Talk:Feroze Gandhi

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[edit] Rehashes rumors from various parts of the internet

Do a websearch for "Feroze Gandhi surname" and you'll come up with the same article on many, many websites, and that same article is quoted here. No one presents any documentary evidence regarding the truth of Feroze Gandhi's ancestry. The same story is repeated over and over. This article is a sad reflection on how people are using Wikipedia to spread their twisted idealogies. First "Nehruvian Marxism", now this.

[edit] Aspersions on the Mahatma?

The article, apart from being biased, is also factually incorrect. It says "However, Gandhi did not mention this in his autobiography titled the Story Of My Experiments With Truth." It gives an impression as if the Mahatma did not want to mention it in his autobiography. It has to be noted that his autobiography covers events only upto the mid-1920's. Hence, I'd be removing this offending line from the article while calling upon others to improve the standard of this article to regular wikipedia standards. –Gurubrahma

[edit] Changed name?

Indira Gandhi's article claims Feroze "changed his surname to 'Gandhi' for political reasons". Is that true? I've heard it said that she married him because of the name, but not that he'd previously changed it. Could someone confirm or deny? And perhaps make the relevant modifications to these articles. –Hajor 14:51, 20 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Although I can in no sense confirm this, I have come across this so often that I think it's considered common-but-unspoken knowledge in India. A google search for "Feroze Gandhi surname" is revealing. Ambarish 20:01, 18 Apr 2004 (UTC)
On Gandhi (disambiguation), there's a paragraph about Feroze Gandhi's original name being "Khan". I have no idea whether that's true or not, but it shouldn't only be there. If it's true, or at least arguable, it ought to be discussed here; if it's complete crap then it should be removed from there. —Chowbok 18:36, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Not a Gandhi

Feroze Gandhi is definitely not related to Gandhi. It is Nehru's long term vision to establish his family ( which he succeeded very well ) that he forced Feroze to change his surname to Gandhi.

[edit] This article could have been edited to confuse people.

First it is true that Feroze Gandhi is totally unconnected to Mahatma Gandhi in any way and the name change story is pretty well accepted in India.

However the article seems to have taken a non NPOV stance about Feroze Gandhi or Indira. Some how seems to look at em as bad guys. Was sent out of Shatiniketan by Rabindranth Tagore himself. Dosen't that seem inflamatory? As regarding conversion of Indira to Islam is there some showable proof or is this just propaganda??

There is a strong possiblity that this might be just to spread a paricular propagandist message as the Congress is right now in power.

On this subject, writes M.O.Mathai (a long time Private Secretary of Nehru) in his renowned (but now suppressed by the GOI) Reminiscences of the Nehru Age on page 94, second paragraph: “For some inexplicable reason, Nehru allowed the marriage to be performed according to Vedic rites in 1942. An inter-religious and inter-caste marriage under Vedic rites at that time was not valid in law. To be legal, it had to be a civil marriage.”

Does some one somewhere have an original of the above mentioned document? How credible is this source? What do those sentences mean in the context of the rest of the book? Why was it suppressed?

But franky i have no clue :-). Maybe some day we may have an edit war here :o)) personally I have no political affiliations. But often repated untruths can look like truths to the uninformed. so beware.


The language of the article is certainly not factual. The tilt to the right is very biased. Quoting from hack journalism whose passion it seems to trash the people long gone by, this rticle is a sad addition to Wikipedia. 4-5 instances:- !. Mahatma asked Feroze's surname to be changed to Gandhi(lol)!! 2. Nehru and Indira were relieved by his death!! 3. Indira dismissed on misdemeanour. 4. Nehru twisted the law to give legal sanctity to the marriage (this is very bizzare) 5. He was a pain in the neck!! Kindly note thet except Mathai, whose account in itself can't be called credible- why not believe in say pupul jayakar a closed confidante who repudiates much of these rumors, the writer doesn't event take the courtesy to say in some people's opinion. This really is a blot on Wikipedia's collection. I request someone to fine tune it.

[edit] Resolution

This article is largely bogus when it comes to the religion and Indira's marriage thing, and also relations of Feroze to Nehru.

I have a proper source with details, so I will proceed to change the text.


