It was in 1984.
Indian Prime Minister Shot dead. As people heard in disbelief, the news spread like wild fire. The attackers were her personal body guards. It was in retaliation for storming the Golden Temple, the holy shrine of the Sikhs.
The attack had left a thousand people dead. She had received many death threats.
The night before her assassination, she addressed a political rally. Her words, “I don’t mind if my life goes in the service of the nation. If I die today, every drop of my blood will invigorate,” became immortal.
And then followed a spree of unabated violence as the Hindus massacred the Sikhs, who were blamed for the assassination.
The army was called in to curb the violence. Thousands were homeless as their houses burnt; many lost their kith and kin. Most of them had migrated during the partition and settled in business. With everything destroyed in these riots, one of the victim remarked, “we have become refugees again”.
Within hours of her death , her son Rajiv Gandhi was sworn in as her successor.
Satwant Singh and Kehar Singh, the men behind her assassination, were hanged to death on the 6th of January 1989.
25 years have passed since then. Rajiv Gandhi was also assassinated in May 1991.
Sonia Gandhi, his widow, led the United Progressive Alliance to a thumping victory in 2004 in the Lok Sabha elections.
Today the nation remembered her again and paid floral tributes to Mrs Indira Gandhi. The Vice-President Hamid Ansari, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Sonia Gandhi in whose arms she breathed her last, her grandson Rahul Gandhi, along with political dignitaries paid their homage at the ‘ Shakti Sthal’, her memorial.
On this day the nation recalled her historic decisions which were praised and condemned in equal measures.
The declaration of emergency in 1975 is considered as one of the darkest period in our political history, when the freedom of press and civil liberties were severely curtailed. The country’s 19 –month nightmare was the cause for her humiliating defeat in 1977.
Shortly after that in 1980, she came back to power with a landslide victory.
The people, who had ousted her out, brought her back with a thumping majority.
Her courage to face the most adverse of situations, her ability to take the toughest of decisions left her critics and opponents dumbfounded.
Mrs Indira Gandhi was an influential leader and a symbol of feminism in a predominantly male dominated society.
In the Indian Premiers words, “Even 25 years after her martyrdom, her legacy remains as strong and durable as ever and her vision still guides and inspires us and it will continue to do so for ages to come.”