Synopsis:
A biography of Indira Gandhi, this deals with her unhappy "love-marriage" to Feroze, the ambivalent influence of her father and her relationship with her sons. It traces the evolution from "Dumb Doll" to "Empress of India", her downfall, the roots of which were sown in the Summer of Emergency in 1975, and ultimate assassination following the raid on the Sikh Golden Temple in 1984. As well as being a study of a mysterious personality, once the world's most powerful woman about whom there is hardly a neutral opinion in India, it is also a study of the country after independence. The author was Indian correspondent for "The Guardian" from the mid-1960s to 1978 and until 1986 Resident Editor of "The Times of India" in Delhi.
From Publishers Weekly:
Malhotra knew Indira Gandhi well from 1956 onward, as a correspondent for Britain's Guardian and as the Times of India' s Delhi editor. In a superb, balanced, riveting portrait, he assesses both strengths and flaws of the dominant, assertive prime minster who from early childhood identified with Joan of Arc, and who, like St. Joan, was betrayed by those she trusted, assassinated in 1984 by her Sikh bodyguards. Completely identifying herself with her nation, this indefatigable daughter of Nehru turned the world's largest democracy into a virtual dictatorship by declaring an Emergency in 1975. After her electoral defeat, imprisonment and her triumphant return to power in 1980, she adopted a paranoid leadership style and blandly tolerated corruption as economic disparities widened, according to Malhotra. Yet he credits her with holding India together, making it the preeminent nonaligned power, maintaining democracy and pushing through the Green Revolution which enabled her country to feed itself self-sufficiently. Photos.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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