Domestic policy of the Indira Gandhi government
The Hindi-speaking southern half of Punjab became a separate state, Haryana, while the Pahari speaking hilly areas in the north east were joined to Himachal Pradesh.
[9] However, a contentious issue that was considered unresolved by the Akalis was the status of Chandigarh, a prosperous city on the Punjab-Haryana border, which Gandhi declared a union territory to be shared as a capital by both the states.
The most prominent of the Kashmiri separatists, Sheikh Abdullah, had to recognize India's control over Kashmir in light of the new order in South Asia.
The situation was normalized in the years following the war after Abdullah agreed to an accord with Gandhi, by giving up the demand for a plebiscite in return for a special autonomous status for Kashmir.
[11] In 1972, Gandhi granted statehood to Meghalaya, Manipur and Tripura, while the North-East Frontier Agency was declared a union territory and renamed Arunachal Pradesh.
She argued the case for abolition based on equal rights for all citizens and the need to reduce the government's revenue deficit.
The nobility responded by rallying around the Jana Sangh and other right-wing parties that stood in opposition to Gandhi's attempts to abolish royal privileges.
[16] Gandhi responded by having a Presidential proclamation issued; de-recognizing the princes; with this withdrawal of recognition, their claims to privy purses were also legally lost.
The political economist, Jyotindra Das Gupta, cryptically questioned "...whether or not the real supporters of land-holders were in jail or in power?
"[15] Critics also accused Gandhi of choosing to "talk left and act right", referring to her concurrent pro-business decisions and endeavours.
[15] Rosser wrote that "some have even seen the declaration of emergency rule in 1975 as a move to suppress dissent against Gandhi's policy shift to the right.
"[6] Regardless of the controversy over the nature of the reforms, the long-term effects of the social changes gave rise to prominence of middle-ranking farmers from intermediate and lower castes in North India.
[15] The rise of these newly empowered social classes challenged the political establishment of the Hindi Belt in the years to come.
[18] Nevertheless, critics alleged that her stance was actually meant to weaken the position of rival Congress leaders from the northern states such as Uttar Pradesh, where there had been strong, sometimes violent, pro-Hindi agitations.
[31] The program became fully mature in 1974, when Dr. Raja Ramanna reported to Gandhi that India had the ability to test its first nuclear weapon.
[29] In 1974, India successfully conducted an underground nuclear test, unofficially code named as "Smiling Buddha", near the desert village of Pokhran in Rajasthan.
In these campaigns Bhutto asked the nation to get united and great slogans were raised such as hum ghaas aur pattay kha lay gay magar nuclear power ban k rhe gay (We will eat grass or leaves or even go hungry, but we will get nuclear power).
Gandhi directed a letter to Bhutto and, later to the world, describing the test for peaceful purposes and India's commitment to develop its programme for industrial and scientific use.
