Here Are Some Lesser Known Facts About Indira Gandhi And Sardar Vallabhai Patel

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The Logical Indian Crew

Here Are Some Lesser Known Facts About Indira Gandhi And Sardar Vallabhai Patel

While Indira Gandhi was shot dead on October 31, 1984, Sardar Vallabhai Patel was born on October 31, 1875.

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On October 31, 1984, Indira Gandhi was assassinated by her Sikh bodyguards. This was in retaliation to her Operation Blue Star. The only female prime minister of the country, Gandhi was known for the reforms she introduced such as the nationalisation of banks and abolition of privy purses of the royal families among others.

She is often known as the 'Iron Lady of India'. She was born on November 19, 1917, in Prayagraj as the only child to Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru and his wife Kamala Nehru.

In her childhood, she had created a group of children known as the 'monkey brigade', who used to distribute Indian flags and spy on the police. Educated in Visva-Bharati University, Swiss schools and at Somerville College, Oxford, Gandhi was a key assistant of Nehru during his reign as Prime Minister and used to accompany him on many foreign trips. In 1959, she was elected as the President of the Indian National Congress(INC) and became a member of the Rajya Sabha in 1964. She became the first female Prime Minister of India after the sudden demise of then Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri in 1966. She had served in the Shastri cabinet as the Minister of Information and Broadcasting from the time of her father's death in 1964 to 1966.

Gandhi was the second-longest-serving Prime Minister of the country, serving from January 1966 to March 1977, and from January 1980 to October 1984. After India's victory in the 1971 war against Pakistan and the creation of the nation of Bangladesh, Gandhi was awarded the Bharat Ratna. During her tenure, she nationalised 14 banks.

In 1975, she imposed Emergency when she was convicted of an election offence by the Allahabad High Court and barred from politics for a period of six years. The period has been termed as the darkest period in the democracy of India with Opposition leaders being jailed. The most notorious perhaps was the mass forced sterilisation campaign headed by her younger son Sanjay Gandhi.

After the fall of the Janata government, Gandhi was re-elected in 1980. In the year 1984, she was criticised for ordering the storming of the Harmandir Sahib (the Golden Temple) under Operation Blue Star, to counter the Punjab insurgency.

The Iron Man Of India

October 31 also happens to be the birth anniversary of Sardar Vallabhai Patel. Known as the 'Iron Man of India', he was a leading figure in the Indian Independence Movement. Born on October 31, 1875, Patel was responsible for the integration of more than 500 princely states into India before and after Independence. Patel was one of the top senior leaders of the Congress party.

He was also appointed as the first Home Minister of Independent India. He also oversaw the ministry of information and the ministry of State. He cleared his matriculation at a relatively late age of 22. Initially, he was not particularly keen in politics but after meeting Mahatma Gandhi in Godhra in 1917, he quit his job and joined INC and became the party's secretary of the Gujarat Sabha.

Patel travelled to England when he was 36, and enrolled in a three-year course at the Middle Temple in the Inns of Court. Despite having no previous college experience, he completed the course within 30 months and qualified as a barrister. When plagues and famines hit India, he joined the movement to fight for exemption of taxes in Kheda at Mahatma Gandhi's call. He was an instrumental part of Gandhi's Non-Cooperation Movement. He travelled extensively around West India in order to recruit 3,00,000 members. He also collected over 1.5 million for the party fund.

He spread awareness across India extensively against untouchability, caste discrimination, alcohol consumption, and women empowermeDuring the imprisonment of Mahatma Gandhi, Patel led the Satyagraha movement in Nagpur in 1923, which was against the British law of banning the hoisting of the Indian Flag

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Contributors Suggest Correction
Writer : Madhusree Goswami
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Editor : Ankita Singh
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Creatives : Madhusree Goswami

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