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"My father was a statesman, I'm a political woman," Indira Gandhi once said. "My father was a saint. I'm not."
Indira, the only child of India's first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, was born on November 19, 1917 in her grandfather's house in Allahabad, in northern India.
A graduate of Visva-Bharati University, Bengal, she also studied at the University of Oxford, England. In 1938 she joined the National Congress party and became active in India's independence movement. In 1942 she married Feroze Gandhi, a Parsi lawyer also active in the party. Shortly after, both were arrested by the British on charges of subversion and spent 13 months in prison. When India won its independence in 1947 and Nehru took office as Prime Minister, Indira became his official hostess. (Her mother had died in 1936.)
The Independence movement filled young Indira's life. One of her earliest memories was when she went to court at the age of four. Indira's girlhood was lonely at times, and her schooling was interrupted.
She spoke fluent French, was educated in England and saw Catholic martyr Joan of Arc as a role model.
In 1959 she became congress president.








HER ROAD TO POWER & POLITICS

Her road to power and politics started when she turned twelve years of age. During the time of British imperialism, many Indian National Congress workers from Allahabad did not know when or if the British would arrest them or search their homes. In order to find out when this would occur, the Monkey Brigade was formed. Although Indira claimed to have thought of the idea, some asserted that the Monkey Brigade was the idea of the Congress. In any event, Indira became the leader of this children's group whose purpose was to help end British control in India. Being its leader, she delivered speeches while other children actually warned the people who were going to be arrested. The Congress...