| Rajiv Ratna Gandhi राजीव गांधी |
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|---|---|
| 6th Prime Minister of India | |
| In office 31 October 1984 – 2 December 1989 |
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| President | Zail Singh Ramaswamy Venkataraman |
| Preceded by | Indira Gandhi |
| Succeeded by | Vishwanath Pratap Singh |
| Minister of External Affairs | |
| In office 25 July 1987 – 25 June 1988 |
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| Preceded by | Narayan Dutt Tiwari |
| Succeeded by | Narasimha Rao |
| In office 31 October 1984 – 25 September 1985 |
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| Preceded by | Indira Gandhi |
| Succeeded by | Bali Ram Bhagat |
| Minister of Finance | |
| In office 24 January 1987 – 25 July 1987 |
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| Preceded by | Vishwanath Pratap Singh |
| Succeeded by | Narayan Dutt Tiwari |
| Minister of Defence | |
| In office 25 September 1985 – 24 January 1987 |
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| Preceded by | Narasimha Rao |
| Succeeded by | Vishwanath Pratap Singh |
| Personal details | |
| Born | 20 August 1944 Bombay, British India |
| Died | 21 May 1991 (aged 46) Sriperumbudur, India |
| Political party | Indian National Congress |
| Spouse(s) | Sonia Maino |
| Children | Rahul Priyanka |
| Alma mater | Trinity College, Cambridge Imperial College, London |
| Signature | |
Rajiv Ratna Gandhi /ˈrɑːdʒiːv ˈɡɑːndiː/ (Hindi: ; 20 August 1944 – 21 May 1991) was the sixth Prime Minister of India (1984–1989). He took office after his mother's assassination on 31 October 1984; he himself was assassinated on 21 May 1991. He became the youngest Prime Minister of India when he took office at the age of 40.
Rajiv Gandhi was the elder son of Indira and Feroze Gandhi. He went to study in Cambridge University but never completed his degree. He met Italian-born Sonia Gandhi in the city of Cambridge, whom he later married. After dropping out of university, he became a professional pilot for Indian Airlines. He remained aloof from politics despite his family's political prominence. It was only following the death of his younger brother Sanjay Gandhi in 1980 that Rajiv entered politics. Following the assassination of his mother in 1984 after Operation Blue Star, Indian National Congress party leaders nominated him to be Prime Minister.
Rajiv Gandhi led the Congress to a major election victory in 1984 soon after, amassing the largest majority ever in Indian Parliament. The Congress party won 411 seats out of 542. He began dismantling the License Raj - government quotas, tariffs and permit regulations on economic activity - modernized the telecommunications industry, the education system, expanded science and technology initiatives and improved relations with the United States.[1]
In 1988, Rajiv reversed the coup in Maldives antagonising the militant Tamil outfits such as PLOTE.[2] He was also responsible for first intervening and then sending Indian troops (Indian Peace Keeping Force or IPKF) for peace efforts in Sri Lanka in 1987, which soon ended in open conflict with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) group.[3] In mid-1987, his alleged Bofors scandal broke his honest, corruption-free image and resulted in a major defeat for his party in the 1989 elections.
Rajiv Gandhi remained Congress President until the elections in 1991. While campaigning, he was assassinated by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE or Tamil Tigers) group. His widow Sonia Gandhi became the leader of the Congress party in 1998, and led the party to victory in the 2004 elections. His son Rahul Gandhi is a Member of Parliament and the General Secretary of All India Congress Committee.[4]
Rajiv Gandhi was posthumously awarded the Highest National Award of India, Bharat Ratna (1991), joining a list of 40 luminaries, including Indira Gandhi.[5]
Rajiv Gandhi was an active amateur radio operator, and used the callsign VU2RG.[6]
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Rajiv Gandhi was born into India's most famous political family. His grandfather was the Indian independence leader Jawaharlal Nehru, who was India's first Prime Minister after independence.
