Born: August 20, 1944
Martyrdom: May 21, 1991
Achievements: Became Prime Minister of India at the age of 40.
Led Congress to its greatest victory in the Lok Sabha elections, winning
about 80 per cent of seats. Played a key role in the introduction of
computers in India.
Rajiv Gandhi was the youngest Prime Minister of India. He became Prime
Minister at the age of 40. Rajiv Gandhi came from a family that had
great political lineage. He was the eldest son of Indira and Feroze
Gandhi. Her mother Indira Gandhi and grandfather Jawaharlal Nehru were
Prime Ministers of India. As a Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi made a
valuable contribution in modernizing Indian administration. He had the
vision and foresight to see that information technology will play a key
role in the 21 century and worked actively to develop India's capacity
in this realm.
Rajiv Gandhi was born on August 20, 1944 in Bombay (Mumbai) in India's most
famous political family. His grandfather Jawaharlal Nehru played a
stellar role in India's freedom struggle and became independent India's
first Prime Minister. His parents lived separately and Rajiv Gandhi was
raised at his grandfather's home where her mother lived. Rajeev Gandhi
did his schooling from the elite Doon school and then studied at the
University of London and at Trinity College, Cambridge in Britain. At
Cambridge, Rajiv Ghandi met and fell in love with an Italian student
Sonia Maino and they got married in 1969.
Returning to India, Rajeev Ghandi became a commercial airline pilot.
His younger brother Sanjay Gandhi entered politics and became a trusted
lieutenant of her mother Indira Gandhi. After Sanjay's death in a plane
crash in 1980, Rajiv reluctantly entered politics at the instance of his
mother. He won his first Lok Sabha election in 1981 from Amethi-the
erstwhile constituency of his brother. Soon he became the General
Secretary of the Congress Party. After the assassination of Indira
Gandhi in October 1984 he became the Prime Minister of India at the age
of 40. He called for general elections in 1984 and riding on a massive
sympathy wave led Congress to a thumping victory. Congress garnered 80
percent of the seats in the lower house and achieved its greatest
victory since independence.
In his initial days as Prime Minister, Rajiv Gandhi was immensely
popular. During his tenure as Prime Minister of India, he brought a
certain dynamism to the premiership, which had always been occupied by
older people. He is credited with promoting the introduction of
computers in India. Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi began leading in a
direction significantly different from Indira Gandhi's socialism. He
improved bilateral relations with the United States 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 worked towards
reducing the red tape in the governance and freeing administration from
bureaucratic tangles. In 1986, Rajiv Gandhi announced a national
education policy to modernize and expand higher education programs
across India.
Rajiv Gandhi authorised an extensive police and army campaign against
the militants in Punjab. Rajiv's government suffered a major setback
when its efforts to broker peace between the Government of Sri Lanka and
the LTTE rebels backfired. As per the peace accords signed in 1987, the
LTTE would disarm to the Indian Peace Keeping Force which was sent to
Sri Lanka. But distrust and a few incidents of conflict broke out into
open fighting between the LTTE
militants
and Indian soldiers. Over a thousand Indian soldiers were killed, and at
last Rajiv Gandhi had to pull out Indian forces from Sri Lanka. It was a
failure of Rajiv's diplomacy.
Although Rajeev Gandhi promised to end corruption, he and his party
were themselves implicated in corruption scandals. The major scandal
being Bofors Gun scandal involving alleged payoffs by the Swedish Bofors
arms company. The scandal rapidly eroded his popularity and he lost the
next general elections held in 1989. A coalition comprising government
came to the power but it could not last its full term and general
elections were called in 1991. While campaigning for elections in
Sriperumbudur, Tamil Nadu, Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated on May 21, 1991
by a suicide bomber belonging to LTTE.
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