Amitabh Bachchan

Bachchan was born on 11 October 1942 in Allahabad (now Prayagraj) to Hindi poet Harivansh Rai Bachchan and social activist Teji Bachchan. Harivansh Rai Bachchan was an Awadhi Hindu Kayastha, who was fluent in Awadhi, Hindi and Urdu. Harivansh's ancestors came from a village called Babupatti, in the Raniganj tehsil, in the Pratapgarh district, in the present-day state of Uttar Pradesh, in India. Teji Bachchan was a Punjabi Sikh Khatri from Lyallpur, Punjab, British India (present-day Faisalabad, Punjab, Pakistan). Bachchan has a younger brother, Ajitabh, who is five years younger than him.

Bachchan's parents were initially going to name him Inquilaab (Hindustani for "Revolution"), inspired by the phrase Inquilab Zindabad ("Long live the revolution") popularly used during the Indian independence struggle; the name Amitabh was suggested to his father by poet Sumitranandan Pant. Although his surname was Srivastava, Amitabh's father, who opposed the caste system, had adopted the pen name Bachchan ("child-like" in colloquial Hindi), under which he published all of his works. When his father was looking to get him admitted to a school, he and Bachchan's mother decided the family's name should be Bachchan instead of Shrivastava. It is with this last name that Amitabh debuted in films and used for all other practical purposes, Bachchan has become the surname for all of his immediate family. Bachchan's father died in 2003, and his mother in 2007.

Bachchan's secondary education was at Boys' High School & College in Allahabad and Sherwood College in Nainital. He attended Kirori Mal College at the University of Delhi in Delhi. He graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree from Kirori Mal College in 1962. When Bachchan finished his studies, his father approached Prithviraj Kapoor, the founder of Prithvi Theatre and patriarch of the Kapoor acting family, to see if there was an opening for him, but Kapoor offered no encouragement. Bachchan was a friend of Rajiv Gandhi and Sanjay Gandhi, before he became an actor. He used to spend time with them when he was a resident in New Delhi. Bachchan's family were very close to the Nehru-Gandhi family of politicians. When Sonia Gandhi first came to India from Italy before her marriage, Bachchan had received her at the Palam International Airport on 13 January 1968. She spent 48 days at Bachchan's house with his parents before her wedding to Rajiv.

In the late 1960s, Bachchan applied to be a newsreader for All India Radio in Delhi, but "failed the audition". He became a business executive for Bird & Company in Kolkata (Calcutta), and worked in theatre before starting his film career. It is thought that his mother might have had some influence on his choice of career, for she always insisted that he should "take centre stage".In 1984, Bachchan took a break from acting and briefly entered politics in support of a long-time family friend, Rajiv Gandhi. He contested the Allahabad's (presently Prayagraj Lok Sabha constituency) seat for the 8th Lok Sabha against H. N. Bahuguna, former Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh. With 68.2% of the votes in his favour, he won by one of the highest victory margins ever in Indian elections. In 1987, Indian Express said his brother Ajitabh Bachchan owned an apartment in Switzerland, giving rise to speculations about his involvement in the "Bofors scandal", revealed in the year before. Bachchan resigned from his seat in July 1987. Ajitabh Bachchan sued Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter for linking him to Bofors payments in 1990 and won damages in the United Kingdom. Sten Lindstrom, the Swedish police chief who had investigated the case, said in 2012 that "Indian investigators planted the Bachchan angle on" Dagens Nyheter.

Bachchan's old friend, Amar Singh, helped him during the financial crisis caused by the failure of his company, ABCL. Thereafter Bachchan started supporting the Samajwadi Party, the political party to which Amar Singh belonged. Jaya Bachchan joined the Samajwadi Party and represented the party as an MP in the Rajya Sabha. Bachchan appeared in advertisements and political campaigns for the party. His claim that he too was a farmer in the advertisements was questioned in court.

Bachchan has claimed to have been banned by film press during the emergency years for his family's friendship with Indira Gandhi.

Bachchan has been accused of using the slogan "blood for blood" in the context of the 1984 anti-Sikh riots. Bachchan has denied the allegation. In October 2014, Bachchan was summoned by a court in Los Angeles for "allegedly instigating violence against the Sikh community". Bachchan in an interview with journalist Arnab Goswami offered to fight the case in court and asked the accusers to file the same as also present proof. He was also one of the trustees of the Rajiv Gandhi Foundation.