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Today India marks the 25th anniversary of the assassination of prime minister Indira Gandhi. She was shot near the front gate of her home by two Sikh bodyguards, in an apparent reprisal for her decision to send the army in to rout militants from the Golden Temple, Sikhdom's holiest shrine.

Her murder set off days of anti-Sikh riots, in which at least 3,000 people were killed here in Delhi.

Mrs. Gandhi's strong-featured face - the hawk nose, the swooping dark eyebrows, the white streak in her hair - is everywhere in Delhi today. Government ministries and political parties often compete to outdo each other with newspaper advertisements on the death anniversaries (and sometime also birthdays) of this country's top political figures - last month it was Mahatma Gandhi, lovingly invoked on his birthday on every second newspaper page.

The first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, and his grandson - assassinated prime minister Rajiv Gandhi - also get the full-page-ad treatment too, in papers of every language. Some billboards honour Mrs. Gandhi today (colouring the letter "R" in her first name a different shade, to make a play on India) and TV channels continually replay footage showing her surviving family as they prayed at her memorial this morning.

Most of the portraits show Mrs. Gandhi with softened features, or a small smile, a gentler image than the Iron Lady personae for which she is more commonly remembered. And many of the advertisements are poignant, regardless of whether one remembers her as a visionary leader or a tyrant (and there are ardent camps of both here.)

Some of the ads contain quotes by her, words uttered not long before her brutal killing, such as "I shall continue to serve the nation until my last breath, and when I die, I can say that every drop of my blood will invigorate India and strengthen it."

Another, placed by her Congress Party, reads, "If I die a violent death as some fear and a few are plotting, I know the violence will be in the thought and the action of the assassin, not in my dying -- for no hate is dark enough to overshadow the extent of my love for my people and my country; no force is strong enough to divert me from my purrose and my endeavour to take this country forward."

But the more interesting ads, anthropologically, are the ones that speak to what's changed in India since the 15 years, all told, that she ruled it.

The government of the state of Maharashtra, for example, addresses her in a sort of open letter, wishing to let her know that, "The nation is on the threshold of becoming a super power on all fronts", an achievement it credits to her vision and her guiding spirit.

Mrs. Gandhi, however, was responsible for - among other things - an alliance with the Soviets, bank and industry nationalizations and other policies which left India's economy moribund. And then of course there is the infamous "Emergency" - the lone suspension of democracy in India's independent history.

As discreet debate in today's media suggest, there are as many people here who believe that India has its emerging superpower status today only after recovering from Indira Gandhi's rule, as there are those who credit her with building the foundation.

In an ad from the Ministry of Steel, her championing of industry is gratefully recalled; the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas thanks her for encouraging renewable energy sources. Less encouraging is a loving ad from the Ministry of Women and Child Development, which remembers her for founding the Integrated Child Development Service, intended to end child malnutrition, guarantee children were immunized and boost primary education.

Twenty-five years after her death, India continues to perform dismally in all these areas - just under half of all Indian children, for example, are malnourished.

The anti-Sikh riots that followed Mrs. Gandhi's assassination - which the government waited three full days to quell - remain a volatile political issue. For example, in elections earlier this year, an embarrassed Congress party fielded a candidate whom the party was later forced to drop, because he allegedly helped instigate the riots. Nearly every commentator today makes passing mention of the fact that Mrs. Gandhi refused to replace her Sikh bodyguards after the Golden Temple events, a decision that still seems like a powerful vote against sectarianism in a country where religious division has lessened, but far from disappeared.

Read more posts from Stephanie Nolen's Subcontinental blog