Country The daughter of the first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, her childhood was spent in Allahabad. Jawahar Lal Nehru saw his son in him and fulfilled his every demand. He never opposed his daughter’s wishes. It happened only once in his life that not only did he oppose the wishes of his daughter Indira, but he also got very angry. Even after this, Indira remained adamant and did what she wanted to do. Along with Pupul Jayakar, who has written the biography of Indira Gandhi, many other writers have claimed in their respective books that Indira Gandhi had married Firoz Gandhi against the wishes of her mother Kamala Nehru and father.
Pupul Jayakar has written in the book that Firoz was not the first person to come into Indira’s life. When Indira went to Shantiniketan after completing her matriculation in Pune, Frank Oberdorf, a German teacher who taught French, fell in love with her. Pupul Jayakar wrote in his biography of Indira Gandhi that Frank had come to Santiniketan in 1933. He met Rabindranath Tagore in 1922 in Latin America. Then Tagore asked him to come to Shantiniketan. When he started teaching French to Indira, she was only 16 years old. Frank was fascinated by the beauty of Indira Gandhi and proposed to her. At first Indira was very angry at this. But, with time the closeness of both increased.
Then how did Indira and Oberdoff separate?
Pupul Jayakar writes that Indira Gandhi started sharing most of her things with Frank Oberdorf. At the same time, Frank kept praising her beauty continuously. Meanwhile, Rabindranath Tagore came to know about the closeness of Indira and Frank. He took a tough decision and immediately sent Indira Gandhi back home. Later, when Indira Gandhi went to London for further studies, she once again met Frank Oberdorf. However, by then Firoz Gandhi had come into his life. A deep love had blossomed between the two, in which there was no room for anyone else. Frank tried hard to convince Indira Gandhi, but she continued to behave rudely towards Frank.
Not only Pandit Nehru, mother Kamala Nehru was also against Indira’s marriage with Firoz Gandhi.
Mother Kamla Nehru was sad about Firoz
Firoz Gandhi used to come to Anand Bhawan in Allahabad as a volunteer to help Indira Gandhi’s mother Kamala Nehru. After some time, discussions about Indira and Firoz’s affair became common in Allahabad. Initially, Indira Gandhi was very angry when Firoz Gandhi proposed love to her. MO Mathai, special secretary to Jawaharlal Nehru, writes in his book ‘Reminiscences of the Nehru Age’, ‘Indira told him that she was shocked when Firoz proposed marriage to her. He rejected the proposal. But, later the closeness between the two grew. Pupul Jayakar writes that a month before her death, mother Kamala Nehru realized that her daughter Indu was making a mistake. She was very sad about her daughter’s future with Firoz. Later his apprehensions proved correct and Indira Firoz separated.
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Indira wanted to stay away from politics
Pupul Jayakar writes in her biography of Indira Gandhi that after falling in love with Firoz, she wanted to stay away from politics, get married and live a simple life. Then when the distance from Firoz Gandhi increased, Indira Gandhi completely entered politics. Due to this the differences between Firoz Gandhi and Indira Gandhi started increasing. While Indira Gandhi was disappointed with her husband’s infidelity, Nehru also did not like Firoz at all. The married life of both of them had almost ended. Author Katherine Frank writes in ‘Indira: The Life of Indira Nehru Gandhi’ that the Nehru family was already strongly against the marriage of Indira and Firoz.
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Why did Indira and Firoz separate?
Catherine Frank writes that soon after the marriage, discord started between Indira and Firoz. When Indira was pregnant in 1941, she came to know that Firoz was having an affair with another woman. The husband’s infidelity started increasing the distance in the relationship. Firoz believed in living a cool life. It is written in the book that even after marrying Indira, Firoz Gandhi used to flirt with other women. Apart from Mahmoona Sultan, he also had romantic relationships with Parliament’s glamor girl Tarakeshwari Sinha and MP Subhadra Joshi. He had another girlfriend, who was a Nepali divorced woman and worked in All India Radio. Due to these affairs, Indira and Firoz got separated.
Writers Katherine Frank and MO Mathai, in their books, claim Indira Gandhi’s relationship with Feroze Gandhi after her separation.
Then two people came into Indira’s life
Katherine Frank writes in her book ‘Indira: The Life of Indira Nehru Gandhi’ that two men came into Indira Gandhi’s life after her separation from Feroze Gandhi. One of them was Dhirendra Brahmachari and the other was Dinesh Singh. Indira Gandhi wrote to her confidante Dorothy Norman about Dhirendra Shastri that he was an attractive yogi. She is learning yoga from him. She also trusts Dinesh Singh a lot. He had unhindered access to the Prime Minister’s residence at any time. Frank writes that perhaps Dinesh Singh himself had fanned the discussion about his affair with Indira Gandhi.
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Mathai used to claim to have an affair with Indira
MO Mathai used to claim that Indira Gandhi also had an affair with him for a long time. He wrote the chapter ‘She’ in his book ‘Reminiscences of the Nehru Age’, which was stopped from being published. But, this chapter came out in the 80s. It is estimated that it was made public by Maneka Gandhi. The truth of Mathai’s claim of having an affair with Indira Gandhi could never be confirmed. However, it is said that Firoz Gandhi was very irritated with Mathai. He himself said in the Central Hall in the presence of many MPs that Nehru’s real son-in-law is Mathai. Both Katherine Frank and Mathai write that Firoz often called Mathai among the MPs in Parliament as Nehru’s real son-in-law. Mathai writes that in 1948, the then Health Minister Rajkumari Amrit Kaur told me, ‘In my presence, Feroze Gandhi told the MPs in the Central Hall that it was not he but Mathai who was the son-in-law of the Prime Minister.’
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Tags: Congress, Gandhi Family, Indira Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, Love affairs
FIRST PUBLISHED: February 10, 2024, 14:33 IST