Rajiv is not related to Mahatma Gandhi, although they share the same surname. Rajiv's father, Feroze, was one of the younger members of the Indian National Congress party, and had befriended the young Indira, and also her mother Kamala Nehru, while working on party affairs at Allahabad. Subsequently, Indira and Feroze grew closer to each other while in England, and they married, despite initial objections from Jawaharlal due to his religion (Zoroastrianism).[7]
Rajiv was born in 1944 in Mumbai, during a time when both his parents were in and out of British prisons. In August 1947, Jawaharlal Nehru became the prime minister of independent India, and the family settled in Allahabad, and then at Lucknow, where Feroze became the editor of The National Herald newspaper (founded by Motilal Nehru). However, the marriage was faltering and, in 1949, Indira and the two sons moved to Delhi to live with Jawaharlal, ostensibly so that Indira could assist her father in his duties, acting as official hostess, and helping run the huge residence. Meanwhile, Feroze continued alone in Lucknow. Nonetheless, in 1952, Indira helped Feroze manage his campaign for elections to the first Parliament of India from Rae Bareli.
After becoming an MP, Feroze Gandhi also moved to Delhi, but "Indira continued to stay with her father, thus putting the final seal on the separation."[8] Relations were strained further when Feroze challenged corruption within the Congress leadership over the Haridas Mundhra scandal. Jawaharlal suggested that the matter be resolved in private, but Feroze insisted on taking the case directly to parliament:
The scandal, and its investigation by justice M C Chagla, lead to the resignation of one of Nehru's key allies, finance minister T.T. Krishnamachari, further alienating Feroze from Jawaharlal.
After Feroze Gandhi had a heart attack in 1958, the family was reconciled briefly when they vacationed in Kashmir. However, Feroze died soon afterwards from a second heart attack in 1960.
At the time of his father's death, Rajiv was away at a private boarding school for boys: initially at the Welham Boys' School and later The Doon School, both located at Dehradun, Uttarakhand. He was sent to London in 1961 to study his A-levels. In 1962, he was offered a place at Trinity College, Cambridge to study engineering. Rajiv stayed at Cambridge until 1965 and just like his mother, he dropped out of university and did not appear in the final Tripos examinations. In 1966, he was offered a place at the Imperial College London. He again left Imperial College after a year without a degree.
In the January of 1965, he met Italian Antonia (Sonia) Maino in Varsity restaurant in Cambridge, where she worked as a waitress. Antonia was studying English at Lennox School of Languages (which was not associated with the University of Cambridge). Rajiv and Sonia were married in 1968 in India.
Rajiv began working for Indian Airlines as a professional pilot while his mother became Prime Minister in 1966. He exhibited no interest in politics and did not live regularly with his mother in Delhi at the Prime Minister's residence. In 1970, his wife gave birth to their first child Rahul Gandhi, and in 1972, to Priyanka Gandhi, their second. Even as Rajiv remained aloof in politics, his younger brother Sanjay became a close advisor to their mother.
Following his younger brother's death in 1980, Gandhi was pressured by Indian National Congress party politicians and his mother to enter politics. He and his wife were both opposed to the idea, and he even publicly stated that he would not contest for his brother's seat. Nevertheless, he eventually announced his candidacy for Parliament. His entry was criticized by many in the press, public and opposition political parties. He fought his first election from Amethi Loksabha seat. In this by-election, he defeated Lokdal leader Sharad Yadav by more than 200,000 votes.
Elected to Sanjay's Lok Sabha (parliamentary) constituency of Amethi in Uttar Pradesh state in February 1981, Gandhi became an important political advisor to his mother. It was widely perceived that Indira Gandhi was grooming Rajiv for the prime minister's job, and he soon became the president of the Youth Congress - the Congress party's youth wing.
