Thread by @mleccha

Today, 50 years ago, PM #IndiraGandhi, also India's first woman Finance Minister, nationalized 14 of the country's largest private banks.

Journalist Inder Malhotra wrote of that momentous day in 1969: "[Many] who had never seen the interior of a bank...danced in the streets."

This was K Shankar Pillai's cartoon of #IndiraGandhi the week after #BankNationalization. Indira holds in her hands the keys to the 14 nationalized banks along with the FM's briefcase.

To be sure, there was strident opposition to #BankNationalization, largely from within the PM's own party, the @INCIndia, and the liberal Swatantra Party. But as these other cartoons by Shankar reveal, #IndiraGandhi pressed on with skill and determination.

@INCIndia By August 1969, some wondered whether the banking sector was only the first of many industries to be nationalized. This cartoon by NK Ranganathan placed this popular speculation in the context of the Apollo 11 moon landing, which had also just occurred.

@INCIndia Some of that fear & speculation was also fed by members of the @INCIndia old guard opposed to #IndiraGandhi, a group then known as the Syndicate.

In this cartoon by Shankar, YB Chavan, Nijalingappa, Atulya Ghosh, Kamaraj & Morarji Desai wonder what the PM will take over next.

@INCIndia Here, cartoonist OV Vijayan rightly senses that #IndiraGandhi's #BankNationalization was at least partly a means of framing herself as a socialist, opposed both to Communism & the reactionary values of the Syndicate, which aided her leadership struggle within the @INCIndia.

@INCIndia One member of the Syndicate initially opposed to #IndiraGandhi was YB Chavan, former CM of Maharashtra, Defence Min in Nehru's and Shastri's cabinet, and Home Min in Indira's. He is seen as a fence-sitter here, but would eventually side with Gandhi during the @INCIndia split.

@INCIndia As the months rolled by, #BankNationalization would be associated in the popular imagination with schemes to end poverty, which eventually culminated in #IndiraGandhi's "Garibi Hatao" (Remove Poverty) slogan during the 1971 election campaign.

@INCIndia Unless otherwise indicated, all cartoons are by Shankar, and appeared in Shankar's Weekly, between July - September, 1969. 🇮🇳