Indira Gandhi: “Like a Tigress”: Creation

Abstract

On October 3, 1977, in India’s capital of New Delhi, an unmarked car drove up to 12 Willingdon Crescent at about 6 p.m. The bungalow was the home of the former prime minister, Indira Gandhi, voted out of office together with many members of her Congress Party in an overwhelming electoral defeat the previous March. Voters blamed her for the “excesses,” especially the forced sterilizations and massive slum clearance projects, of the “State of Emergency” proclaimed two years earlier. Living with Mrs. Gandhi were her sons Rajiv and Sanjay and their wives, Sonia and Maneka. Sanjay and Maneka were playing badminton on the front lawn as two Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) officers got out of the car. When Mrs. Gandhi came to the door, they informed her that she was under arrest. She had been expecting this—as indeed had the rest of the country. Having told the officers that she needed time to gather some clothing, she left them standing on the doorstep. When she reemerged almost two hours later, she was wearing an immaculate white sari with a green border. In the interim, a large crowd had gathered, and those nearest the house showered her with rose petals and draped garlands over her. During the time she had kept the two policemen waiting, phone calls had been made: to the press, friends, party stalwarts, and members of Sanjay’s Congress Party Youth Conference, all of whom had flocked to the house.