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Indira Gandhi

Indira Gandhi (19 November 1917 – 31 October 1984) was Prime Minister of India from 24 January 1966 to 24 March 1977, succeding Gulzarilal Nanda and preceding Morarji Desai, and again from 14 January 1980 to 31 October 1984, succeeding Charan Singh and preceding Rajiv Gandhi.

Biography[]

Indira Gandhi was born on 19 November 1917 in Allahabad, British Raj to a family of Hindu Kashmiri Pandits. Gandhi was the daughter of Jawaharlal Nehru and Kamala Nehru, and she took the name of her husband, Indian parliament member Feroze Gandhi, whom she married after meeting him in the United Kingdom. Gandhi worked as a form of secretary to her father, and she became involved in politics, becoming the leader of the Indian National Congress in 1959. In 1966, she became the Prime Minister of India, the only female Prime Minister in Indian history as of 2016. During her first term as Prime Minister, Gandhi won the 1971 Bangladesh Liberation War, which led to the parties of India uniting around her, and she was in office until 1977, when the Janata Party alliance replaced the Indian National Congress as the ruling party. In 1980, she was re-elected as Prime Minister, and on 1–10 June 1984 she ordered Operation Blue Star against Sikh extremists in the Golden Temple of Amritsar in the Punjab, and she angered many Sikhs for attacking the holiest site in Sikhism. As a result, her bodyguards Satwant Singh and Bhai Beant Singh shot her dead on 31 October 1984 in the garden of her residence in New Delhi, and her son Rajiv Gandhi would be the new Prime Minister.

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