Demystifying a Demagogue

There are politicians and the usual rent-a-mob in India who want Katherine Frank's Indira: The Life of Indira Nehru Gandhi (Houghton Mifflin; 448 pages) banned. It doesn't matter that most haven't read it. They were told it was a scurrilous and offensive biography written by a foreigner. Now they want to keep it off the shelves because they fear its revelations challenge the reputation and status of Indira Gandhi, Prime Minister of India for 15 years until she was assassinated by her bodyguards in 1984. At stake is the perpetual myth of Indira Gandhi, goddess and mother of India....