Barring one-line tributes from Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Ram Nath Kovind, no Union Minister spoke about the birth centenary of former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. Nor did they visit Shakti Sthal to pay tributes.
“Tributes to former PM Mrs. Indira Gandhi on her birth anniversary,” Mr. Modi said in an official statement issued by the Prime Minister’s Office.
Mr. Kovind tweeted, “Nation remembers former Prime Minister Smt Indira Gandhi on her birth centenary.”
Varun Gandhi’s tribute
BJP MP and grandson of Indira Gandhi, Varun Gandhi, was the only BJP functionary to pay his tributes. “Courage is the most important of all the virtues because without courage, you can’t practise any other virtue consistently,” he said in a series of tweets.
Calling Indira Gandhi the “mother” of the nation, Mr Varun Gandhi said, “To a lady that was a mother to this nation. Miss you Dadi ... I know you always watch over us.”
He posted a picture of Indira Gandhi holding him as a toddler.
Congress leaders criticised the government for ignoring India’s first woman Prime Minister. “It is a shame that the country and the government is not celebrating the 100th birth anniversary of former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi,” senior Congress leader and former finance minister P. Chidambaram said.
At a discussion titled ‘Remembering Indira, Commemorating Her Centenary’ at the Tata Literature Live festival in Mumbai, Mr. Chidambaram said, “I think she [Indira Gandhi] was extremely successful in some areas; she was not successful in others and she made a mistake which she acknowledged later that ‘the Emergency was a mistake and I will never make it again’,” he added.
Not celebrating her centenary is much like Russia ignoring the Russian revolution, Mr. Chidambaram said.
‘Fought for secularism’
In an emotional speech at a commemoration at 1 Safdarjung Road, the official residence of former Prime Minister, Congress president Sonia Gandhi said her mother-in-law, with whom she spent 16 years, had fought for secularism. “For her, as the Prime Minister, there was one religion, a sacred creed passionately held — that all Indians were equal children of the motherland,” Ms. Gandhi said.
“She fought for secularism, against all those forces seeking to divide the Indian people on lines of religion and caste. She gloried in the rich diversity of India, its profound democratic and secular values,” she said.
The Congress leader said the epithet “Iron Lady” falls short of describing the former Prime Minister.
“I have heard Indira ji being referred to as the ‘Iron Lady’. But iron was only one of the elements in her character; generosity and humanity were just as prominent traits,” she said.