Gandhi was in West Bengal when his mother, Indira Gandhi was assassinated on 31 October 1984 by two of her Sikh bodyguards, Satwant Singh and Beant Singh, to avenge the military attack on the Harmandir Sahib (Sikhism's holiest shrine, also called "The Golden Temple") during Operation Blue Star. Top Congress leaders, as well as President Zail Singh pressed Rajiv to become India's Prime Minister, within hours of his mother's assassination by two of her Sikh bodyguards. Commenting on the anti-Sikh riots in the national capital Delhi, Rajiv Gandhi said, "When a giant tree falls, the earth below shakes";[10] a statement for which he was widely criticised. Many Congress politicians were accused of orchestrating the violence.[11] Soon after assuming office, Rajiv asked President Zail Singh to dissolve Parliament and hold fresh elections, as the Lok Sabha completed its five year term. Rajiv Gandhi also officially became the President of the Congress party. The Congress party won a landslide victory — with the largest majority in history of Indian Parliament[12]— giving Gandhi absolute control of government. He also benefited from his youth and a general perception of being Mr. Clean, or free of a background in corrupt politics. Rajiv thus revived hopes and enthusiasm amongst the Indian public for the Congress.[13]
He increased government support for science and technology and associated industries, and reduced import quotas, taxes and tariffs on technology-based industries, especially computers, airlines, defence and telecommunications. He introduced measures significantly reducing the License Raj, allowing businesses and individuals to purchase capital, consumer goods and import without bureaucratic restrictions.[1] In 1986, he announced a National Policy on Education to modernize and expand higher education programs across India. He founded the Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalaya System in 1986 which is a Central government based institution that concentrates on the upliftment of the rural section of the society providing them free residential education from 6th till 12 grade.[14] His efforts created MTNL in 1986, and his public call offices, better known as PCOs, helped spread telephones in rural areas.[15]
Gandhi began leading in a direction significantly different from his mother's socialism. He improved bilateral relations with the United States — long strained owing to Indira's socialism and close friendship with the USSR — and expanded economic and scientific cooperation.[16] During his state visit to the Soviet Union he met with Premier Nikolai Tikhonov, Andrey Gromyko of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Mikhail Gorbachev.
Rajiv authorized an extensive police and Army campaign to contain terrorism in Punjab. A state of martial law existed in the Punjab state, and civil liberties, commerce and tourism were greatly disrupted.[17] There are many accusations of human rights violations by police officials as well as by the militants during this period. It is alleged that even as the situation in Punjab came under control, the Indian government was offering arms and training to the LTTE rebels fighting the government of Sri Lanka. The Indo-Sri Lanka Peace Accord was signed by Rajiv Gandhi and the Sri Lankan President J.R.Jayewardene, in Colombo on 29 July 1987. The very next day, on 30 July 1987, Rajiv Gandhi was assaulted on the head with a rifle butt by a young Sinhalese naval cadet named Vijayamunige Rohana de Silva, while receiving the honour guard. The intended assault on the back of Rajiv Gandhi's head however glanced off his shoulder. Though the embarrassed Sri Lankan President Junius Richard Jayewardene initially attempted to pass off the bizarre assault as "Rajiv tripped a little and slightly lost his balance", Rajiv Gandhi while en route to New Delhi asserted to J.N. Dixit "Of course, I was hit." Rajiv's government also suffered a major setback when its efforts to arbitrate between the government of Sri Lanka and the LTTE rebels backfired .
With his speech while addressing the Joint Session of the US Congress and India, he famously said, "India is an old country, but a young nation; and like the young everywhere, we are impatient. I am young and I too have a dream. I dream of an India, strong, independent, self reliant and in the forefront of the front ranks of the nations of the world in the service of mankind."[18]
This refers to the statement of Rajiv Gandhi as Prime Minister at a Boat Club rally 19-days after the assassination of Indira Gandhi, which read as “Some riots took place in the country following the murder of Indiraji. We know the people were very angry and for a few days it seemed that India had been shaken. But, when a mighty tree falls, it is only natural that the earth around it does shake a little.”[19]
This statement sent a wrong signal to the authorities, who adopted a callous approach of not allowing the truth to come out despite the government setting up probe panels one after the other, including two full fledged judicial commissions, the first headed by retired Chief Justice of India Ranganath Misra and the second by a former apex court judge G.T. Nanavati. According to the authors of the book titled - “When a Tree Shook Delhi” written by senior advocate H.S. Phoolka and co-author, journalist Manoj Mitta (who have based the details of the book mainly on evidence produced before the nine panels and trial courts and high courts in the form of sworn affidavits by hundreds of witnesses). Based on eyewitness accounts the book said that instead of targeting the aggressors the police cracked down on the Sikh victims, who had been defending their properties when they were attacked by hooligans led by local Congress leaders.[19]
Gandhi's finance minister, V. P. Singh, uncovered compromising details about government and political corruption, to the consternation of Congress leaders. Transferred to the Defence ministry, Singh uncovered what became known as the Bofors scandal, involving tens of millions of dollars - concerned alleged payoffs by the Swedish Bofors arms company through Italian businessman and Gandhi family associate Ottavio Quattrocchi, in return for Indian contracts. Upon the uncovering of the scandal, Singh was dismissed from office, and later from Congress membership. Rajiv Gandhi himself was later personally implicated in the scandal when the investigation was continued by Narasimhan Ram and Chitra Subramaniam of The Hindu newspaper. This shattered his image as an honest politician; he was posthumously cleared over this allegation in 2004, however.[20]
Singh's image as an exposer of government corruption made him very popular with the public , and opposition parties united under his name to form the Janata Dal coalition. In the 1989 elections, the Congress suffered a major setback. With the support of Indian communists and the Bharatiya Janata Party, Singh and his Janata Dal formed a government. Gandhi became the Leader of the Opposition, while remaining Congress president. While some believe that Rajiv and Congress leaders influenced the collapse of V. P. Singh's government in October 1990 by promising support to Chandra Shekhar, a high-ranking leader in the Janata Dal, sufficient internal contradictions existed, within the ruling coalition, especially over the controversial reservation issue, to cause a fall of government. Rajiv's Congress offered outside support briefly to Chandra Sekhar, who became Prime Minister. They withdrew their support in 1991, however, and fresh elections were announced.
