Rajiv Gandhi

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

राजीव गान्धी Rajiv Gandhi
9th Prime Minister of India
In office October 31, 1984 – December 2, 1989
Preceded by	Indira Gandhi
Succeeded by	V. P. Singh
Born	August 20, 1944 Mumbai, Bombay Presidency,  British India
Died	May 21, 1991 Sriperumbudur, TN
Political party	Indian National Congress

Rājiv Ratna Gāndhī (Devanāgarī: राजीव रत्न गान्धी, IPA: [raːdʒiːv gaːnd̪ʰiː]) (August 20, 1944 – May 21, 1991), the eldest son of Indira and Feroze Gandhi, was the 9th Prime Minister of India (and the 3rd from the Gandhi family) from his mother's death on 31 October 1984 until his resignation on December 2, 1989 following a general election defeat. Becoming the Prime Minister of India at the age of 40, he is the youngest person to date to hold that office.

Rajiv Gandhi worked as a professional pilot for Indian Airlines before coming into politics. He was married to Edvige Antonia Albina Maino (Sonia Gandhi)) , an Italian national he met while in college. He remained aloof from politics despite his mother being the Indian Prime Minister, and it was only following the death of his younger brother Sanjay Gandhi in 1980 that Rajiv was convinced to enter politics. Upon the assassination of his mother in 1984 due to her involvement in Operation Blue Star, Congress party leaders convinced him to become the new Prime Minister. Rajiv Gandhi led the Congress to a major election victory in 1984 soon after, amassing the largest majority in Parliament. He had the public image of being young, modern and Mr. Clean - an honest leader free of machine politics and corruption. 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. He also was responsible for sending Indian troops for peace efforts in Sri Lanka, which soon ended in open conflict with the LTTE, which Rajiv refused to pullout and was withdrawn by V.P.Singh . The Bofors scandal broke his honest, corruption-free image and resulted in a major defeat for his party in the 1989 elections. He was awarded the Bharat Ratna posthumously in 1991.

Rajiv Gandhi remained the Congressional leader till the elections in 1991. He was assassinated while campaigning, by a female LTTE suicide bomber Thenmuli Rajaratnam. His Italian-born 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.

[edit] Early life & Education

Rajiv Gandhi was born in India's most famous political family. His grandfather was the Indian independence leader Jawaharlal Nehru, who would become India's first Prime Minister after independence. He was no blood relation of Mahatma Gandhi despite his name. Rajiv and his younger brother Sanjay were raised in Allahabad and Delhi, but suffered from the separation of their mother, who lived with Nehru to care for him, and their father Feroze Gandhi. Even as his parents were reconciled in 1958, Feroze died from a heart attack in 1959. Rajiv was educated at two highly exclusive private boarding schools for boys: at the Welham Boys' School and The Doon School, and he later attended university in the United Kingdom, at Imperial College London, part of the University of London, and at the University of Cambridge, but he did not receive a degree. At Cambridge, he met and fell in love with an Italian student Sonia Maino. Maino's family opposed the match, but Maino came to India to Rajiv and they married in 1969.

Gandhi began working for Indian Airlines as a professional pilot even as 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 Rahul, his first child, and in 1972, Priyanka, his second child and only daughter. Even as Gandhi remained aloof, his younger brother Sanjay became a close advisor to their mother.

[edit] Entry into politics

It was following his younger brother's death in 1980 that Rajiv was pressured by Congress politicians and his mother to enter politics. Rajiv and his wife were both opposed to the idea, and Rajiv even publicly stated that he would not contest for his brother's seat, but he finally accepted his mother's urging and announced his candidacy for Parliament. His entry was criticized by many in the press, public and opposition political parties, who saw the role of Nehru's dynasty intensifying in Indian politics.

Elected for Sanjay's Lok Sabha (parliamentary) constituency of Amethi in Uttar Pradesh state in February 1981, Rajiv 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 Rajiv soon became the president of the Youth Congress - the Congress party's youth wing.