from http://www.vepachedu.org/Nehrudynasty.html

Nehru-Khan-Gandhi Dynasty: Jawaharlal Nehru was the first prime minister of modern India, and he ruled the country from 1947 to 1964. He was born on 14th November 1889, to Motilal and Swarup Rani Nehru. The family belonged to a Kashmiri Brahmin tribe called ‘Pandit.’ Indira Gandhi, daughter of Jawaharlal Nehru, became prime minister of India in 1966. Mrs. Gandhi was born on November 19, 1917 to Jawaharlal and Kamala Nehru. She was named Indira Priyadarshini Nehru. She fell in love and decided to marry Feroze Khan, a family friend. Feroze Khan’s father, Nawab Khan, was a Muslim, and mother was a Persian Muslim. Jawaharlal Nehru did not approve of the inter-caste marriage for political reasons (see http://www.asiasource.org/ society/indiragandhi.cfm). If Indira Nehru were to marry a Muslim she would loose the possibility of becoming the heir to the future Nehru dynasty. At this juncture, according to one story, Mahatma Gandhi intervened and adopted Feroze Khan, gave him his last name (family name/caste name) and got the name of Feroz Khan changed to Feroz Gandhi by an affidavit in England. Thus, Feroze Khan became Feroze Gandhi. Though Mahatma belonged to Bania/Gandhi caste (a business tribe) the proposal was acceptable to Nehru for political reasons. Indira Nehru married Feroze (Khan) Gandhi in 1942 and became Indira Gandhi, which helped her politically as daughter of Nehru (the first Prime Minister of the Indian Union) and daughter–in-law of Gandhi (the father of the nation) securing her place in the future Nehru-Gandhi dynasty (based on swordoftruth.com). Another story, according to Mr. Arvind Lavakare in a personal communication to me, is that Feroz had a Parsi father whose surname was "GHANDI" not "GANDHI". That was made clear by an advertisement in a major English newspaper of Allahabad. It was Mahatma Gandhi who suggested to Nehru that Feroze's surname be spelt as "GANDHI" instead of the original "GHANDI". An RSS columnist wrote that "Ghandi's" mother was a Muslim, and since an offspring takes on the religion of its mother, Feroz ought to be considered a Muslim.

Indira Gandhi ruled the country from 1966 to 1984, except for a short period from 1977 to 1980.

Rajiv (Khan) Gandhi was born to Indira (Khan) Gandhi and Feroze (Khan) Gandhi. He converted to Christianity to marry Catholic Italian Sonia Miano (according to swordoftruth.com). He became prime minister in 1984 after Indira was assassinated by her own bodyguards. He ruled the country for 5 years from 1984 to 1989. The Nehru- (Khan)-Gandhi dynasty ended as Sonia, declined to accept the power, after Rajiv was assassinated in 1991. (The non-charismatic non-leaders of Congress (I) party handed over the reins of the party to reluctant Sonia, who now leads the Congress party and soon will lead the Indian Union).

The Nehru-Khan-Gandhi dynasty and the veneration and worship of Catholic Italian Sonia Miano (Khan) Gandhi by the Congress party as well as Indian (both Hindus and Muslims) masses throughout India can be considered as great examples of Indian secularism.


The Nehru-Khan-Gandhi dynasty, revived by Sonia Gandhi, swept back to power with vengeance in 2004 elections after a brief vacation of about 15 years. Sonia Gandhi, who was born in Italy and married into the dynasty, begged her husband to stay out of politics and was drawn into it herself only when the party was in dire need of leadership. A new generation of Gandhis arrives to save ailing party from disaster at the polls. Sonia Gandhi (55) inducted her son Rahul (34) and daghter Priyanka (33) into politics and they actively participated and won in the recent elections. A calcified, out-of-touch, visionless and nepotistic dynasty is poised once again to lead and the dynasty rule continues in the world's largest democracy, albeit with fresh and young Indo-Italian genes having Brahmin-Christian-Muslim-Parsi blood with charming faces and charisma which no other Indian can claim. Sonia Gandhi's rise from a small-town in postwar Italy to modern India is a story of love, death and dynasty, culminating in the most sensational victory of an Italian middle class woman ever to become the kingmaker in the Indian Union of a billion people. She will run the country from behind scenes as she installs Manmohan Singh as the Prime Minister of the Indian Union, to avert a brewing foreigner-crisis and save the country. (unsigned)

How hard can this be to sort out? Do we have an authoritative source for Feroze's father's name? That would be a good start. DJ Clayworth 17:12, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

The http://www.vepachedu.org/ article is not credible.

  1. The "Mahatma adopting Feroze" story is highly unlikely (Mahatma preached abstinence, and Feroze was anything but that :).
  2. That he was still Feroze Khan when Indira met him contradicts Katherine Frank's Indira.
  3. The passage Another story, according to Mr. Arvind Lavakare in a personal communication to me, is that Feroz had a Parsi father whose surname was "GHANDI" not "GANDHI". That was made clear by an advertisement in a major English newspaper of Allahabad." sounds plausible. That it was Mahatma Gandhi who suggested to Nehru that Feroze's surname be spelt as "GANDHI" instead of the original "GHANDI" does not. Its possible that Feroze changed his name from Ghandi to Gandhi, but its doubtful that this was suggested by M. - I doubt M cared about the person-cult thing, and anyhow there was no Nehru-Gandhi cult at the time of M'd death, barely 5 months after independance.
  4. The possibility that Feroze's (or {F|Ph}{i|e}ro{z|j}[e]) father's name was Khan does not preclude him from having been a Parsi. In "Parsi Lustre on Indian Soil" (1939) there are references to the trading houses of "Burjorjee Khan & Co" and "Dinshaw Khan & Co.". The Khan Clock Tower in Colombo (Sri Lanka) was built by a Bhickajee Framjee Khan, who also owned the Colombo Oil Mills. In the same volumes, there are also references to three "Ghandy"s (no Ghandis though), including one doctor of medicine in Allahabad.
  5. That Feroze's father's first name was (supposedly) "Nawab" is almost certainly untrue - "nawab" is a title or honorific, not a first name. Some other sites mention Firoze's father having had a liquor shop. Can't say whether that assertion is true or not, but I don't think dealing with alchohol is a typical Muslim profession. :)
  6. If Feroze had really changed his name from Khan to Ghandi for political reasons (and no other), it would have crippled him politically, or minimally left him susceptible to attack by his political rivals.