Then Sri Lankan Prime Minister Ranasinghe Premadasa opposed the Indo-Sri Lanka Peace Accord, but accepted it due to pressure from then President Junius Richard Jayewardene. In January 1989 Premadasa was elected President and on a platform that promised that the Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF) leave within three months.[21] In the 1989 elections, both the Sri Lanka Freedom Party and United National Party wanted the IPKF to withdraw, and they got 95 percent of the vote.
The police action was unpopular in India as well, especially in Tamil Nadu, as India was fighting the Tamil separatists.
Gandhi refused to withdraw the IPKF, believing that the only way to end the civil war was to politically force Premadasa and militarily force the LTTE to accept the accord.
Rajiv had concluded a rather empty visit to Sri Lanka; this was just after the Indian Peace Keeping Force (a contingent of India armed forces sent to Sri Lanka to help with their battle against Tamil insurgents) had been recalled and there was a good deal of resentment that Indian troops had been deployed there.
During the ceremonial send off, he had to perform the usual inspection of the guard of honour at the airport. As he was doing so, a naval rating (sailor), who was part of the guard of honour contingent, reversed his rifle and tried to hit Rajiv on the head with it. Had he succeeded it may well have proved fatal. More than anything else it was Rajiv's own agility and quick reflexes that saved him. He darted to one side and at the same time the officer in charge of the guard of honour leapt at the man and pushed him aside, an act that caused the blow to lose some of its force. Nevertheless the rifle struck Rajiv a glancing blow on his shoulder. A split second later one of his Special Protection Group (that look after Indian VIP's security) men grabbed the rating and threw him to the ground.
In December 1989, Singh was elected Prime Minister and completed the pullout. The IPKF operation killed over 1100 Indian soldiers, 5000 Tamil civilians and cost over 10000 crores.[22][23]
In 1985, the Supreme Court of India ruled in favour of Muslim divorcee Shah Bano, declaring that her husband should give her alimony. Muslim fundamentalists in India treated it as an encroachment in Muslim Personal Law and protested against it. Gandhi agreed to their demands.[24] In 1986, the Congress (I) party, which had an absolute majority in Parliament at the time, passed an act that nullified the Supreme Court's judgement in the Shah Bano case. This was viewed by many in India, including the Bharatiya Janata Party as appeasement of Muslims. Some Congress members believed the same and they influenced Rajiv, to either revoke the act or to pacify Hindu Sentiments too. The opening up of the gates of the Ram Janmabhoomi - Babri Masjid Gates for worship of the Ram Lala Idols at Ayodhya was an event which would go on to haunt India for several years.
