On the morning of October 31, 1984, as she walked through her garden, smiling, with hands raised and palms pressed together in the traditional Indian namsate greeting,
indira Nehru Gandhi was assassinated by her own bodyguards, she died as she had lived surrounded by men yet isolated. It was an violent end of an epic drama.
Indira; The
Life Of Indira Nehru Gandhi.
Katherine
Frank ‘Indira’ is an unprejudiced and complete biography of one of the
world’s most prominent woman
Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. Indira; lovingly called Priyadarshini, was the third prime minister of independent India. Her prime ministerial tenure witnessed several changes in the world and in India, many of which were brought about by her.
‘Indira” is Katherine frank’s third
book. She has to her credit, biographies of Mary Kingsley, Lucie Duff Gordon, and Emily Bronte. Born and educated in the United States, Katherine Frank spent six years traveling and researching for ‘Indira’.
The book is divided into three major chapters – Indira Nehru, Indira Gandhi and Prime Minister Gandhi. It details the royal life of Indira’s grandfather Motilal Nehru, Indira’s unconventional childhood, her mother’s prolonged struggle with tuberculosis, her prime ministership and her relationship with her sons.
The book begins on a nostalgic note taking its readers to the times of Nehru and the independence struggle. It elucidates Indira’s transformation from a recluse, sickly child to a dominant world leader. Indira’s childhood has been dealt very intimately tracing her education in various schools abroad and her long separation from her father during the freedom struggle. Frank’s articulate writing brings forth a novel aspect of indira that of an ordinary Indian woman who like most others is affected immensely by relationships with men in her life. The book dwells upon her unstable marriage and relationship with her husband Feroze. But as the book progresses, the author loses this intimacy and takes a distant view of Indira’s prime-ministerial years. The second half of the book provides vivid description of Indian politics through the turbulent years of emergency and accounts for Indira’s political triumphs and blunders but it fails to give the reader an informal view of Indira; the prime minister. The book provides multi-faceted insight into the Indian polity.
The book is beautifully written and is quite engrossing but by the end the author loses her credibility, so well established in the first half of the book. The author falls for gossip and rumours while writing about Indira’s affair with Dhirendra Brahmachari and her relationship with her daughter-in-law Meneka. She doesn’t provide substantial evidence corroborating her remarks. The reader is forced to conclude that the second part of the book hasn’t been well researched.
At the same time, ‘Indira’ indisputably provides a revealing, fresh and a radically different look at the one of the world’s most powerful, controversial and significant woman, who was later, voted the women of the millennium by BBC. It brings forth the women as well as the politician very much to life. Overall the book succeeds in unraveling Indira Gandhi’s life and is a good read.
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