From Burning Her Doll to Leading India: The Untold Childhood That Shaped Indira Gandhi

On the morning of October 31, 1984, India’s “Iron Lady” Indira Gandhi was shot multiple times by her own bodyguards, moments after walking out of her residence at Safdarjung Road in New Delhi. Her assassination

came just months after Operation Blue Star, the military action she had ordered against Khalistani terrorists hiding inside Amritsar’s Golden Temple — a decision that would change the course of Indian history. But Indira Gandhi’s story began long before she became a formidable leader caught in the storm of national politics. Born on November 19, 1917, into the illustrious Nehru family, she was steeped in India’s freedom struggle from childhood itself. The granddaughter of Motilal Nehru and daughter of Jawaharlal Nehru, India’s first Prime Minister, Indira’s early years unfolded amid political turbulence — where jails, protests, and leaders in khadi were part of everyday life. As a child, she once sat on her grandfather’s lap during his trial — a defining moment for the leader she would become. From joining the Swadeshi movement in 1921 to the war with Pakistan in 1971, Indira Gandhi had one thing constant - her immovable grit.

It was a trait born of her upbringing, shaped by the struggle for India’s freedom.“When Indira was about two years old, her parents joined the Indian Independence Movement with Mohandas K. Gandhi. The Nehru home was often a meeting place for those involved in the movement, creating an atypical environment for an only child," states the website of the Indira Gandhi Memorial Trust.Even as a child, she was actively involved in India’s freedom struggle. Much of her life was shaped by the political unrest she witnessed. When she was just four years old, her grandfather and father were jailed for the first time.The Indira Gandhi Memorial Trust website records that “she sat in Motilal’s lap as the court went through the ritual of trial, and she was inconsolable when both were taken away to prison and she had to return home without them. That after a while her mother was taken away almost as often as her father strongly accentuated her grief.” Their home, Anand Bhavan, became a meeting point for Indian National Congress leaders and a base for political planning.

One of the earliest recorded instances of Indira Gandhi’s awareness of the independence movement was her symbolic protest against foreign goods. The Swadeshi Movement, first popularised during the early 1900s and later revived by Mahatma Gandhi, aimed to build economic self-reliance and weaken colonial economic control by encouraging Indians to produce and consume locally made products.She was just five years old then. Her family had burnt their clothes, draperies and every British-made good in their house. A close family friend reminded her that one of her favourite dolls was in fact from Britain, the one she always held close to her. As a child, the thought of being separated from her doll was unbearable, and Indira contemplated destroying it for several days. Eventually, she decided that it was for her country and that it was the right thing to do. A bonfire was lit, and she threw her doll into it. She later spoke about the anguish of burning that doll and said it felt like “murdering someone”. She also admitted that the incident made her averse to the idea of ever lighting matchsticks again.

Indira was barely 13 when she created the Vanar Sena (literally, Army of Monkeys) movement for young girls and boys in 1930. Such was her influence that at the inaugural meeting of the Sena, over a thousand children attended. While the adults did not take them seriously, Indira was not someone who would lose faith or become discouraged. The group played a small but significant role in the country’s freedom struggle by performing chores that freed adults to focus on more important work and by acting as messengers.Her efforts coincided with the Civil Disobedience Movement led by Mahatma Gandhi, which called for non-violent resistance against British rule. The same year, she also founded the Bal Charkha Sangh, where children were taught to spin and weave. The Bal Charkha Sangh was the children’s section of Gandhi Charkha Sangh.

A child of privilege born into the Nehru clan, Indira would go on to become the country’s first woman to hold that office herself. But her life was far from easy. It was one of constant scrutiny and an unending need to prove herself. The grit that first revealed itself in her childhood acts of sacrifice would later define her years in power, making her not just India’s Iron Lady but one of the most complex figures in the nation’s history.