Hero or villain? A question Indira’s life is still posing

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Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. The 40th anniversary of the assassination of Indira Gandhi falls on 31 October. Despite numerous controversies, Indira is still remembered and will continue to be.

Her contribution to Independent India’s journey is second to none. Let me take you back 50 years to a February afternoon in 1974 at Shikohabad, Uttar Pradesh. Assembly elections were under way.

Indira, then prime minister, was in her heyday. She arrived for the election campaign and the moment she climbed onto the stage she asked a woman candidate, who had been standing behind some senior Congress leaders, to come forward. Indira playfully admonished the candidate and asked her how she would lead people if she was so diffident.

She then put her hand on the young woman’s shoulders and said: “Stand straight, fold your hands, and look at how people are looking at you." The gathering was overwhelmed by this gesture. Ten years later, on 31 October 1984, Indira was assassinated. By then a journalist, I received a call from my office about 11 am that day that Indira had been shot.

Thirty bullets had been pumped into her body. The official announcement of her death was made after 6pm. But by afternoon the same day, riots had broken out in many parts of the country.

I still can’t forget the gory scenes of the time I witnessed in Allahabad (now Prayagraj). What happened after Indira’s death may be termed as a pogrom. But that day I saw even the most level-headed of people turn violent.