Rajiv was born in 1944. Two years later, when Indira was pregnant again, the couple moved to Lucknow where a job was created for Feroze in a newspaper. But their marital bliss was short-lived. Indira began to spend more time in Delhi helping her father, now the Prime Minister and also to create distance between herself and Feroze who apparently became involved with various women.

During her second delivery in December 1946 she suffered from a massive haemorrhage and nearly died. "Sanjay Gandhi had arrived in the world. From the start, he was big trouble."³

In ’46 ‘47 and ‘48 transiting Pluto in Indira’s chart was conjunct natal Saturn in Leo, transiting Saturn conjunct Asc, transiting Chiron conjunct IC, transiting Saturn opposite natal Uranus, ruler of her 7th. Indira must have been tormented emotionally, mentally and physically not only because of her marriage but also because she couldn’t escape the life her family and history had placed on her.

Indira felt it was her duty to look after her father and was coerced into taking on the role of his hostess.

At the age of 37 Indira was elected to the Congress working committee, the highest policy making body of the Congress party. This marked a very sharp turning point in her life. Quite telling was the Progressed Sun in Capricorn in her chart opposite Progressed Pluto in cancer at that time.

The Cancer Capricorn axis is another signature very predominant in the charts of the Gandhi family, as it was in that of the Kennedy’s. Motilal Nehru, Jawaharlal, Indira and Rajiv all had their nodal axes in Cancer Capricorn. Sonia’s Moon is in Cancer, her daughter Priyanka has her Sun in Capricorn, Moon in Cancer and Sanjay had the Ascendent/Descendent in Cancer Capricorn.

Every single member of the Nehru-Gandhi clan was and perhaps is inescapably bound to the family, it’s rules, the prestige of the Nehru-Gandhi name, sense of responsibility and service towards the family and country. The nodal axes also point to a feeling of destiny in the choices they made. For them the family fate was inextricably tied to that of the nation’s. Even when a member of the family tried to get away from the family vocation, invariably events dragged them back.

In 1959 the Congress Party president retired and the leaders insisted that Indira take on the job. She immediately refused but an old Congress leader said, "it's not a question of your decision. We have decided and you have to do it. This is your duty."⁴

Some months later she wrote to her father, "She had always felt a'debt' and 'burden' and 'these last eight years or so I have worked harder and longer…always feeling that I could never do enough.' But now she felt the debt has been paid off…I have felt like a bird in a very small cage, my wings hitting against the bars whichever way I move. The time has come for me to live my own life. What will it be? I don't know at all. For the moment, I just want to be free…and find my own direction. The experience of being President of the Congress has been exhilarating at times, depressing at times, but certainly worthwhile. But…I can only be warped and unhappy if I have to continue."⁵

One can sense the absolute desperation she felt. She was 42, her children were away in school and if she was ever going to create a life of her own, she had to start now before it was too late.

All through 1959 and 1960, Indira had some very difficult transits which reflected her profound inner turmoil, the obsessive desire to escape, her depression and sense of isolation. Apart from the mid-life transits, she had transiting Pluto square natal Mercury, transiting Saturn opposite natal Pluto, transiting Uranus conjunct Asc, transiting Saturn conjunct natal Venus, transiting Chiron square Sun. One cannot but feel tremendous compassion for her.

She had inherited her father and grandfathers’ nodal axis in Cancer/Capricorn. Individual needs and personal happiness were subsumed to duty towards society and country.

And despite the intense external pressures and internal conflict, she did make another bid at freedom when she resigned as Congress party president. But instead of feeling liberated, she fell into a deep depression that was compounded by Feroze’s death in 1960.

Like most women in India, Indira’s identity so far was defined by her relationships with men—she was Nehru’s daughter, then Feroze's wife and then Rajiv Sanjay's mother. It was only at the age of 46 when her husband was dead, her father old and her sons grown up that she began to question who she was.

On May 27, at 1:44 PM Nehru died after having had a stroke in January. Transiting Neptune was conjunct Indira’s IC, transiting Jupiter conjunct her MC—the parental axis. Transiting Uranus and Pluto were trining her MC. Despite the loss, one feels she may have felt some sense of relief. However, now Indira felt more isolated and lonely. She was not very close to her sons or to anyone else within the family.