other signs of the article's dubious quality:

  1. The article quotes "swordoftruth.com" as a source which doesn't resolve [1].
  2. The assertion that "an offspring takes on the religion of its mother, Feroz ought to be considered a Muslim" is (IMO) flakey. IIRC, Muslims take the religion of their fathers.
  3. Use of "inter-caste" to refer to iter-denomination marriage seems, uh, a bias push.
  4. I've never heard the term "Nehru-Khan-Gandhi dynasty", and I lived in India for 18 years.

Without any verifyable source to the contrary, I think I'll accept Katherine Frank's assertion that Feroze last name was Gandhi, and that he was a Parsi (particularly since one can't "become" a Parsi). -- Fullstop 16:33, 8 March 2006 (UTC)


Above, it has been written that various members of the Nehru-Khan-Gandhi Dynasty "RULED" India for various periods.

Prime Ministers are supposed to serve The Nation. They do not become Rulers on their being elected. When will people of India realise this?

It is a very well known fact that Firoze Gandhi was a Muslim and then converted his surname to Gandhi after being so advised. It was never the case that he was born a non-Muslim.

But it really is amazing to see how many religion conversion this so called 'Gandhi' family has gone through.

[edit] Sources for Parsi origin of Feroze Gandhi

Hi, The Hindu, a respected National Newspaper from India, features an article on Feroze Gandhi by Satya Prakash Malaviya, dated October 2002 -

http://www.hinduonnet.com/thehindu/mag/2002/10/20/stories/2002102000110500.htm

Mr. Malaviya, is a former Union Cabinet Minister of India, as can be noted from the official Indian Legislative Bodies website : http://legislativebodiesinindia.nic.in/LS/ataglace.htm

Also, Mr. Malaviya was a member of a Cabinet headed by V P Singh, and belonged to a party that had no allegiance at that time (1990-91) to the Gandhi family or the Congress Party.

Mr. Malaviya unambiguously refers to Mr. Gandhi as Parsi.

The Encyclopedia of Asian History's article on Indira Gandhi refers to Mahatma Gandhi's writing in his magazine Harijan referring to Feroze Gandhi's Parsi parentage. - http://www.asiasource.org/society/indiragandhi.cfm

The MSN Encarta's entry for Indira Gandhi is contributed by Leonard Gordon, Professor of History, Brooklyn College, City University of New York. - http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761562528/Indira_Gandhi.html. The article refers to Feroze's Parsi background.

The National Resource Centre for Women, part of the Ministry of Human Resource Development, the Government of India, provides a biography of Indira Gandhi, which refers to Feroze's family as Parsi. - http://nrcw.nic.in/shared/sublinkimages/149.htm

Parsi, of course, is NOT Muslim.

The site referred to in the Wikipedia article as the source for the alleged Muslim parentage of Feroze, www.vepachedu.org, is bewildering in it's content. It claims to be the website of an educational foundation, but carries highly opinionated articles on, amongst others, the President of India (http://www.vepachedu.org/kalam1.html). It has vituperative, unsubstantiated material about the Nehru-Gandhi family. It also has no verifiable source for it's assertion.

IMHO, the last paragraph in the Wikipedia article will have to be removed.

Sdsouza 15:28, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

I just read the other day that Feroze Gandhi's niece, something Dastur, sued the writer of the article proclaiming Feroze Gandhi to be Feroze Khan, for writing libel about him. Therefore, the Khan phenomena is not credible at all and cannot be used as a source. Afghan Historian 18:15, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

In fact, her name is Ratoo Dara Dastur. And I found the link. Its from the Indian Express: http://indianexpress.com/story/14895.html So much for "Feroze Khan" Afghan Historian 18:18, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

I don't claim to know if the "Feroze Khan" thing is real but just becuase she is suing someone does not prove her to be correct. Unless she wins the case it means nothing. Anyone can sue for anything. Proving your point and winning is different. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 171me (talk • contribs) 21:27, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

A birth certificate has been produced proving his ethnicity as Parsi. How does that sound for proof? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.255.202.121 (talk) 01:35, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Unsourced information removed.

I have removed the following information because it was unsourced and has been taged as such since february 2007:

The marriage of Feroze and Indira was tumultuous, as Indira began living with her father, who was alone, and cared for him personally and often acted as his private secretary. When he became an MP, Feroze started living in his own house in Delhi, away from his father-in-law and wife. This unwilling separation embittered Feroze, and it is speculated that he was having extra-marital affairs as a way of getting back at Indira.

Thank you for your cooperation in keeping wikipedia one of the best sources of open information. --CyclePat 22:26, 6 November 2007 (UTC)