“Indira was India and India was Indira” a famous quote during the 70`s. Indira Gandhi a leader with a towering personality and a women of unwavering commitment was killed by her own bodyguards on the fateful day of 31st oct 1984. As the whole country was mourning on her sad demise, the question being raised all over the country was whether it was a revenge for operation blue star and whether indira regretted it or not.
The answer to this question is quite obvious; she did not because the Indira India knew was an iron lady and a feisty lady who could not backout from her own decisions, as it was seen during the nationalisation of banking in 1969, Bangladesh war of 1971 and dividing pakistan , her “garibi hatao” slogan of 1971, Pokharan test in 1974, implementation of emergency in 1975, though later she accepted excesses of it and called the elections in 1977, division of Congress in 1979 , the Assam elections of 1983 when the state elections were being popularly boycotted, but was necessary, sending trained Tamil guirellas to sri lanka for fighting the Jayawardenes and for the very same purpose sending tanks and ammunitions to Amritsar’s Golden Temple for killing Bhindranwala. These things were not paranoid to her, neither the fear of her losing the next elections, but these were the decisions taken by a true nationalist and heart of a resurgent leader who would never allow herself or her country’s authority to be taken lightly and during her last speech as she said “…if I die, every drop of my blood will invigorate the nation…” Her death was tragic but as she was the one who heroically refused to remove her sikh body guards off duty is a sign of gratitude. She proved all that she was a true nationalist.
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