POLITICS
Of Indira Gandhi
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As a child Mrs. Gandhi was torn between an orthodox mother (Kamala Nehru, who died of tuberculosis in 1936) and a modern, English-speaking aunt (Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit, who later served as India's high commissioner in London and as the first president of the United Nations General Assembly). Indira's marriage to Feroze Gandhi (not related to the Mahatma) in 1942 was almost universally denigrated by orthodox Hindus, primarily because it was an intercommunal "love marriage," not arranged by her parents. Her father, Jawaharlal, opposed the marriage on grounds that the couple were somewhat incompatible because both possessed fiery tempers. Publicly, however, both her father and Mohandas Gandhi strenuously defended the marriage, with the Mahatma writing in the journal Harijan that "his [Feroze Gandhi's] only crime in their [orthodox Hindus'] estimation is that he happens to be a Parsi."
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