1917 – Indira Gandhi (19 November 1917 – 31 October 1984), Indian politician, 3rd Prime Minister of India.
Indira Gandhi was born Indira Nehru in a Kashmiri Pandit family on 19 November 1917 in Allahabad.
Her father, Jawaharlal Nehru, was a leading figure in India’s political struggle for independence from British rule, and became the first Prime Minister of the Union of India.
She was a student at the Modern School in Delhi. She went on to study at the Viswa Bharati University in Shantiniketan. While there, it was decided that Gandhi would continue her education at the University of Oxford. At Oxford, she did well in history, political science and economics, but her grades in Latin—a compulsory subject—remained poor. She had to leave university to attend to her ailing mother in Europe. She was being treated there in 1940, when the Nazi armies rapidly conquered Europe.
She managed to enter England in early 1941, and from there returned to India without completing her studies at Oxford. The university later awarded her an honorary degree.
In 1966, the Congress legislative party elected Indira Gandhi over Morarji Desai as their leader.
Indira was India’s prime minister for three times. On 31 October 1984, two of Gandhi’s bodyguards, shot her with their service weapons in the garden of the Prime Minister’s residence at 1 Safdarjung Road, New Delhi.
Indira Gandhi on 30 October 1984 in her last speech said:
“I am alive today, I may not be there tomorrow…I shall continue to serve until my last breath and when I die, I can say, that every drop of my blood will invigorate India and strengthen it”.