[edit] Prime Minister

Rajiv was in West Bengal when Indira Gandhi was assassinated on October 31, 1984. 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. Some accuse him of not doing enough to stop the anti-Sikh riots which ensued, killing more than 5,000 people. Commenting on the violence, he said, "'When a giant tree falls, the earth below shakes". Many Congress politicians were blamed for orchestrating the violence. Assuming office, Rajiv asked President Zail Singh to dissolve Parliament and hold fresh elections, as the current Lokh Sabha had neared its five year term completion . Rajiv Gandhi also officially became the President of the Congress.

Owing largely to the feelings of sympathy in wake of Indira's murder, the Congress party won a landslide victory - the margin of majority in Parliament was the largest in Indian history, giving Rajiv absolute control of government. Rajiv Gandhi also benefited from his youth and a general perception of being Mr. Clean, or free of a background in corrupt, machine politics. Rajiv thus revived hopes and enthusiasm amongst the Indian public for the Congress.

Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi began leading in a direction significantly different from Indira Gandhi'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. 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 red-tape and bureaucratic restrictions. In 1986, Rajiv announced a national education policy to modernize and expand higher education programs across India. Rajiv Gandhi was the founder of Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalaya System in the year 1986.

Rajiv authorized an extensive police and Army campaign to contain terrorism in Punjab. A state of martial law existed in the region, and civil liberties, commerce and tourism were greatly disrupted. There are many accusations of human rights violations by police officials as well as by the terrorists in this period, but the militancy was brought under control. 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 July 29, 1987. The very next day, on July 30, 1987, Rajiv Gandhi was assaulted publicly by a Sinhalese naval rating named Vijayamunige Rohana de Silva, while receiving honor guard. Though the embarrassed Sri Lankan President J.R.Jayewardene initially attempted to pass off the bizarre assault as "Rajiv tripped a little and slightly lost his balance", Rajiv Gandhi while enroute to New Delhi asserted to J.N. Dixit who was in charge of arranging that disastrous visit, "What is all this nonsensical speculation. Of course, I was hit." Rajiv's government suffered a major setback when its efforts to arbitrate between the Government of Sri Lanka and the LTTE rebels backfired.

[edit] Bofors scandal

Main article: Bofors scandal

Rajiv with Dr M. G. Ramachandran

Rajiv with Dr M. G. Ramachandran and President R.Venkatraman at the unvieling of the statue of Poet Subramania Barathi

Rajiv's finance minister, Vishwanath Pratap 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 an Italian businessman and Gandhi family associate, Ottavio Quattrocchi, in return for Indian contracts. Upon the uncovering of the scandal, Singh was conspicuously 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, shattering his image as an honest politician, however, he was cleared over this allegation in 2004 ^[1]

V. P. 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, V. P. Singh and his Janata Dal formed a government. Rajiv 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 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. But this support was withdrawn in 1991 and fresh elections were announced.

[edit] Sri Lanka Policy

The Indo-Sri Lanka Peace Accord signed was opposed by the then Sri Lankan Prime Minister Premadasa and was forced to accept it due to pressure from then President Jayewardene, in January 1989 Premadasa was elected President and he demanded in that IPKF leave within 3 months.^[2]In the 1989 elections both the SLFP and UNP wanted the IPKF to withdraw and they got 95% of the vote. India was fighting the LTTE. This war was unpopular in India in particular Tamil Nadu. IPKF was accused of human rights violations in Sri Lanka. Public opinion both in India and Sri Lanka and both Tamil and Sinhala were against Gandhi's Sri Lanka policy.^[3] Rajiv Gandhi refused to withdraw the IPKF in a situation which clearly pointed at the failure of his Sri Lanka policy both diplomatically and militarily. Rajiv believed that the only way he could succeed was to politically force Premadasa and militarily force the LTTE to accept the accord. Meanwhile in December 1989 Indian elections V.P.Singh became the Prime Minister and he saw that Rajiv 's Sri Lanka policy was a miserable failure as the IPKF operation cost over 1100 Indian soldiers lives, over 5000 Sri Lankan Tamil lives and cost over 2000 crores and politically, diplomatically and militarily it was a stalemate .^[4][5]

