Indira was an intellectual in many ways: Jairam Ramesh

Indira Gandhi was an intellectual in many ways, although people tend to be influenced more by her role as a politician, senior Congress leader Jairam Ramesh said today, releasing a book on the former prime minister.

He added that Gandhi was a remarkable letter writer and that she and her father, Jawaharlal Nehru, had exchanged 575 letters over a period of 25 years.

Most people thought Nehru was the more prolific letter-writer and an intellectual, but almost half of those 575 letters were written by Gandhi, the former Union minister said.

"There is a tendency to underestimate Indira Gandhi. We are awed by Indira Gandhi the politician, but we tend not to think of her as an intellectual which she really was in many ways," Ramesh said.

The former Union environment minister dubbed the book "Indira", a graphic biography of the former prime minister, as "an unusual book about an unusual personality".

The book is authored by ??Devapriya Roy and illustrated by Priya Kuriyan.