Granddaughter of one of the early leaders of the Indian National Congress; Daugher of independent India's first Prime Minister; Mother of another Prime Minister; Mother-in-law of an election-winning party leader; Grandmother of a young up-and-coming MP of whom much is expected; Indira Gandhi's place in Indian social and political history would have been ensured even without her own remarkable achievement. Indira was the first - and so far only - woman Prime Minister of the world's largest democracy. Her election in 1966 made her only the second woman to serve as president or prime minister in modern times. So much for the idea that India was a backward place - she took power 13 years before the UK got round to letting a woman loose as leader. And she was no fluffy figure-head; she served three successive terms and, after losing an election, she didn't slope off and write her memoirs or go on the after-dinner speaking tours. Instead she fought and won a fourth term. In a BBC online poll Indira Gandhi upstaged the likes of Queen Elizabeth the First to be named as 'Woman of the Millenium".
Whether you love her or hate her, praise her achievements or despise her heavy-handed treatment of social and political issues (for example her 'transistor radios for vasectomies' campaign and sending troops into the Golden Temple at Amristsar) it's hard to deny that Indira Gandhi was a phenomenon. Like millions of people around the world, I'm fascinated by her whilst being simultaneously in awe of some of her achievements and disgusted by others.
However, it's not so much her life that has thousands lining up outside her memorial every day as her dramatic death. In the same day we visited both her memorial museum and that of her father Jawaharlal Nehru. In her museum you shuffle shoulder to shoulder with thousands of people in respectful silence and in her father's you can take as long as you like because there's hardly anyone there. Both museums are free and both are filled with interesting exhibits but how can the museum of a man who died peacefully in old age compete with one that shows the blood-stained sari a prime minister was wearing when she was shot in her garden by her trusted Sikh bodyguards? Add to that the chance to see the exact spot where she fell and it's not really a fair competition. If that wasn't enough, you can also see the shreds of clothing and bizarrely inappropriate plimsolls of her son Rajiv. These were all that could be recovered after he was blown up by a female suicide bomber in Tamil Nadu. This museum that exhibits a great life, a shocking death (or two) and some morbid relics makes for a much more compelling tourist attraction than an exhibition on the history of the independence movement just down the road.
A visit to the Indira Gandhi Memorial Museum really should be on every tourist's must-see list although you'll get more out of it if you know a bit about Indian politics. Getting there could be a bit tricky as this part of the city isn't on the metro line. The easiest way would be to get a taxi or autorickshaw.
We arrived in the early afternoon to join the long line snaking down the road outside a building that was rather small and modest compared with many of its grand neighbours in the posh district of Lutyen's New Delhi. Observers often comment on the modesty of Indira Gandhi's bungalow on Safdarjang Road but let's face it, this is one of the fanciest addresses in town, the garden and grounds are large in a town where space is at a premium and the bungalow is, by local standards, enormous. I guess what people really mean when they call it 'modest' is that it's all quite simple and lacking in the ornate trappings of power. It was also very obviously a family home - real people led real lives in this building and you can see it in the room displays. If you get the chance to see the outside of the Rashtrapati Bhawan (the President's Palace) which is built on a Buckingham Palace scale, then the contrast is remarkable. And if one percent of people reading who aren't Indian could tell me the name of the President of India, then I'll eat my hat.
After lining up outside, surrounded by members of the public and neatly uniformed school parties, we shuffled into the building. The walls of the first few rooms are covered almost from floor to ceiling in black and white photographs and press clippings. I'd have liked to spend a lot longer reading some of these clippings as I'm fascinated by this woman but once in the slow moving crocodile of visitors, it's hard to really stop without causing a major blockage. The clippings tell the history of her time in power and her achievements both the good and the not so good. There's an awed hush about the place - not something you find often when there are parties of Indian school children around. Even though Indira was long dead before most of the kids were born, they know instinctively that this is a special place.
The photos are astonishing. They aren't just official political portraits; there are dozens of family shots. Indira with her kids, Indira with her husband, with her father and even, in one particularly moving shot, as a small girl sitting on the bed beside Mahatma Gandhi during one of his many hunger strikes. The 'highlight' exhibit is of course the bloodstained sari, shoes and bag she was wearing at the time of her assassination but equally moving is the simple home-spun wedding sari that her father made for her whilst locked up in prison for his activism. There's also a room filled with honours and gifts she received from leaders all over the world.
Moving through the house we passed her study which was apparently her favourite room. There's nothing grand there either. You can also see one of the family's sitting rooms and a dining room where she would have entertained family and important visitors alike. The back section of the bungalow is devoted to Rajiv. Again the same displays of black and white photos and press clippings and a very moving display that shows just the few scraps of clothing left after he was blown up, along with the slightly incongruous plimsolls.
The gardens are beautiful - large, well tended with trees and shrubs - but you'll have to settle for looking because this isn't a place where people run around on the lawns. Moving through the gardens you come to one of the most moving and bizarre memorials the glass covered walkway that picks out the route of her last walk in the garden. I've read different reports of where she was going. One suggests she was walking to meet Peter Ustinov to give an interview for an Irish TV programme, another that she was preparing for a meeting with James Callaghan and his wife and planning a dinner for Princess Anne that evening. As she walked in the garden two of her Sikh bodyguards opened fire with machine guns before themselves being shot by other bodyguards. Thirty one bullets were removed from her body.
The crystal path looks like something from a fairy-tale; a magical route of rippled frosted frozen water. It cuts a straight path about a metre wide across the garden and the spot where she fell is marked with a patch of clear glass and spots of red. I thought they were probably rose petals but I'm not entirely sure about that.
The assassination was in retaliation for Operation Blue Star - the storming of the Golden Temple which she had ordered. Biographies I have read suggest that Indira had always expected her death to be a bloody and violent one. The day before she died she gave a speech in the eastern state of Orissa and said "I do not care whether I live or die, and when I die every drop of my blood will invigorate India and strengthen it." She can't have imagined her words would be quite so prophetic.
I've been to Delhi many times and I'm still not sure how I left it so long to visit this memorial. However, I will go back again perhaps on a weekday when there might be fewer visitors. If you have any interest in 20th Century Indian history, I also recommend you go and have a look. It's open every day except Monday.
And finally, for anyone who wants to know, the first woman prime minister of the 20th Century was Sri Lanka's Mrs Sirimavo Bandaranaike and the President of India is another woman by the name of Pratibha Patil.
