INSIDE THE INDIRA YEARS

A NEW BOOK BY HISTORIAN SRINATH RAGHAVAN CHARTS INDIRA GANDHI'S POLITICAL CAREER AND HOW IT SHAPED POSTCOLONIAL INDIA

- Prem Shankar Jha

It is not easy to find words that will do justice to Srinath Raghavan's book on how the decisions that Indira Gandhi took during her two stints as India's prime minister—from 1966 till 1977, and 1980 till October 31, 1984—shaped India's development as a democracy. Mrs Gandhi became PM when the country was in the grip of an unprecedented crisis. India had run out of foreign exchange a decade earlier, suffered a severe failure of the southwest monsoons in 1965, and a second failure in 1966 was on the way.

The decisions she had to take— a 57 per cent devaluation of the rupee, and asking the US to back a loan of almost a billion dollars—put her at odds with the seasoned leaders of the organisational wing of the party, known as the Syndicate.