- Title: INDIA: INDIRA GANDHI'S HOME BECOMES A SHRINE TO THE "MOTHER OF MODERN INDIA".
- Date: 24th October 1985
- Summary: 1. GV & CU Gandhi home with sign outside any saying "Indira Gandhi Memorial". (2 SHOTS) 0.06 2. LV & SV Queue of people entering through electronic gateway and being searched for weapons. (2 SHOTS) 0.38 3. LV & CU PULL BACK TO SV People looking at bloodstain on path protected by perspex cover. (2 SHOTS) 0.53 4. CUs People looking at marked places where bullets were fo
- Embargoed: 8th November 1985 12:00
- Keywords:
- Location: NEW DELHI, INDIA
- Country: India
- Topics: General
- Reuters ID: LVA4QBGEQ7S2LYPRSUTWCI3F88O1
- Story Text: NEW DELHI, INDIA
A year after the assassination of Mrs Indira Gandhi, the painted outline of where her body fell and the dark blotches on the concrete path left by her blood have become a national shrine that is attracting thousands of Indians every day. The official residence of India's first woman Prime Minister in New Delhi has been turned into a museum dedicated to her memory, Crowds, who are searched for weapons on entry to Number 1, Safdar Jung Road, pass through an exhibition of photographs and personal memorabilia which underline the dynastic nature of the Nehru family of which she was part. Mrs Gandhi, a tough and controversial politician who was much criticised in her lifetime, is now being regarded as the Mother of Modern India. The single-storey white bungalow, set amid lush tropical gardens, is now attracting more visitors than the house of the Father of Modern India, Mahatma Gandhi, who also died of an assassin's bullet nearly 40 years earlier. Some of its rooms, including her study and dining room, have been kept intact and the public are allowed to peer in through glass screens where the French windows used to be. But it is in the garden, where she died on October 31, 1984, that the crowds really gather to have pointed out to them the dark bloodstains on the path where she was shot by her own Sikh bodyguard. The spot is protected by a perspex cover. There are chalk circles, each numbered to show where the bullet marks pitted the concrete and where the shells were found. Now the task of governing the sprawling Indian sub-continent of 730 million people -- described by Indira Gandhi as "ungovernable" -- has fallen to her son, Rajiv.
<strong>Source: REUTERS - JAGDISH KAPOOR</strong> - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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