[edit] Assassination

Rajiv Gandhi's last public meeting was at Sriperumbudur on May 21, 1991, in a city close to Chennai, where he was assassinated while campaigning for the Sriperumbudur Lok Sabha Congress candidate Mrs Maragatham Chandrasekhar in Tamil Nadu. ^[6] The assassination was carried out by the LTTE suicide bomber Thenmuli Rajaratnam also known as Dhanu.

[edit] Supreme Court Judgement

As per the Indian Supreme Court judgement, by Judge Thomas, the killing was carried out due to personal animosity of the LTTE chief Prabhakaran towards Mr Rajiv Gandhi arising out of his sending the IPKF to Sri Lanka and the alleged IPKF atrocities against Tamils. The judgement further cites the death of Thileepan in a hunger strike and the suicide by 12 LTTE cadres in a vessel in Oct 1987. The judgement while convicting the accused, four of them to death and others to various jail terms, states that absolutely no evidence existed that any one of the conspirators ever desired the death of any Indian other than Rajiv Gandhi, though several people were killed. Judge Wadhwa further states there is nothing on record to show that the intention to kill Rajiv Gandhi was to overawe the Government. Hence it was held that it was not a terrorist act under TADA (Act).^{[7] [8]} Judge Thomas further states that conspiracy was hatched in stages commencing from 1987 and that it spanned several years. Indian agency, CBI's, Special Investigation team was not able to pinpoint when the decision to kill Rajiv Gandhi was taken.

[edit] Trial

The trial was conducted under the Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act (TADA). The designated TADA court in Chennai gave death sentences to all the 26 accused. This created a storm in India. Legal experts were stunned.^[9] Human rights groups protested as the trial did not meet standards of a free trial. ^[10][11]The trial was held behind closed doors, in camera courts, and the non-disclosure of identity of witnesses was maintained. Ms A. Athirai, an accused, was only 17 years when she was arrested. Under TADA an accused can appeal only to the Supreme Court. Appeal to the High Court is not allowed as in normal law. ^[12]Confessions given by the accused to the Superintendent of Police are taken as evidence against the accused under TADA.Under TADA the accused could be convicted on the basis of minimal evidence that would have been insufficient for conviction by an ordinary court under normal Indian law. In the Rajiv Gandhi case confessions by accused formed a major part of the evidence in the judgement against them which they later claimed was taken under duress.^[13] There were widespread allegations that police routinely used torture to obtain confessions from detainees and/or planted evidence as a means of detaining them under TADA in all TADA cases. ^[14] On appeal to the Supreme Court, only four of the accused were sentenced to death and the others to various jail terms.

[edit] Jain Commission and Other Reports

In the Jain 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.^{[15][16] [17]} One of the accused, Ranganath, said Chandraswami was the godfather who financed the killing.^[18] Sikh Militants were also suspected.^[19][20] The interim report of the Jain Commission created a storm when it accused Karunanidhi and the Tamils 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." ^[21][22] A memorial christened Veer Bhumi was constructed at his cremation spot.

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Supreme Court Judgement by Judge Thomas
• Supreme Court Judgement by Judge Quadari
• Supreme Court Judgement by Judge Wadhwa
• TERRORIST AND DISRUPTIVE ACTIVITIES (PREVENTION) ACT, 1987
• Denial of fair trial leads to Death Sentences

[edit] Further reading

• Sachi Sri Kantha; Pirabhakaran Phenomenon, Lively Comet Imprint,2005;641 pp (chapters 24 to 35, pp.207-352, cover in detail the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi)
• "Working with Rajiv Gandhi" by R.D. Pradhan