Indira First Term as Prime Minister a Stormy One

     When Sahstri was away suddenly in 1966, congress party went into turmoil, there were two factions the socialist who were led by Indira Gandhi and the conservation who were led by Morarji desai as a result of this party fared badly in the elections that follow losing as many as 60 seats, consequence of this poor performance was that Gandhi was forced to accommodate Desai as deputy PM of India and Minister of Finance, within the party continued and in 1969 Indian National Congress formally split into two for the next two years, had to depend on the support of the socialist and communist parties to get, equipped to deal with foreign as Nehrus daughter she had rare privilege of being constantly to the outside world, she dreamt of making indian a global power and signed treaties with the USSR that strengthen indias military might, Gadhi did not hesitate to send the Indian army to help east pakistan gain its independence and she also openly supported liberation struggles of several african nations.

      Following Nehru's traditions she championed the cause of international peace, disarmament anticolonialism and anti racialism she used the platforms of the common wealth NAM and UN effectively not only to preserve the rich heritage of Nehur but also to make her own contributions, on the bink of famine in the early 1960 the government therefore launched special packages to improve food production and this movement was termed the green revolution in india the spread headed by Dr.M.S.Swaminathan, green revolutions encourages farmers to use new verities of seeds as well as chemical fertilizers to increase yields the green revolution proved to be a great success.

What was the Green Revolution:

     In the 1960 rice yeilds in India were about two tonnes per hectare and by the mid 1990s they had risen to six tonnes per hectare, as a result India became one of the worlds most successful rice producers and is now a major exporter of rice, six new states were born during Gandhi's term as PM they were Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, in additions and Mizoram were established as Union Territories, it was in 1966 that the state of Punjab was divided with the Hindi speaking southern half of Punjab becoming the new state of Haryana, while the Pahari speaking hilly areas of the north east became a part of HP, the city of Chandigarah which is on the border between Punjab and Haryana was declared a Union Territory and the common capital of both states, India had stated that by 1965 Hindi was to become the official language of the country provision created a lot of resentment among the non hindi speaking states, especially in south India.

     In 1967 Indira Gandhi solved the crisis with a constitutional Amendment that guaranteed the use of both Hindi and English as official languages, bilingual approach soothed the fears of the non Hindi speaking states that Hindi would be formed on them and their own mother tongues would be given less importance, popularity in the southern states and established her reputation as a leader who would safeguard their interests too.

Nationalisation Banks by Indira Gandhi Important Step:

      Banking is one of the most essential and important activities in ones life as it deals with cash and cash transactions, before Indira Gandhi came to power most banks of India were owned and operated privately their customers were mainly from the middle and upper classes, and most of the poorer people in the country were aware of how banks could help them. In 1969 Indira Gandhi took an important step when she national fourteen major commercial banks, as a result a much larger area was covered and the number of branches rose from 8200 to 62000, furthermore the national of banks saw investments in small and medium sized enterprises and agriculture sector increase while at same time it encouraged the poorer sections of society to save more, war against Pakistan, India faced an oil crisis during the war many oil companies that were foreign owned refused to supply fuel to the Indian Navy and Air Force.

     Indira Gandhi tackled the situation by national the oil companies with this the Indian oil Corporation, Hindustan Petroleum Corp, they were instructed to keep a minimum stock level of oil, to be supplied to the military at the time of need, Gandhi also nationalized the coal, steel, copper, refining, cotton textiles and insurance industries, aim of this move was to protect employment and secure interest of the organized labour, thus it can be said that during her term as PM, brought about a radical change in the country economic growth, since partition people of east pakistan now known as Bangladesh felt that west Pakistan was ignoring them despite the fact that their population was more, this led a revolution in east pakistan which announced its independence from Pakistan, as a result there was a bloody confrontation between the army and the people of east pakistan, as realized that it would be impossible for it to retain control over east pakistan it decided to compensate the loss by invading indian territory.  

     Pakistan resorted to preemptive strikes on Indian air bases in the western and northern sectors, resulting in a full scale war, Indian armed forces repulsed persistent it attempts to push into Indian Territory, the indian army also inflicted to defeat on paksitan insindh and lahore sectors, port were paralyzed after indian navy surrounded it, in the eastern sector the pakistan army surrendered to indias might and the Indian army took more than 90000 pakistani troops as prisoners of ware, lasting just 13 days, it is to be considred one of the shortest war in history and it heralded the birth of new nation Bangladesh, it was strong supporter of Indias nuclear program, she believed that nuclear power held the key to india stability and security, to give permission for nuclear test while touring the Bhabha atomic research center, verbal authorize to the scientists there to manufacture the nuclear device they had designed and prepare for a test, to conduct an underground nuclear test code named as smiling buddha near the desert village, success of test stunned the world but Gandhi emphasized that it was conducted only for peaceful purposes, mainly for industrial and scientific use.