EXHIBITION ON LIFE AND TIMES OF INDIRA GANDHI

OBSERVING 25TH DEATH ANNIVERSARY
OF INDIRA GANDHI'S ASSASSINATION

NEW DELHI (India Today) - In an attempt to make the younger generation realise the contributions of former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, Congress has organised an exhibition on the life and times of the former PM here in which rare photographs, film and literature would be available. AICC General Secretary Janardan Dwivedi said a series of programmes have been lined up as the party was observing the 25th death anniversary of Gandhi on October 31. In every block, district and state of the country, the party has asked its office-bearers to have a two-minute silence at 9.20 am, the time when Gandhi was assassinated. In Delhi, the party would have three programmes with one at Shakti Sthal, the place where Gandhi was cremated, at 1 Safdarjung Road Road where she was assassinated and the Indira Gandhi Award function for national integration. Twenty-five years ago, on October 31, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was assassinated by her Sikh bodyguards. She was 67-years-old.

Her death marked the passing of the generation that brought India Independence and nurtured its development through ‘Nehruvian socialism’. Indira Gandhi’s abolition of privy purses and privileges of Indian princes, bank nationalisation, progressive takeover of export and import trade. Her ‘Garibi Hatao’ slogan and 20-point programme, are still relevant and pursued by the Congress. She added stimulus to India’s industrialisation and food production through the Green Revolution. India’s nuclear programme was her legacy. It started in 1967, in response to the nuclear threat from China and to establish India’s stability and security interests. In 1974, India successfully conducted an underground nuclear test - Smiling Buddha, with that India became the world’s youngest nuclear power. According to professor P Radhakrishnan "Indira Gandhi is the greatest and tallest woman India has ever produced. At the height of her popularity many of her idolaters depicted her as Goddess Durga or Kali, Bharat Mata, and believed her as someone infallible and invincible. She had also acquired a formidable international reputation as a ‘statesman’". In December 1999, Indira Gandhi was voted the greatest woman of the past 1,000 years in a poll by BBC News Online.

WHAT DO THE VEDIC TEACHINGS TELL US?

Srila Prabhupada: I am hearing that the present American president, President Carter, he has some such plan and he is discussing it with Indira Gandhi. He is consulting with Indira Gandhi quite intimately.

Srila Sridhara Maharaja: Yes, they are accepting our broad policy. From what I hear from the radio and newspaper, it seems that their policy is becoming much more broader than before.

Srila Prabhupada: Besides that, they don't have any other way. Otherwise they cannot achieve what they are actually wanting-the peace through the United Nations; that cannot be achieved.

Srila Sridhara Maharaja: Yes, nothing less than Krishna consciousness will be able to give them that desired peace; nowhere else will they find it.

Srila B.R. Sridhara Maharaja & Srila A.C. BV Swami Prabhupada:
"Room Conversation - March 1977"
Bhaktivedanta Memorial Library - www.bvml.org/SBRSM