politicians circulate sensitive publications and banned materials. In an often-told story, she smuggled out from her father's police-watched house an important document in her schoolbag that outlined plans for a major revolutionary initiative in the early 1930s.
In 1936, her mother, Kamala Nehru, finally succumbed to
tuberculosis after a long struggle. Indira was 18 at the time and thus never experienced a stable family life during her childhood. She attended prominent Indian, European and British schools like
Santiniketan, Badminton School and
Oxford, but she showed no incandescence for academics, and was detained from obtaining a degree.
While studying at
Somerville College, University of Oxford, England, during the late 1930s, she became a member of the radical pro-independence London based
India League.
In her years in continental Europe and the UK, she met
Feroze Gandhi,a Congress activist. Nehru was not happy; Kamala was dead already or dying. Just before the beginning of the
Quit India Movement - the final, all-out national revolt launched by
Mahatma Gandhi and the Congress Party. In September 1942 they were arrested by the British authorities and detained without charge. She was ultimately released on
13 May, 1943 having spent over 243 days in jail . In 1944, she gave birth to
Rajiv Gandhi with Feroze Gandhi, and followed by
Sanjay Gandhi.
During the chaotic
Partition of India in 1947, she helped organize refugee camps and provide medical care for the millions of refugees from
Pakistan. This was her first exercise in major public service, and a valuable experience for the tumult of the coming years.
The couple later settled in
Allahabad where Feroze worked for a Congress Party newspaper and an insurance company. Their marriage started out well, but deteriorated later as Gandhi moved to
New Delhi to be at the side of her father, now the Prime Minister, who was living alone in a high-pressure environment at Teen Murti Bhavan. She became his confidante, secretary and nurse. Her sons lived with her, but she eventually became permanently separated from Feroze, though they remained married.
When India's first general election approached in 1951, Gandhi managed the campaigns of both Nehru and her husband, who was contesting the constituency of
Rae Bareilly. Feroze had not consulted Nehru on his choice to run, and even though he was elected, he opted to live in a separate house in Delhi. Feroze quickly developed a reputation for being a fighter against
corruption by exposing a major scandal in the nationalized insurance industry, resulting in the resignation of the Finance Minister, a Nehru aide.
At the height of the tension, Gandhi and her husband separated. However, in 1958, shortly after re-election, Feroze suffered a heart attack, which dramatically healed their broken marriage. At his side to help him recuperate in
Kashmir, their family grew closer. But Feroze died on
September 8, 1960, while Gandhi was abroad with Nehru on a foreign visit.
