English Project

Indira Gandhi, the first woman Prime Minister of India, was assassinated in 1984. Her death had a significant impact on the country and led to riots against the Sikh community. Despite this tragedy, her legacy as an influential and powerful leader remains. She took important decisions to improve India's economy and agricultural sector. Indira Gandhi also promoted women's participation in politics. Her son, Rajiv Gandhi, succeeded her as Prime Minister. Indira Gandhi, the Prime Minister of India, has been shot and very gravely wounded. Hi, and welcome to the Living Memory Project podcast of 2024. My name is Varun Rajendran. I'm a student in Miss Moore's 10th grade English class. In this episode, we'll be discussing your experience with the death of the first Indian woman Prime Minister, Indira Gandhi. Today, I will share my mom's story about how the death of the first Indian woman Prime Minister impacted her. We will explore her experiences and reflections before, during, and after this significant event. Hi, I'm here to ask you a few questions for the Living Memory Project as a part of my English class at Sharon High School. Could we start by telling us your name and how you are related to me? Sure. My name is Anuradha Yamanuru and I'm your mom. Okay. So let me explain this project. The Living Memory Project requires the student to make a 15 to 20 minute podcast centered around the story of a family member or a family friend. The story must be about a formative life experience the individual lived through that took place before I was born. Do you agree to be interviewed for this historical study? Of course. I would like to make sure you understand that the following items may be created for my interview with you today. An audio recording, an edited transcript and summary, and an edited podcast. Sure. Lastly, do you consent to your interview to be added to a public oral history archive posted on the Sharon High School library website? We still will be able to continue with the interview even if you do not consent to share your interview in the public oral history archive. I agree to give my consent. When I first began studying the death of Indira Gandhi, I believed that my mom might have experienced grief and would have been devastated due to this tragic event. In my research, I found that Indira Gandhi was the first woman prime minister of India, which meant she had a very strong influence and impact on India and her death was devastating for all. I began my discussion with understanding why Indira Gandhi was assassinated and who she was. I wanted to get a better perspective on what exactly happened the day she was killed. So I asked, So you told me earlier that you looked up to Indira Gandhi as a child. Could you tell us more about her and how she was assassinated? So she was assassinated on 31st October 1984 at her residence in Satajan Road in New Delhi. She was going to her office for an interview by the BBC and on the way to her office from her home, she was killed by her own bodyguards who sprayed bullets into her. What do you think could have been the motive for her assassination? Like why would people want her dead? My mom's response made me think about why someone would want to kill Indira Gandhi. I wanted to know why she was killed. As our conversation continued, I followed up by asking, So it is kind of a revenge that they took for her actions by sending the military troops into their sacred temple. So they considered the troops being inside the temple as a humiliation for the temple and the main deity in the temple. So soon after they assassinated the prime minister, they surrendered immediately and he put down his arms and said, I have done what I have to. You can do what you want to to me. So he did not want to escape. He just thought that he did his duty to protect his religion by killing Indira Gandhi for humiliating his religion. Who are you referring to when you say he? He is BN Singh. There are two people who killed Indira Gandhi. One was Satwan Singh who is a constable, police constable, and the other one was BN Singh who was the sub-inspector of police. So how did you feel on their decision on how they killed her? At that young age, I just was devastated that we lost a big leader who represented our country outside in the world and we thought India was doomed. That is what as a child I thought. And her assassination was followed by several riots against the Sikh community. So Sikhs usually have long beards and turbans as part of their attire and anyone who were with beards and turbans, they were killed by the Hindus. This was like a retaliation to the Sikh community because it was because of them who were not against the people, the terrorists who were inside the temple, but who were against Indira Gandhi who sent the troops to eliminate the terrorists. So I thought the Sikhs were being punished by the rest of the people in India for what two people in their community did to wipe out a great leader from the soil of India. Okay, so how would you say your life changed after this event? How does it compare to your life before? I felt very confident while she was a leader that India had a very good name and she carried her country with pride wherever she went in the world and with her demise, I thought India was doomed and it had lost a great leader and I was not sure about the future of the country. A few key points stuck out from my mom's response. I noticed that she mentioned how Indira Gandhi took pride in her country, which shows great qualities of a good leader. I specifically remember when my mom said with her demise, I thought India was doomed. I thought about how impactful Indira Gandhi must have been for India because if she left people thinking like that, like how my mom did, that just shows how impactful she was to India. So what are some key memories you have from this time or event? As our conversation continued, I wanted to ask my mom what important memories she had from this event. I still have this memory fresh in my mind where for the whole three, four days before her cremation, after her death, there was news of how she was betrayed by her own bodyguards and it actually made me sick inside that someone she trusted betrayed