A quarter of a century after her assassination that shocked the world, India still remembers Indira Gandhi as the country’s first woman prime minister.

Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh (Front) pays tribute to late Prime Minister of India Indira Gandhi during a commemorative ceremony on the occasion of Indira Gandhi’s 25th death anniversary at Shakti Sthal in New Delhi, capital of India, Oct. 31, 2009. Indira Gandhi was assassinated on Oct 31, 1984.

On Oct. 31, 1984, the former prime minister, who had ruled India for nearly 15 years in two stints, was gunned down by her two bodyguards Beant Singh and Satwant Singh in retaliation to Operation Blue Star ordered by her to flush out Khalistani terrorists from the Golden temple in the northern Indian city of Amritsar.

And today, from an ordinary citizen to the country’s high-profile political leaders like Congress President Sonia Gandhi, the ruling party’s young General Secretary Rahul Gandhi and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, all flocked to her memorial to pay their homage to the country’s “Iron Lady” on her 25th death anniversary.

Political analysts say that even 25 years after her death, images of Indira Gandhi — the only child of India’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru — live vividly in the collective memory of millions of people, for the generation who grew up seeing her picture on the front pages on national dailies or listening to her speeches on television.

“Under Gandhi’s regime, India reached its heights — with the birth of its nuclear program though fell to its depths with Operation Blue Star. She was born into politics, she inherited Nehru’s vision to some extent, but she was a more a hard politician than a then Nehru was. So, India still respects her as someone who led the country via a testing phase,” said political analyst Professor Ajay Singh.

Gandhi made the country proud by initiating the nuclear weapons program. As the country’s most senior Congress leader, Indian Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee aptly said in a recent media interview: “In Pokhran 1, Gandhi completed that which Mister Nehruhad envisioned. She is the basic founder of technological development today.”

In fact, it was Gandhi’s “Garibi Hato” (remove poverty) slogan that first brought her real fame at a time when there was a lot of poverty in India, the analysts say.

“This slogan touched the hearts of millions and they voted for her. The next thing which bolstered her fame was her handling of the independence of East Pakistan, now Bangladesh, during the India-Pakistan War, 1971. From Emergency, to her ouster from the Prime Minister’s office to her landslide victory, Gandhi proved she was the Iron Lady,” said Professor S.K. Gupta.

Born in the politically influential Nehru family, Gandhi grew up in an intensely political atmosphere.

Returning to India in 1941 after her studies at Oxford University, she joined National Congress party and became active in India’s independence movement.

After her father’s death in 1964, she was appointed as member of Upper House of Parliament and subsequently information minister.

And, after the then Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri’s death, Gandhi became the prime minister in 1966. She ruled for nearly 11 years till 1977 and again from 1980 to 1984 till her assassination which, however, left a legacy of bitterness.

“Gandhi is a great patriot, but deeply flawed democrat — that is how history should remember Indira Gandhi,” summed up historian and author of “India after Gandhi: The History of the World’s Largest Democracy”, Ramachandra Guha in one of his articles.

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