In November 1991, the Schweizer Illustrierte (Swiss Illustrated) magazine published an article on black money held in secret accounts by Imelda Marcos and 14 other rulers of Third World countries. Citing McKinsey as a source, the article stated that Rajiv Gandhi held 2.5 billion Swiss Francs in secret Indian accounts in Switzerland.[25][26] Several leaders of opposition parties in India have raised the issue citing the Schweizer Illustrierte article. In December 1991, Amal Datta raised the issue in the Indian Parliament - the then speaker of the Lok Sabha, Shivraj Patil, expunged Rajiv Gandhi's name from the proceedings.[27] In December 2011, Subramanian Swamy wrote a letter to the director of the Central Bureau of Investigation which cited the article, asking him to take action on black money accounts of the Gandhi family.[28] On December 29 2011, Ram Jethmalani made an indirect reference to the issue in the Rajya Sabha, calling it a shame that one of India's former Prime Ministers was named by a Swiss magazine. This was met by uproar and a demand for withdrawal of the remark by the ruling Congress party members.[29]
In 1992, two Indian newspapers, the Times of India and The Hindu, published reports alleging that Rajiv Gandhi had received funds from the KGB.[27][30] The Russian government confirmed this disclosure and defended the payments as necessary for the Soviet ideological interest.[31] In their 1994 book The State Within a State, the journalists Yevgenia Albats and Catherine Fitzpatrick quoted a letter signed by Viktor Chebrikov in the 1980s, the then-head of the KGB. The letter says that the KGB maintained contact with Rajiv Gandhi, who expressed his gratitude to the KGB for benefits accruing to his family from commercial dealings of a controlled firm, and a considerable portion of funds obtained from this channel were used to support his party.[32] Albats later revealed that in December 1985, Chebrikov had asked for authorization from the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union to make payments to family members of Rajiv Gandhi including Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi.[27][31] The payments were authorized by a resolution and endorsed by the USSR Council of Ministers, and had been coming since 1971.[31] In December 2001, Subramanian Swamy filed a writ petition in the Delhi High Court, acting on which the court ordered CBI to ascertain the truth of the allegations in May 2002. After two years, the CBI told the Court that Russia would not entertain such queries without a registered FIR.[31]
Rajiv Gandhi's last public meeting was at Sriperumbudur on 21 May 1991, in a village approximately 30 miles from Chennai, Tamil Nadu, where he was assassinated while campaigning for the Sriperumbudur Lok Sabha Congress candidate.[33] The assassination was carried out by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam.
At 10:10 p.m.,a woman (later identified as being named Thenmuli Rajaratnam) approached Rajiv Gandhi in a public meeting and greeted him. She then bent down to touch his feet (an expression of respect among Indians) and detonated a belt laden with 700 grams of RDX explosives tucked under her dress.[34] The explosion killed Rajiv Gandhi and many others. The assassination was caught on film through the lens of a local photographer, whose camera and film were found at the site. The cameraman himself died in the blast but the camera remained intact.
The Rajiv Gandhi Memorial was built at the site recently and is one of the major tourist attractions of the small industrial town.
The Supreme Court judgement, by Judge Thomas, confirmed that the killing was carried out due to personal animosity of the LTTE chief Prabhakaran towards Mr Rajiv Gandhi arising out of his sending the Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF) to Sri Lanka and the alleged IPKF atrocities against Srilankan Tamils. However, it should be noted that the Rajiv Gandhi administration had already antagonised other Tamil militant organisations like PLOTE for reversing the military coup in Maldives back in 1988.
The judgment further cites the death of Thileepan in a hunger strike and the suicide by 12 LTTE cadres in a vessel in Oct 1987.
In the Jain Commission report, various people and agencies are named as suspected of having been involved in the murder of Rajiv Gandhi. Among them, the cleric Chandraswami was suspected of involvement, including financing the assassination.[35][36][37] The interim report of the Jain Commission created a storm when it accused Karunanidhi of a role in the assassination, leading to Congress withdrawing its support for the I. K. Gujral government and fresh elections in 1998. LTTE spokesman Anton Balasingham told the Indian television channel NDTV that the killing was a "great tragedy, a monumental historical tragedy which we deeply regret."[38][39] A memorial christened Veer Bhumi was constructed at his cremation spot in Delhi. In 1992, the Rajiv Gandhi National Sadbhavana Award was instituted by All India Congress Committee (AICC) of the Indian National Congress Party (INC).
The International Airport constructed at Hyderabad has been named after Rajiv Gandhi and was inaugurated by UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi.
| Political offices | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by Indira Gandhi |
Prime Minister of India 1984–1989 |
Succeeded by Vishwanath Pratap Singh |
| Chairperson of the Planning Commission 1984–1989 |
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| Minister of External Affairs 1984–1985 |
Succeeded by Bali Ram Bhagat |
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| Preceded by Narasimha Rao |
Minister of Defence 1985–1987 |
Succeeded by Vishwanath Pratap Singh |
| Preceded by Vishwanath Pratap Singh |
Minister of Finance 1987 |
Succeeded by Narayan Dutt Tiwari |
| Preceded by Narayan Dutt Tiwari |
Minister of External Affairs 1987–1988 |
Succeeded by Narasimha Rao |
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