indira gandhi speech
My name is Indira Nehru Gandi and I was born on November 19, 1917 in Allahabad,India. I studied in Visva-Bharati University, Somerville College,and in the University of Oxford. I had a great passion for education because Education is a liberating force, and in our age it is also a democratizing force, cutting across the barriers of caste and class, smoothing out inequalities imposed by birth and other circumstances. My father, Jawaharlal Nehru, led India's political struggle for independence from British rule, and became the first Prime Minister of the Union of India. I was very much inspired with what my father had become. And I eventually served as the third Prime Minister of India being the second female head of government in the modern world.People would say that I am like my father although I also believed that my father was a statesman, I am a political woman. My father was a saint. I am not. In 1971, I intervened in the Pakistani Civil War in support of East Pakistan. My country emerged victorious in the resulting conflict to become the regional hegemon of South Asia. During the war, the U.S. had supported Pakistan, while India received help from the Soviet Union. Relations with the U.S. grew distant as I developed close ties with the Soviet Union after the war. The latter emerged to become India's largest trading partner and its biggest arms supplier. I also gave direction to India's economy to reach the declared objectives of democratic socialism and greater social justice for weaker sections. It was also under my leadership that the signing of Shimla Pact with Pakistani Premier Bhutto and the signing of Indo-Soviet Treaty of Peace, where Friendship and Cooperation took place. I have also nationalised banks, abolished privy purses of maharajas and conducted the first nuclear tests at Pokhran. I was satisfied with these achievements of mine because I have pushed myself towards the edge exerting great effort and I believed that Satisfaction lies in the