It often happens that, having connected his life with a woman who has reached unprecedented heights, her companion is forced to put up with the fact that he becomes only a barely noticeable shadow in the glory of his chosen one. The fate of these people was fully shared by the husband of the only female Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi to date, Feroz Gandhi, whose biography formed the basis of this article.
Son of the contemptible fire worshipers
Feroz Gandhi was born in 1912 in Bombay, a city located on the territory of the Indian colonies of Her Majesty the Queen of England. It should be immediately noted that with his future wife, Indira, he did not have any kindred relationship, but was only her namesake. According to his compatriots, he was considered a person of low birth.
The fact is that his parents belonged to the religious community of Zoroastrians - fire worshipers, also called Parsis, in whose custom it was not to burn the dead and not to bury, desecrating the earth with corpses, but to give them to be eaten by vultures. This wild ritual caused the Zoroastrians to become a despised caste. Even members of the lower castes disdained to sit next to them in publictransport.
It is known from history that at the beginning of the 8th century his distant ancestors left their ancestral homeland Persia (which is why their name - Parsis) and, having settled first in the west of India, within the Gujarat peninsula, then dispersed throughout the country. Currently, their number is one hundred thousand people.
Unrequited love of a young politician
Despite belonging to such a low social group, Gandhi Feroz received a secondary education, and then continued it at the London School of Economics. The humiliation experienced by him from early childhood caused the young man to quickly become involved in a political struggle, the object of which, along with the problems of caste inequality, was the liberation of India from colonial dependence.
Taking an active part in the activities of underground political circles, Gandhi Feroz met and became close friends with a prominent public figure of those years, the future Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru. Often visiting his house, the young man became friends with the daughter of his older brother in political struggle, Indira. She was, if not a beauty, then, in any case, a very charming girl, and it is not surprising that Feroz was carried away by her. Meanwhile, he realized that due to his origin, he could hardly count on reciprocity.
Single immigrant
However, after a while, the situation developed in such a way that he had hope. While studying at the London School of Economics, Gandhi Feroz often visited Geneva, where for several yearsIndira lived permanently. Moving to Switzerland turned out to be a necessary measure for her. In 1935, interrupting her studies at the Rabindranath Tagore People's University, she arrived there with her sick mother Kamala, who suffered from tuberculosis and needed special treatment.
When, after the futile efforts of Swiss doctors, she died, the girl did not rush to return to her homeland. Her father, arrested by the colonial authorities for his political activities, was in prison, the People's University was closed, and friends mostly left the country. Left alone, she was agonizingly lonely.
A chance bestowed by fate
During this entire period of her life, in the most difficult moments, her faithful friend Feroz was invariably present next to her. He helped care for his mother while she was still alive, and took upon himself the painful chores associated with her death. Biographers of Indira Gandhi always emphasize that at that time their relationship was purely platonic in nature, and there was no talk of any romance. Like any woman, Indira could not help but feel the attraction that a young man felt for her, but she had nothing to answer him with.
Their marriage, concluded later, was not the result of mutual love. Surprisingly, behind the appearance of a fragile and pretty woman, there was a strong and ambitious personality, not at all prone to sentimentality. Nature did not endow her with the gift to love, suffer and cry at night from jealousy - it was alien to her, she created Indira as an adamant fighter, and her husband had to becomefirst of all, a comrade-in-arms.
The reaction of the bride's parents and society
If in Switzerland - the center of European civilization - their caste difference did not matter, then in India the news that the daughter of a respected political leader is ready to marry a despised fire worshiper caused a real storm. Even the bride's father Jawaharlal, with all his progressive views, although he did not openly object, he made it clear that he did not approve of his daughter's choice.
It is curious that, contrary to expectations, his less progressive wife Kamala blessed the young during her lifetime. However, it is possible that such a decision was the result of her quite sound reasoning. As a mother who studied her daughter well, she understood that a groom from a noble family would hardly be able to get along happily with her overly ambitious and striving for self-affirmation Indira. Obviously, the bride herself was of the same opinion. In any case, after a thorough reflection, she agreed to the marriage. In the same year, she entered Oxford, where her fiancé was then studying.
Unhappy Homecoming
Soon Feroz Gandhi and Indira Gandhi returned to India. At that time, the Second World War was already in full swing, and they had to get home by a circuitous route - overcoming the Atlantic and South Africa. In Cape Town, where many Indians lived at that time, Feroz first had the opportunity to make sure that his future wife belonged not only (and not so much) to him, but to the whole nation. Immigrants knew her wellthanks to my father and, having met at the port, they offered to say a few words. This was her first public political speech.
If they met a warm welcome at the edge of Africa, then at home it turned out to be more than cold. Since by this time Jawaharlal had become a recognized leader in the struggle for the independence of India and, to some extent, even the face of the nation, many in the country could not come to terms with the fact that his own daughter had committed "blasphemy" by agreeing to marry a despicable person, which was embarrassing to look at. Every day Nehru received hundreds of letters with exhortations and even direct threats against him. Supporters of the age-old foundations demanded that he influence his daughter and force her to abandon the “crazy idea.”
An ancient custom wedding
What could Feroz Gandhi himself feel these days, whose life story is in many ways akin to the plots of Indian films built on the eternal problem of caste inequality? Some relief was brought to him by the intercession of his other namesake and another leader of the Indian national liberation movement, Mahatma Gandhi. Being a man of progressive views, besides enjoying authority in society, he publicly defended their marriage.
When preparations were underway for the wedding, a natural question arose: how to make sure that the religious feelings of neither the Parsis nor the Hindus were offended? After long discussions, they found a happy medium. It turned out to be the oldest wedding ritual, to which neither one nor the other side could find fault. According to what it containsaccording to the instructions, the young people walked around the sacred fire seven times, each time repeating the oath of marital fidelity. The fruit of their marriage was two sons, born in 1944 and 1946.
Straw Widower
However, even the most optimistic biographers do not dare to call this union happy. Very soon, Jawaharlal Nehru formed a national government in newly independent India. He appointed Indira as his personal secretary, whose political career from that moment began to grow steadily.
She left her family and settled in her father's residence. The life into which she plunged from now on, both the children and Feroz Gandhi himself were forced out of her consciousness. This story is quite typical for families in which the wife in many ways surpassed her husband in her life successes. The main occupation of the "straw widower" in those years was the publication of a weekly newspaper founded by his father-in-law.
Last years of life
In 1952, general elections were held in India, and Feroz Gandhi, whose photo is presented in the article, became a member of parliament thanks to the support of his wife. From a high rostrum, he tried to criticize the government headed by his father-in-law and fight the corruption that swept the country. However, his words were not taken seriously. For everyone, he remained only a faint reflection of the beams of glory that surrounded Indira.
Experiences and frequent nervous stress caused a heart attack suffered by Feroz in 1958. Leaving the hospital, he is on demanddoctors was forced to leave parliamentary activity. Retiring from the world, he spent the last two years of his life in New Delhi, devoting himself to raising his children. Feroz Gandhi died on September 8, 1960.
