I don’t think any of our Prime Ministers have lived as intense a life and as extreme a life as Indira Gandhi. Even though she came from as politically well-placed a family as one could in the early years of independent India, her political life almost came to an end many times, yet she bounced back each time.

As India’s third Prime Minister, she led the country through drought, famine, food shortages, economic instability while conducting our first, and successful nuclear tests, launching our first satellite on an indigenous rocket, and putting the first Indian in space, and playing the key role in the liberation of Bangladesh.

She also led an intense private life, battling her mother’s prolonged illness and death during her teenage years, growing up with a largely absent father and then emerging from his tall shadow, enduring a tumultuous marriage that nearly ended in divorce, and later living through the violent death of her adult son along with troubles at home with her daughter-in-law.

(0:00) Introduction

(1:23) Sources

(1:44) Growing Up

(8:52) Indira Nehru becomes Indira Gandhi

(15:56) Marriage Troubles

(21:21) Becoming the Third Prime Minister of India

(27:34) Congress Splits for the First Time Under Indira

(30:15) Bangladesh Liberation War

(39:51) The Emergency

(47:04) Years Out of Power

(57:01) Return to Power

(59:57) Trouble at Home

(1:07:26) Operation Blue Star

(1:11:33) Lessons