Indira Gandhi, Golda Meir, and Margaret Thatcher were all described at various times as the "only man" in their respective cabinets - a reference to their tough, controlling behaviour. What explains this type of leadership style? In Women in Power, Blema Steinberg describes the role that personality traits played in shaping the ways in which these three women governed. For each of her subjects, Steinberg provides a personality profile based on biographical information, an analysis of the patterns that comprise the personality profile using psychodynamic insights, and an examination of the relationship between personality and leadership style through an exploration of various aspects of political life - motivation, relations with the cabinet, the caucus, the opposition, the media, and the public. By bringing together some of the best work in psychological leadership studies and conventional personality assessments, Women in Power makes a significant contribution to the study of political leadership and the advancement of personality-in-leadership modelling.

A loving daughter, a caring mother, an affectionate grandmother a confident globetrotter and finally prime minister, Indira slipped into each role with ease.’ The story of India's first woman prime minister is no ordinary story. It is the story of a girl for whom sacrifice and loss came early. For whom growing up meant seeing her father drift in and out of jail and a mother in and out of hospital. Wearing khadi and organizing her own band of troops. Combating loneliness and giving up the things she loved for a bigger cause. With the freedom struggle playing out in the background Indira Gandhi's life was inextricably linked to the politics and destiny of her country. In this compelling biography, Sreelata Menon vividly recreates the life and times of a young girl who goes on to become one of the most powerful and charismatic leaders of the world. Filled with little-known facts about Indira Gandhi’s life this book is a fascinating read that brings to light the different facets of her personality.

The definitive and first non-partisan biography of one of the most formidable political figures of the twentieth century (voted Woman of the Millennium in a BBC poll, 2000)

When Indira Gandhi was brutally assassinated in 1984, she had lived through India's tortured liberation from the British Empire, the bloody era of partition and the monumental difficulties associated with creating and sustaining the world's largest and most troubled democratic nation. This unique, intimate biography of one of the first women heads of state in modern history shows Indira growing from the shy daughter of the great Jawaharlal Nehru to the accomplished politician she eventually became. Very few people knew Indira beyond the facade, and there has been nothing written about her that illumines the conflicting aspects of her character: aloof but charming; lonely but ferocious in defense of her own - particularly her son Sanjay; sensitive and cultivated but capable of cold arrogance; devoted to her nation but blind to some of the cruelties she inflicted; a warm mother and grandmother but a calculating politician. A friend of Indira's for more than thirty years, Pupul Jayakar is uniquely qualified to assess and illuminate this complex woman in depth. Jayakar reveals Indira's thoughts and feelings, her loves and emotional entanglements, her blunders and her great courage. She is also able to situate the Nehru family in the context of modern Indian history in a way that is vivid to the Western reader. In Indira Gandhi, Pupul Jayakar gives us a penetrating but balanced account of one of the twentieth century's most remarkable women, a towering figure whose virtues and vices will be debated for a long time to come.

From an acclaimed economist and politician, a unique, never-before-seen look at the life of one of India’s most well-known prime ministers—Indira Gandhi—and her work to protect the environment and champion the preservation of nature and the climate. Indira Gandhi, prime minister of India for sixteen years, was as charismatic as she was controversial—both admired and criticized for her political judgments and actions. Yet what has never been fully revealed is her lifelong commitment and love for nature and how that defined her very being. Weaving personal, political, and environmental history, politician and scholar Jairam Ramesh presents a compelling portrait of an extraordinary public figure. He chronicles how and why she made a personal passion a public calling; how her views on the environment remained steadfast even as her political and economic stances evolved; how her friendships with conservationists led to far-reaching decisions to preserve India’s biodiversity; how she urged, cajoled and persuaded her colleagues in making significant decisions regarding forests and wildlife; and how her own finely developed instincts and initiatives resulted in landmark policies, programs, and laws that have endured to this day. Drawing extensively from unpublished letters, notes, messages and memos, Indira Gandhi: A Life in Nature is both a lively, engaging narrative about the little-known parts of Indira Gandhi’s life, and also sheds important light on climate change and sustaining the environment—today’s most pressing global issues.

