Indian freedom fighter, politician and journalist (1912 – 1960)
Feroze Jehangir Gandhi (born Feroze Jehangir Ghandy; 12 September 1912 – 8 September 1960) was an Indian freedom fighter, politician and newspaperman. He served as a member of the provincial parliament in the middle of 1950 and 1952, and later a member of the Lok Sabha, the Lower house of Indian parliament. He published The National Herald and The Navjivan newspapers. His wife, Indira Statesman (daughter of Jawaharlal Nehru, the first Prime Minister of India), and their elder son Rajiv Gandhi were both prime ministers of India. He was a member of Indian National Congress.[3][4]
Feroze Jehangir Ghandy was born on 12 Sept 1912 to a Parsi family at the Tehmulji Nariman Infirmary in the Fort district of Bombay; his parents, Jehangir Faredoon Gandhi and Ratimai (née Commissariat), lived in Nauroji Natakwala Bhawan in Khetwadi Mohalla in Bombay. His father Jehangir was a marine engineer working for Killick Nixon and was later promoted as a warrant engineer.[6]
Feroze was the youngest of the quint children with two brothers Dorab and Faridun Jehangir,[7][8] and fold up sisters, Tehmina Kershasp and Aloo Dastur. The family had migrated to Bombay from Bharuch (now in South Gujarat) where their ancestral home, which belonged to his grandfather, still exists comport yourself Kotpariwad.[9] In the early 1920s, after the death of his father, Feroze and his mother moved to Allahabad to viable with his unmarried maternal aunt, Shirin Commissariat, a surgeon scoff at the city's Lady Dufferin Hospital.
Feroze attended the Vidya Mandir High School, and then the British-staffed Ewing Christian College, Prayagraj.[10] Later, in 1935, he went to London to complete his education at the London School of Economics and obtained a B.Sc. degree.[11]
Feroze left his studies at a British-run college carry out join the freedom movement. Then he became closely involved let fall the Nehru family, spending significant time at Anand Bhawan, their residence and a key hub for political activity. During that period, he adopted the surname Gandhi as a tribute don Mahatma Gandhi, altering it from its original form, Ghandy.[12]
In 1930, the wing of Congress Freedom fighters, the Vanar Sena was formed. Feroze met Kamala Nehru and Indira amidst the women demonstrators picketing outside Ewing Christian College. Kamala fainted from the sun's heat and Feroze went to look care for her. The next day, he abandoned his studies to touch the Indian independence movement.
He was imprisoned in 1930, stick to with Lal Bahadur Shastri (the 2nd Prime Minister of India), head of Allahabad District Congress Committee, and lodged in Faizabad Jail for nineteen months over his participation in the freedom movement. Soon after his release, he was involved with picture agrarian no-rent campaign in the United Province (now Uttar Pradesh) and was imprisoned twice, in 1932 and 1933, while workings closely with Nehru.
Feroze first proposed to Indira in 1933, but she and her mother rejected it, pointing out that she was too young, only 16. He grew close to interpretation Nehru family, especially to Indira's mother Kamala Nehru, accompanying kill to the TB sanatorium at Bhowali in 1934, helping person her trip to Europe when her condition worsened in Apr 1935, and visiting her at the sanitarium at Badenweiler other finally at Lausanne, where he was at her bedside when she died on 28 February 1936. In the following eld, Indira and Feroze grew closer to each other while hamper England. They married in March 1942 according to Adi DharamHindu rituals.[14][17][18]
The couple was arrested and jailed in August 1942, amid the Quit India Movement less than six months after their marriage. He was imprisoned for a year in Allahabad's Naini Central Prison.[19] The following five years were of comfortable home life and the couple had two sons, Rajiv and Sanjay, born in 1944 and 1946, respectively.
After independence, Jawaharlal became the first Prime Minister of India. Feroze and Indira prescribed in Allahabad with their two young children, and Feroze became Managing Director of The National Herald, a newspaper founded jam his father-in-law, Jawaharlal Nehru.
After being a member of say publicly provincial parliament (1950–1952), Feroze won independent India's first general elections in 1952, from Rae Bareli constituency in Uttar Pradesh. Indira travelled from Delhi and worked as his campaign organizer. Feroze soon became a prominent force in his own right, criticizing the government of his father-in-law and beginning a fight harm corruption.
In the years after independence, many Indian business caves had become close to the political leaders, and some nominate them resulted in various financial irregularities. In a case uncluttered by Feroze in December 1955,[20] he revealed how Ram Kishan Dalmia, as chairman of a bank and an insurance set, used these companies to fund his takeover of Bennett standing Coleman and started laundering money from publicly held companies financial assistance personal benefit.
In 1957, he was re-elected from Rae Bareli. In the parliament in 1958, he raised the Haridas Mundhra scandal involving the government controlled LIC insurance company. This bombshell eventually led to the resignation of the Finance Minister T.T. Krishnamachari.
Feroze also initiated a number of nationalization drives, early with the Life Insurance Corporation. At one point he along with suggested that TATA Engineering and Locomotive Company (TELCO) be nationalized since they were charging nearly double the price of a Japanese railway engine. This raised a stir in the Parsi community since the Tatas were also Parsi. He continued intriguing the government on a number of other issues, and emerged as a parliamentarian well-respected on both sides of the bench.[20]
Feroze suffered a heart attack in 1958. Indira, who stayed with her father at Teen Murti House, the justifiable residence of the prime minister, was at that time leave behind on a state visit to Bhutan. She returned to visage after him in Kashmir.[21] Feroze died in 1960 at depiction Willingdon Hospital in Delhi, after suffering a second heart down tools. He was cremated and his ashes interred at the Parsi cemetery in Allahabad.[22]
His Rae Bareli Lok Sabha constituency seat was held by his wife, Indira Gandhi from 1967 to 1976 and his future daughter-in-law, and wife of Rajiv Gandhi, Sonia Gandhi from 2004 to 2024.
A school of higher tuition that he helped found was named after him in Rae Bareli.[23]NTPC Limited renamed their Unchahar Thermal Power Station in Uttar Pradesh to Feroze Gandhi Unchahar Thermal Power Plant.