The Nehru/Gandhi dynasty

The Nehru/Gandhi dynasty (Jawaharlal Nehru, his daughter Indira Gandhi, and her son Rajiv Gandhi) has ruled India for 44 of the years since the country's independence from Britain in 1947. With the victory of the Congress party and its allies on May 13, 2004, another Gandhi is thrust into the spotlight.

Congress Party President Sonia Gandhi waves as she poses for the media at her residence in New Delhi, India, May 13, 2004. (AP Photo)

Sonia Gandhi

Born Sonia Maino in an Italian village 80 kilometres from Turin, on Dec. 9, 1946. Sonia married into India's best-known family in 1968, three years after meeting Rajiv Gandhi while both were students at Cambridge in England. She studied languages. He wanted to become an airline pilot.

Sonia Gandhi shunned the spotlight and was said to have detested politics. Early in their marriage, she is said to have threatened to divorce Rajiv if he ever followed his grandfather, mother and, later, his brother, Sanjay, into political life. She preferred the quiet life, far from the tempest of Indian politics.

But Sonia Gandhi would be dealt a different hand. She was propelled into the forefront of the Indian political scene when her husband Rajiv was picked as the successor to the Gandhi-Nehru crown following the death of his brother in a plane crash in 1980. More than a decade in the spotlight would follow. But that changed in 1991. After Rajiv was assassinated while campaigning in 1991, Sonia turned inward. She refused an offer to lead the Congress party. For the next six years, she was rarely seen in public as she focused her life on her children, Rahul and Priyanka.

As the Congress party's fortunes flagged, she was convinced to re-enter public life. She campaigned heavily for the party in February 1998 but did not run for a seat in parliament. Congress made substantial gains and much of the credit was given to Sonia Gandhi. A month later, she was named leader of the party.

But her leadership did not go unchallenged. Three senior party officers charged her Italian origins and inexperience made her unfit to rule India. Gandhi threatened to resign the leadership in May, as a nationwide election campaign loomed. It was a move several analysts called a ploy to neutralize rebels within the party.

In that election, Congress stumbled to its worst performance since independence as the Hindu nationalist BJP scored a big win. Gandhi won her seat in parliament but her future as leader appeared to be shaky. The party of destiny was nearly bankrupt. But Sonia held on and has enlisted the help of her children. Her son Rahul stood for election and won a seat in this latest campaign. But it's her daughter, Priyanka, who many see as the best hope of continuing the Gandhi dynasty. She has campaigned extensively for her mother - and her skills as an orator are turning heads.

Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and his wife Sonia arrive at the New Delhi airport, May 26, 1985. (AP Photo)

Rajiv Gandhi

Born Aug. 20, 1944, the first son of Indira and Feroze Gandhi. Assassinated while campaigning on May 21, 1991. Rajiv Gandhi was a reluctant politician, preferring the life of an airline pilot, until his brother, Sanjay, was killed in a plane crash in 1980.

At the request of his mother, Rajiv entered politics in 1981 and won a seat in parliament. He became an adviser to his mother. Three years later, he was sworn in as party president and prime minister after his mother was assassinated.

In the 1984 election two months after Indira Gandhi's death, Rajiv campaigned on an anti-corruption ticket, promising to rid the ruling Congress party of a legacy of fraud and arrogance. He had been known widely by the nickname "Mr. Clean."

Rajiv won a convincing victory and his government concentrated on modernizing the country - encouraging foreign investment and investing heavily in modern technology. Industry boomed as some of the red tape controlling business was loosened.

In 1987, he sent Indian peacekeeping forces to Sri Lanka in an unsuccessful attempt to mediate an end to Tamil-Sinhalese violence. They stayed for three years.

The "Mr. Clean" label didn't stick long. In the late 1980s, allegations of corruption and arrogance diminished Gandhi's popularity. There were whispers of payoffs involving the Swedish Bofors arms company and an Italian businessman associated with the Gandhi family - in exchange for Indian contracts.

Gandhi's flagging popularity was reflected at the polls in November 1989 as Congress lost its parliamentary majority, forcing Gandhi to resign as prime minister.

Two years later, he was back on the campaign trail. But on May 21, 1991, during a campaign stop in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu, a bomb hidden in a garland of flowers exploded, killing Gandhi and several others. Tamil separatists claimed responsibility, to avenge India's involvement in Sri Lanka's civil war.

In 1999, Gandhi was posthumously charged with participating in a kickback scheme in the Bofors arms scandal.

