Written with scholarly passion
Reviewed by B. L. Chakoo

Indira Gandhi: A Personal and Political Biography
by Inder Malhotra.
Hay House India. Pages 395. Rs 599

Today Indira Gandhi's story —which is so fascinating, so grand, so odd, so stirring — lives in relation to its tellers and its receivers; it continues because people want to hear it again, and it changes according to their tastes and views. In fact, her story is so famously complex that it transcends the media or the forms that have transmitted it. However, in Malhotra's perceptive and beautifully written study a picture of a living, breathing and dying Indira emerges with new clarity. Skilfully set against the time she lived in and against the successive political upheavals that engulfed her by a "veritable sea of troubles,"and made her commit the "cardinal sin" of bringing the world's largest and mature democracy under Emergency rule (that turned India into "a virtual dictatorship"), Indira is portrayed as "a heroine of all (political) seasons" — who, though by nature was authoritarian, not easily ready to accept dissent or vigorous opposition, is, in a fit of sycophancy, shown here as democratic in and personal style," but also as genial and depressive, aggressive and generous, blessed with "enormous energy" yet prone, at crucial moments, to debilitating influence. What one of the most distinguished Indian journalists, Inder Malhotra, is really good at in the updated and revised edition of his book, Indra Gandhi: A Personal and Political Biography-- which is more a political biography than a personal one, and which anxiously tries to build up Indra's political personality from "goongi gudiya" to the Prime Minister of India. Malthora is good in detail and an excellent investigator of the peculiar state of Indian politics during the long reign of Indira Gandhi whom the masses, largely poor, ignorant and illiterate, revered. With Indira Gandhi, who is anomalous in our political culture, as a woman renowned for doing something on her own to make evident the dimension of woman's dynamism, it is essential to examine the context on which her personality scored its deep mark to understand her at all. Like a potential biographer, Malhotra in Indira Gandhi attempts to do the same thing, trying to understand Indira's generally acknowledged subtlety and complexity. The book provides a clear and well-informed guide to her life from her childhood feudal splendour and affluence, with the emergence of her forming, at 12, an organisation, the Vanar Sena or Monkey Brigade that was modelled on "the legendary monkey army" that helped Lord Rama to conquer Lanka; to her rise of power which had been "swift and spectacular", and her murder on "the cool, crisp morning" of October 1984. It presents the most up-to-date and comprehensive study of the Nehru family affairs, Indira's political career, her elevation to the Congress President's post which was regarded as Nehru's first "Machiavellian move" to groom his daughter as his successor, and of Indira's political friends and foes. It takes account of the great political figures of India, including Shastri, Desai,Kamaraj, Jayaprakasah Narayan. The accusation from the rivals for not dealing with "Akali agitators and terrorists forcefully enough," which finally led to a military attack on Bhindranwale and his "killer gangs," is also taken into account. The three new chapters added to this edition of the book present, with a visionary journalistic perceptive, an noriginal analysis of Indira Gandhi's legacy and the future "dynasty" she founded that remains, to quote Salman Rushdie's words, "a dynasty to beat Dynasty in a Delhi to rival Dallas." All the chapters of the book constitute a carefully coordinated and rounded introduction to Indira's political and social life. A study of the evolution of Indira's political maturity affords a new insight into its shaping presence in all her domestic and international political dealings. A brilliant piece of political investigation, this book is written with both journalistic and scholarly passion. It is designed to advance the understanding of Indira's personality as a ruler of India among new readers and those already familiar with her by bringing together all the biographical facts.

This is the Indira Gandhi, various, subtle, "irremediably evil," and Dugra, the invincible goddess in the Hindu pantheon, we would open to a plurality of readers and her admirers.

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