Garibi Hatao

Garibi Hatao Desh Bachao was the theme and slogan of Indira Gandhi's 1971 election campaign. The slogan and the proposed anti-poverty programs that came with it were designed to give Gandhi an independent national support, based on rural and urban poor, which would allow her to by-pass the dominant rural castes both in and out of state and local government; likewise the urban commercial class. And, for their part, the previously voiceless poor would at last gain both political worth and political weight.