The Gandhi effect
“Hua,” Indira’s grandmother said to relatives awaiting news of the birth. “It has happened.” She didn’t have the heart to announce the sex; the baby wasn’t a boy.
Indira Nehru’s earliest memory was of velvets, satins, silks, chiffons, and Savile Row suits piled upon the veranda of their family mansion, ready to feed bonfires. From this moment on, the family would wear only traditional handwoven cloth, khadi. It was early 20th century India, and activist Mahatma Gandhi’s ideas had come into their lives: their whole way of living was changing overnight. Indira’s wealthy parents, Jawaharlal and Kamala Nehru, were getting rid of their crystal, china, silver, carpets, and carriages.
By 1920, Indian nationalists had
