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Iron Lady's Rethink: Martyr, Patriot, Reformer?

Could it be that Indira Gandhi started rolling back her socialist agenda and opening up to the West far earlier than she is given credit for, asks Shekhar Gupta.

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Iron Lady's Rethink: Martyr, Patriot, Reformer?

It is generally accepted wisdom that the Indira Gandhi years were the pinkest in India's economic history. Also, that her second phase (at the peak of her glory in 1971 till post-Emergency fall in 1977) was the most deeply socialist of three, the first being 1966-71 and the third 1980-84. Some of India's worst economic laws were enacted by her largely illegitimate Parliament during the Emergency, some even in its embarrassing sixth year. Most symbolically notable of these is the word socialist, along with secular, added to the Preamble of the Constitution.