her. Okay, so how would you say people reacted to her becoming the Prime Minister knowing she was the first woman to do so? I think India was very open for a woman Prime Minister and she actually is the continuation of the Indian National Congress, which fought the freedom struggle of India and she is the daughter of the first Prime Minister of India, Jawaharlal Nehru. So we were all, India was very happy and proud that she was our leader. So how did Indira Gandhi benefit India under her leadership? I think she was doing a great job at controlling inflation of the country and it was the lowest since the early 60s. So I think she was doing, the country was doing very well in terms of economy, but since I was very little, I do not think I had a good idea about that, but looking back and reading up later, I think that the country was doing well under her leadership. After she was assassinated, who took her role as Prime Minister? So Indira Gandhi's son, Rajiv Gandhi, who was studying in, studying abroad, came back to the country to support the Indian National Congress and he became the next Prime Minister of India. So how did people feel about her son taking over for her as Prime Minister? So since India adored the Indira Gandhi and it was very sad that she was killed. I think there was a sympathy wave for her son and he had all the support of the country and he won the elections big time. So how would you say Indira Gandhi's legacy is viewed in India today? So Indira Gandhi was considered as one of the architects of modern India. After she assumed office, she made many populist decisions. She nationalized the banks and this was the starting point for the major economic reforms in India and she was very supportive. She did a lot of work to uplift the poor and as a leader, she had to take some important decisions. Before she became the Prime Minister, India had gone on war with Pakistan and there was a lot of poverty and we did not have enough grains to feed the population. So she had to depend on other countries for wheat and other grains. So taking this as a leverage, the US President at that time, I remember it was President Lyndon Johnson, he actually delayed the sending of wheat to India by delaying the grains at the port. This was so embarrassing and insulting for Indira Gandhi that she brought in more agricultural reforms which included the Green Revolution of India where we intensified our efforts in improving agriculture and becoming self-sufficient in the grain production. So this was how she improved the country after suffering humiliation kind of from the US and also she was responsible for helping Bangladesh to separate from Pakistan as a separate country and these were all bold decisions and she proved herself to be a powerful leader who could take important decisions. So people respected her a lot. Why do you think that the US President had delayed the transfer of wheat to India? Yeah, because we did not have enough grains to support to feed our population, but then just before she had come to power, we had fought a fierce battle with Pakistan for Kashmir because we had already divided India to Pakistan and India and Pakistan was demanding more land and due to that we had a fierce battle with India. So to punish India when India needed help from other countries for wheat and other grains because it could not produce its own to feed its population. The I mean President Lyndon delayed the grain imports to India and this actually meant that there was a delay in feeding the population of India. So that was taken as a humiliation by Indira Gandhi and that actually made her put more efforts into building our agricultural economy. What impact do you think Indira Gandhi had on women's participation in politics? Being a woman, Indira Gandhi always promoted women participation in public life. In one of those conferences on true liberation for women, Indira Gandhi said that we need women to be more interested, more alive and more active not because they are women, but because they do comprise half the human race. Whether they like it or not, they cannot escape their responsibility nor should they be denied its benefits. So she did a lot of work for the upliftment of the poor and the women. A few key points stuck out to me from my mom's response. First, I noticed that she mentioned how Indira Gandhi said women need to be more interested not because they are women, but because they take up half the human population which gives them responsibility for the future of the country. What would you say Indira Gandhi's most significant contributions to India were? Indira Gandhi did not hesitate to lean towards Soviet Union, nor did she hesitate to begin preparation for the future of the country. She did not hesitate to lean towards Soviet Union, nor did she hesitate to begin preparation to end the genocide of Hindu, Sikh and Bengalis in East Pakistan, which is now Bangladesh. She was responsible for the creation of Bangladesh, which was the eastern side of Pakistan. The now current Pakistan is on the west side of India and East Pakistan was on the east side of India. So the second one is the nationalization of banks and forced lending of money to the agricultural sector to promote the green revolution. So because she faced a lot of humiliation and to feed the population of India and not being able to feed the population of India by growing its own grains, Indira Gandhi invested a lot of money and gave loans to the agricultural sector so that India can later could become self-sufficient for food. So it did not have to depend on other countries for its food. So this was a major contribution of Indira Gandhi. In today's podcast, we learned about my mom's experience with the death of the first Indian woman prime minister, Indira Gandhi. One takeaway I have from this experience is that India lost a great leader because some people considered their religion more important than national security. Thanks so much for listening. This podcast really wouldn't be possible without my mom. I would also like to add that this podcast would not be possible without my dad's idea to interview my mom on this topic. Research from today's podcast can be found at BritannicaInHistory.com. Thank you for listening. Bye.