Indira Gandhi, India’s first and only female Prime Minister and better known as the Iron Lady of India, was born on November 19 in 1917. Born, Indira Priyadarshini Gandhi in Allahabad (present day Prayagraj), she was the daughter of the first Prime Minister of India, Jawaharlal Nehru. She played a central role in the Indian National Congress, and is credited for ‘political intransigency and unprecedented centralisation of power’. In 1999, Indira Gandhi was dubbed as “Woman of the Millennium” via an online BBC poll. Most recently (2020) she was named as one of the world’s 100 powerful women who defined the last century by Time magazine.
After Jawaharlal Nehru, Indira Gandhi was the second longest-serving Prime Minister of India, serving her first term between 1966 to 1977, and the second from 1981 to 1984, until her assassination at the hands of her own security guards. A great orator like her father, Indira Gandhi too spoke some very powerful words. And today, on her 103rd birth anniversary here are some memorable quotes that the Iron Lady of India said. Read on:
