Indira: The Life of Indira Nehru Gandhi

"Yes, by Katherine Frank. This is not an economics book but I still wanted to recommend it, because in terms of readability for me this one was a real page-turner. It does talk at length about the politics of India around the time when the first stirring of the Indian economy took place in the late 1970s and early 1980s. But the book is really an account of Indira Gandhi as a person, and the complexity of the leader. It’s a sympathetically written book – clearly the author likes Indira Gandhi and is fascinated by her. There are two points in the book that read like a Greek tragedy, like fiction. The first is the day before Indira Gandhi declared an emergency and took over dictatorial control of India from 1975-77. This is also discussed briefly in Amartya Sen’s book. The book’s description of the previous day is a chilling account of talking to lawyers and close advisers, the decisions going back and forth, how will she deal with the criticism from the press that would erupt? No one outside her small coterie in India knew this would happen and the next morning she makes this announcement on the radio that she is taking control because India faces a threat. That most remarkable day in India’s history is described beautifully. The other point where the book really builds up is the day before her assassination. She comes back to New Delhi from some travels in India. The night before her assassination she is somehow not sleeping well and getting up for, I think, water, bumps into her favourite daughter-in-law, Sonia Gandhi, in the kitchen. Indira is full of human warmth and talks very affectionately to her daughter-in-law and in fact tells her that she should feel free to wake up Indira if she cannot sleep. There is a Shakespearean premonition in the air of something dramatic about to happen. They chat, and the next morning she is walking out of her house for an interview with Peter Ustinov and she is shot, point blank, by her own security. The build up to that, and what happens politically in the country subsequently, is recounted wonderfully. The entire book is riveting to read. The emergency period is described very well and India takes off soon after that. There is an interface with the economy which is not spelled out. The book is not meant to do that, but for an economist there is a lot of subtext that can be read into it too, so I wanted to recommend it for that reason. Indira Gandhi, before 1975, was committed to Nehruvian socialism. She was influenced very deeply by her father, and her father was influenced by British Fabian thought. That was the mould in which she had grown up and if you look at the moves she makes, they are in that mould. When she comes back to power in the early 1980s, it’s a very different Indira Gandhi. By then, she is influenced by her sons, who have imbibed new ideas. She is trying out new policies, and you begin to see some changes. In terms of India’s liberalisation, the big moves took place from 1991 to 1993, but there are deep changes that are beginning to take place even in the 1980s. In 1975, she declares the emergency and takes over, running the country with authoritarian control for two years. She then declares an election and loses it in 1977. By the time she wins another election and comes back she is a changed person, mainly in terms of economic policies. She’s a magnetic personality – it’s impossible not to see that. She took on big world powers during the formation of Bangladesh. There was a big showdown with Nixon. India was not a global power at all, but she was steadfast. She had a morally strong position and she stood by it. That was quite a remarkable time. I don’t like the period of emergency that she declared, though mercifully she herself called an election to end it. I am drawn to Indira Gandhi the way one is to those tragic characters in history – flawed but at the same time dignified. If you ask me about admiration, I actually have more for Nehru. He got some of his economic policies wrong, but he gave shape to a secular, broad-minded India. That was very important, and Indira Gandhi was born into that tradition."