Narayani Basu

3 days ago | frontline.thehindu.com | Srinath Raghavan |Narayani Basu |Sushanta Talukdar |Vaishna Roy

“The time has come,” wrote a young Indira Gandhi to a friend, “for me to live my own life. What will it be? I don’t know at all.” The question of the means Nehru’s daughter employed to become who she wanted to be lies at the core of Srinath Raghavan’s excellent new book, Indira Gandhi and The Years That Transformed India. In Raghavan’s narrative, Indira Gandhi came to power in 1967, on the back of a crumbling old order. Trouble within the ranks of the Congress was rife by then.