This is an undated photo of former Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. (AP Photo)

Indira Gandhi

"I don't mind if my life goes in the service of the nation. If I die today every drop of my blood will invigorate the nation."
Indira Gandhi, Oct. 30, 1984, the night before she was assassinated

Indira Gandhi (1917-1984) was the only child of Kamla and Jawaharlal Nehru.

Indira Gandhi's involvement in public life began soon after India attained independence from Britain in 1947. Her mother had died and her father was the country's first prime minister. Indira was given the job of managing the official residence for her father. She also travelled with him on his foreign trips.

In 1942, she married Feroze Gandhi, a politician who did not make it into his father-in-law's inner circle.

Indira was first elected to parliament in 1964, the year her father died and four years after the death of her husband. She was named minister of information and broadcasting in the government of Lal Bahadur Shastri, her father's successor. He died of a heart attack less than two years after assuming office. There were several contenders in the race to succeed Shastri as leader in 1966. With the contenders unable to agree on a new leader, they settled on Indira as a compromise candidate. She was seen as someone who could be easily manipulated. Indira would prove them wrong.

With her extraordinary political skills and tenacity she elbowed the Congress elders out of power. Her tight grip on the office of prime minister lasted from 1966 through 1977. She was riding high in the polls after India's victory over Pakistan in the war of 1971. India's explosion of a nuclear warhead three years later helped cement her reputation among middle-class Indians as a tough and shrewd leader.

But the economy and allegations of corruption began eating into her support in the mid-1970s. It came to a head in June 1975 when the High Court of Allahabad found her guilty of using illegal practices during the last election campaign. She was ordered to vacate her seat.

But she fought back, declaring a state of emergency. Her political enemies were jailed, some constitutional rights were suspended and the news media were subject to censorship.

Indira Gandhi paid for her actions at the polls in 1977, as a coalition of opposition parties won enough votes to force Congress from power. She was down - but not out. Three years later, Congress returned to power and she was back as prime minister.

She focused her government on trying to deal with Sikh militants in the state of Punjab. In 1984, she ordered an assault on the Golden Temple, the holiest Sikh shrine in Amritsar. Scores of militants were killed and the Golden Temple was damaged. She earned the hatred of Sikhs who bitterly resented the attack. On Oct. 31, 1984, Indira Gandhi was assassinated by two of her own Sikh bodyguards. They said they did it to avenge the assault on Amritsar.

Jawaharlal Nehru

"The only alternative to coexistence is codestruction."
Jawaharlal Nehru

Nehru was born on Nov. 14, 1889, the son of a wealthy Brahman lawyer from Kashmir. He was educated in England, returning to India in 1912, to practise law. In 1919, Nehru joined the Indian National Congress, led by Mohandas K. Gandhi.

Nehru soon became a leader of the radical wing of the nationalist movement. Between 1921 and 1945 he was jailed nine times by the British for conducting campaigns of civil disobedience. Nehru was a strong supporter of Gandhi - but not of his belief in passive resistance. He was more militant, advocating the use of all measures short of armed resistance.

Nehru opposed Gandhi's ideal of an agrarian society. Instead, he pushed for the industrialization and socialization of India.

In 1942, Nehru replaced Gandhi as the recognized leader of the National Congress party. Four years later, he was asked to form an interim government as the British prepared to withdraw. He became India's first prime minister in August 1947, when India attained independence.

As prime minister, Nehru had to deal with a massive influx of Hindu refugees from the new Muslim country, Pakistan. In foreign affairs, he adopted a policy of neutrality. He stressed the importance of the movement of nonaligned nations in international politics and became one of its leading spokesmen. He also opposed the formation of military alliances and urged a moratorium on all nuclear testing.

As for the economy, Nehru launched a series of five-year plans with the declared goal of achieving a socialist pattern of society.

Nehru held the post of prime minister until he died on May 27, 1964.

Postscript:

Not all members of the Gandhi family are loyal Congress party members. Two prominent Gandhis have switched sides.

In February 2004, Varun Gandhi joined the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) along with his mother, Maneka Gandhi. She's an environmentalist and held a cabinet post in the Congress government of Prime Minister V.P. Singh.

Maneka Gandhi is also the widow of Sanjay Gandhi, the son of former prime minister Indira Gandhi. Maneka has been estranged from the rest of the Gandhis since shortly after Sanjay died in a plane crash in 1980.