3 days after Nehru's death, Indira was offered the PM’s job but without hesitation, she refused. Lal Bahadur Shastri became the next PM and made Indira the minister of Information and Broadcasting. She accepted that job partly due to a sense of duty to carry on her father’s work but also because she had no income, no financial resources to fall back on.

The Congress leaders wanted her in the cabinet but not in a position of power but Indira had inherited politics in her genes.

In March 1965 when riots broke out in Madras the PM and others decided to wait out the crisis. Indira promptly flew to Madras and helped restore peace. She had clearly "jumped over the PM's head and when asked by a journalist she said, she did not consider herself as just the minister of I and B but as a leader of the country and asserted, "do you think this government can survive if I resign today? I am telling you it won't. Yes, I have jumped over the Prime Minister's head and I would do it again whenever the need arises."⁶

The new Indira was born. Her father had actually been right to envision her birth so close to the Russian revolution as a portent. Indira was born 11 days after the birth of the USSR and there are startling similarities between the two charts, including having the same angles!

With her Sun Uranus opposition, Saturn opposite Uranus, Saturn in Leo conjunct Neptune in the 12th, Indira struggled for freedom all through her early life—for her personal freedom and freedom for the country. She was a rebel and unusual in her role as one of the few women in a position of political prominence those days.

But the moment she acquired genuine power in her own right, she became, at least in her own eyes, the unquestionable authority. It seems that when Indira was in power, she became an autocratic Saturn in Leo and others became Uranus, in opposition, forces of chaos. When out of power she flipped into Uranus--a rebel fighting authority, highly individualistic, a law unto herself.

The Congress party, the public were looking for a saviour, for another charismatic figure like Nehru and she fit the projection completely. Having had no real sense of her own identity, or self worth, she quickly and readily absorbed the projection of the public. Finally she was getting attention and importance as an individual, even though at this stage it still came because she was Nehru’s daughter.

In the early years she must have felt tremendous idealism, a genuine desire to serve the country but Neptune and Saturn in Leo conjunct the Ascendant, having been denied expression for years, unleashed itself as arrogance, as inflation that did warp any sense of her real self.

Soon after the episode in Madras, she mediated in another crisis in Kashmir and the press hailed her as "the only man in a cabinet of old women."

On January 11, 1966 Lal Bahadur Shastri, India’s Prime Minister, died of a heart attack. Transiting Pluto and Uranus were still trining her MC, clearing her path to power.

A well known astrologer, when asked what the stars foretold, replied, "a hat trick". Both Nehru and Shastri were from Allahabad, and now it was prophesied that the next PM would also be from Allahabad—which was Indira’s birth place.

Some Congress leaders were against her becoming PM but she won the post of party leader and on January 24, 1966 was sworn in as Prime Minister of India. At the age of 48, Indira who had longed to escape to freedom became the most powerful woman in the world ruling over 500 million people.

She had, quite fittingly, her Chiron return that year, in the 8th house in Pisces. Her whole life until then, had been one of sacrifice and denial of any personal needs. By taking on this onerous job, she was still denying her personal needs but there could be healing. Chiron trined natal sun, ruler of her Ascendant. The sacrifice could have been turned into service, the victim could have become the volunteer. But it seems as though Indira may have felt her new position as an entitlement for having sacrificed her life, indeed for her father having sacrificed his life.

On 25 February 1968 Rajiv, Indira’s older son, got married to a young beautiful Italian named Sonia Maino.

Over the next three years, Indira’s political acumen grew along with self-inflation and belief that she was the only one who could lead the country. The Sun square Uranus, opposite Leo Ascendant had become an imperious autocrat who felt she was not answerable to anyone in how she ruled the country. She had begun to believe that the Congress party, or India could not survive without her.

From the end of 1968 to 1969 transiting Neptune was conjunct Indira’s natal sun in the 4 th. It was the beginning of a long phase of self-delusion, of a self-mythologising vision of her own and her family’s place in the country which would last for the rest of her life.