Past Imperfect Episode 22: Srinath Raghavan on Indira Gandhi’s Experiments with Power

Past Imperfect Episode 22 features Dinyar Patel, Associate Professor of History at SPJIMR, in conversation with Srinath Raghavan, Professor of International Relations and History at Ashoka University and the author of Indira Gandhi and the Years that Transformed India. Indira Gandhi has been one of modern India’s most controversial leaders, a savior to some, a power-hungry autocrat to many others. Above all, she was deeply consequential in shaping so much of today’s political and economic landscape. Raghavan examines Gandhi’s prime ministership during what he calls the long 1970s, a period of profound crisis for Indian democracy, one which was joined at the hip to global events. While the Emergency remains the most infamous chapter in Gandhi’s rule, it was only one part of a longer story of steady centralization of power, recalibrations of economic policy, breakdowns in political norms, constitutional crises, anti-democratic tendencies, and violent insurgency.