Time March 16–23, 20201970s1976
Indira Gandhi
Imperious leader
In 1976, the “Empress of India” had
become India’s great authoritarian. She
was the daughter of the nation’s first
Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, the
constitutional democrat who strained
every sinew after independence from
Britain to establish liberal democracy.
But his only child was different.
She started off as an ingenue, jeered
at as a “dumb doll.” Party bosses
propped up Nehru’s daughter because
they thought she would be their puppet.
Instead she split her party, yoking a
tide of pro-poor populism to storm to
a massive election victory in 1971. She
became the first Prime Minister to win
a decisive victory over Pakistan in the
Bangladesh Liberation War.
But in her mammoth victory lay the
seeds of paranoid insecurity, and she
proved to be as ruthless as she was char-
ismatic. By 1975, as a result of economic
instability, her government was swamped
by an avalanche of street protests, and
after her election was deemed invalid, she
declared an emergency. On the night of
June 25, 1975, the electricity was suddenly
shut off in Delhi’s newspaper offices.
She quickly ripped apart her father’s
democracy and amended India’s consti-
tution to give herself enormous powers.
She jailed political opponents, muzzled
the press and extinguished fundamen-
tal rights across the country. By 1976,
she would scorn democratic processes
to stamp out rivals, dismissing party col-
leagues and state leaders at will. That
year, her government rammed through
the 42nd Amendment arrogating su-
preme powers to Parliament. She insti-
tuted “family rule” in her party with the
ascendance of her son Sanjay. She also
oversaw a remorseless slum- clearance
drive in Delhi and forcible- sterilization
campaigns across India.
—Sagarika Ghose
Ghose is the author of Indira: India’s
Most Powerful Prime Minister
GANDHI, AS
PRIME MINISTER
IN 1976(^70) HENRI BUREAU—SYGMA/CORBIS/GETTY IMAGES