This is the first definitive biography of arguably India’s most influential and powerful civil servant: P.N. Haksar, Indira Gandhi’s alter ego during her period of glory. Educated in the sciences and trained in law, Haksar was a diplomat by profession and a communist-turned-democratic socialist by conviction. He had known Indira Gandhi from their student days in London in the late-1930s, even though family links predated this friendship. They kept in touch, and in May 1967, she plucked him out of his diplomatic career and appointed him secretary in the prime minister’s Secretariat. This is when he emerged as her ideological beacon and moral compass, playing a pivotal role in her much-heralded achievements including the nationalization of banks, abolition of privy purses and princely privileges, the Indo-Soviet Treaty, the creation of Bangladesh, rapprochement with Sheikh Abdullah, the Simla and New Delhi Agreements with Pakistan, the emergence of the country as an agricultural, space and nuclear power and, later, the integration of Sikkim with India. This power and influence notwithstanding, Haksar chose to walk away from Indira Gandhi in January 1973. She, however, persuaded him to soon return, first as her special envoy and later as deputy chairman of the Planning Commission where he left his distinctive imprint. Exiting government once and for all in May 1977, he then continued to be associated with a number of academic institutions and became the patron for various national causes like protecting India’s secular traditions, propagating of a scientific temper, strengthening the public sector and deepening technological self-reliance. Successive prime ministers sought his counsel and in May 1987, he initiated the reconstruction of India’s relations with China. He remained an unrepentant Marxist and one of India’s most respected elder statesman and leading public figures till his death in November 1998. Drawing on Haksar’s extensive archives of official papers, memos, notes and letters, Jairam Ramesh presents a compelling chronicle of the life and times of a truly remarkable personality who decisively shaped the nation’s political and economic history in the 1960s and 1970s that continues to have relevance for today’s India as well. Written in Ramesh’s inimitable style, this work of formidable scholarship brings to life a man who is fast becoming a victim of collective amnesia.

Ramachandra Guha’s India after Gandhi is a magisterial account of the pains, struggles, humiliations and glories of the world’s largest and least likely democracy. A riveting chronicle of the often brutal conflicts that have rocked a giant nation, and of the extraordinary individuals and institutions who held it together, it established itself as a classic when it was first published in 2007. In the last decade, India has witnessed, among other things, two general elections; the fall of the Congress and the rise of Narendra Modi; a major anti-corruption movement; more violence against women, Dalits, and religious minorities; a wave of prosperity for some but the persistence of poverty for others; comparative peace in Nagaland but greater discontent in Kashmir than ever before. This tenth anniversary edition, updated and expanded, brings the narrative up to the present. Published to coincide with seventy years of the country’s independence, this definitive history of modern India is the work of one of the world’s finest scholars at the height of his powers.

Transcript of interviews with various Indian political leaders.

The gripping story of an explosive turning point in the history of modern India On the night of June 25, 1975, Indira Gandhi declared a state of emergency in India, suspending constitutional rights and rounding up her political opponents in midnight raids across the country. In the twenty-one harrowing months that followed, her regime unleashed a brutal campaign of coercion and intimidation, arresting and torturing people by the tens of thousands, razing slums, and imposing compulsory sterilization on the poor. Emergency Chronicles provides the first comprehensive account of this understudied episode in India’s modern history. Gyan Prakash strips away the comfortable myth that the Emergency was an isolated event brought on solely by Gandhi’s desire to cling to power, arguing that it was as much the product of Indian democracy’s troubled relationship with popular politics. Drawing on archival records, private papers and letters, published sources, film and literary materials, and interviews with victims and perpetrators, Prakash traces the Emergency’s origins to the moment of India’s independence in 1947, revealing how the unfulfilled promise of democratic transformation upset the fine balance between state power and civil rights. He vividly depicts the unfolding of a political crisis that culminated in widespread popular unrest, which Gandhi sought to crush by paradoxically using the law to suspend lawful rights. Her failure to preserve the existing political order had lasting and unforeseen repercussions, opening the door for caste politics and Hindu nationalism. Placing the Emergency within the broader global history of democracy, this gripping book offers invaluable lessons for us today as the world once again confronts the dangers of rising authoritarianism and populist nationalism.