The Iron Lady of India- Indira Gandhi As Prime Minister of India

Indira Gandhi registered with the Congress Running Committee as well as Central Election Party in 1955 . In 1958 , she was summoned to be an associate of the Central Parliamentary Board of Congress . She was the Chairperson , National Integration Council of A .I .C .C . along with the President , All India Youth Congress , 1956 and Women’s Dept . A .I .C .C . She was made the President , Indian National Congress in 1959 and then served right until 1960 then once again from January 1978 . She had previously been Minister of real information and Broadcasting from 1964 to 1966 . On January 19 , 1966 , when the conference to appoint the up coming Prime Minister happened , massive crowd assembled outside the building , awaiting big news . They all wanted to know about Indira Gandhi. The then party chief , Satya Narain Sinha , came out . The masses is said to have inquired “What is it really ? Boy or girl ?“ and then Sinha answered “It’s a lady ,“ making the crowd to rejoice with happiness . Indira Gandhi, The Iron Lady Of India had won with 355 votes to Desai’s 169 . In standard Indira style , on discovering she just had won , she humbly labeled herself a “desh sevika ,“ or servant of the nation . When questioned by a journalist regarding the importance of her election as the country’s leader , following in her father’s footsteps , she replied , “Perhaps it ensures some kind of continuity—continuity of policy , and also perhaps continuity of personality .“ Journalist Sudipta Kaviraj later wrote that “the greatest qualification of Indira Gandhi at the time of her accession was…the fact that she was not too strongly associated with any policy line to give offence to any of the groups which dominated the polycentric structure of the Congress party after Nehru’s death .“ The election of a lady as Prime Minister of India grabbed the attention worldwide .

In The United States , Indira showed up on the cover of Time magazine under the heading : ’Troubled India in a Woman’s Hands .’ English journalist John Grigg wrote in the Guardian , “Probably no woman in history has assumed a heavier burden of responsibility and certainly no country of India’s importance has ever before entrusted so much power to a woman .“ Indira’s election paralleled an escalating feminist movement in the West , still Indira under no circumstances considered herself to be a feminist .On 24th January , 1966 , Indira Gandhi was sworn in as the Prime Minister of India together with the new Central Cabinet by the President Dr . S . Radhakrishnan . 

Indira Gandhi became the very first woman Prime Minister of India and the third Prime Minister of the country in succession to Jawaharlal Nehru and Lal Bahadur Shastri . Years of training , shouldering accountabilities , work trips in addition to assistance to her father , culminated in her considering the leadership of the Government of India .

She furthermore kept the supplementary charge of the Ministry of External Affairs from September 5 , 1967 to February 14 , 1969. To know the full story visit: http://www.indiragandhi.in/

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