Where Would Indira Gandhi Have Been Without Suffragettes?

Although there had been a few scattered examples of heiresses taking over domains in precolonial Indian history, I have to wonder would Indira Gandhi have had any but the most behind-the-scenes role after her father's death had the British and US American suffragettes not paved the way in showing that women could actively participate in a representative government?
I don't recall Mrs. Gandhi ever acknowledging any debt to them but without them I seriously doubt Nehru's plans to make his only child the heiress to his dynasty would have not been totally blown off nor would Nehru himself considered it.
 
Well, I have semi- seriously suggested that we might all be better off if the Suffragettes had remained a militant pressure group embarrassing and humiliating politicians and causing interestingly disruptive criminal damage; I can think of a great many politicians who the public would be well served by having them damaged, for one thing. (Who, of course, varies according to taste.)

But I don't seriously think it could be done, not without extreme departures from reality. There are societies in which women are not represented nor will be in the foreseeable future, mostly middle eastern and african, but I cannot see any obvious way short of asteroid impact and return to neobarbarism in which this would be the case in Europe.
 
Top