Indira Gandhi - Family and Personal Life

Family and Personal Life

Firstly, her younger son Sanjay had been her chosen heir; but after his death in a flying accident in June 1980, his mother persuaded a reluctant elder son Rajiv Gandhi to quit his job as a pilot and enter politics in February 1981. Over a decade later, Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated.

Gandhi's yoga guru, Dhirendra Brahmachari, helped her in making certain decisions and also executed certain top level political tasks on her behalf, especially from 1975 to 1977 when Gandhi "dissolved Parliament, declared a state of emergency and suspended civil liberties."

Read more about this topic:  Indira Gandhi

Famous quotes containing the words family, personal and/or life:

    “The politics of the family are the politics of a nation. Just as the authoritarian family is the authoritarian state in microcosm, the democratic family is the best training ground for life in a democracy.”
    —Letty Cottin Pogrebin (20th century)

    “We should seek by all means in our power to avoid war, by analysing possible causes, by trying to remove them, by discussion in a spirit of collaboration and good will. I cannot believe that such a programme would be rejected by the people of this country, even if it does mean the establishment of personal contact with the dictators.”
    —Neville Chamberlain (1869–1940)

    “There is one great fact, characteristic of this our nineteenth century, a fact which no party dares deny. On the one hand, there have started into life industrial and scientific forces which no epoch of former human history had ever suspected. On the other hand, there exist symptoms of decay, far surpassing the horrors recorded of the latter times of the Roman empire. In our days everything seems pregnant with its contrary.”
    —Karl Marx (1818–1883)