Question

a short note on the new initiative in the rajiv gandhi era

Answer 1

Gandhi was a scion of the politically powerful Nehru–Gandhi family, which had been associated with the Indian National Congressparty. For much of his childhood, his maternal grandfather Jawaharlal Nehru was Prime Minister. Gandhi attended college in the United Kingdom. He returned to India in 1966 and became a professional pilot for the state-owned Indian Airlines. In 1968 he married Sonia Gandhi; the couple settled in Delhi to a domestic life with their children Rahul Gandhiand Priyanka Gandhi Vadra. For much of the 1970s, his mother Indira Gandhi was prime minister and his brother Sanjay Gandhi an MP; despite this, Rajiv Gandhi remained apolitical. After Sanjay's death in an aeroplane crash in 1980, Gandhi reluctantly entered politics at the behest of Indira. The following year he won his brother's Parliamentary seat of Amethi and became a member of the Lok Sabha—the lower house of India's Parliament. As part of his political grooming, Rajiv was made a general secretary of the Congress party and given significant responsibility in organising the 1982 Asian Games

Answer 2

When you look at the Rajiv Gandhi era the first impression you get is that here was a reluctant entrant into politics who was forced to take the reins of power upon the assassination of his mother and former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, who was in a hurry to find a quick fix to complex problems like Punjab, Assam and Sri Lanka, ushered in a technological revolution, brought in far-reaching changes in the polity by enacting laws to ban defection and by introducing the panchayat raj system, took early steps to liberalise the licence-permit raj and wanted to take India into the 21 century, but did not live to see it.

No leader, not even Indira and Nehru, had the kind of support he got in 1984 with three-fourths majority in Parliament. And no other leader let all that goodwill fritter away as he did in the Bofors payoff scandal to be voted out within five years. The cruelest irony was that Indira created two monsters — Bhindranwale in Punjab and Velupillai Prabhakaran in Sri Lanka. The former claimed her life and the latter her son’s.

The author, former Secretary-General of Lok Sabha and an authority on election laws and parliamentary practices, makes it clear at the very outset that it is “not a political book, nor is it some kind of biography”, but rather a study of Rajiv Gandhi's contributions during his five-year tenure as Prime Minister which “by any yardstick can be described as a period of resurgence”. The epilogue deals with the final phase of Rajiv’s life after he lost power and narrates the events leading upto his assassination in Sriperumbudur on May 21, 1991 by a Sri Lankan Tamil Tiger human bomb Dhanu.

The author feels Rajiv Gandhi is one of India’s” most misunderstood Prime Ministers” and he did not get the benefit of “an objective and balanced appraisal” of his tenure. So we know where his sympathies lie.

Sample this:” The choice of Rajiv Gandhi as the next Prime Minister was natural in the circumstances”… as “the sudden removal of a strong and popular leader like Indira Gandhi created a vacuum that could not have been filled by any other Minister in the Cabinet for the simple reason that none of them would remotely be regarded as a national leader”.

Never mind Pranab Mukherjee. What about Rajiv Gandhi, a greenhorn? Whenever a society faces an existential crisis. “a leader emerges to lead it and take it forward” And “ the emergence of Rajiv Gandhi was a historic inevitability”.

Right through Rajiv is handled with a kid glove. After getting an overwhelming mandate from the people in December 1984, Rajiv took up the first legacy of his mother, the Punjab militancy after the Operation Blue Star. And he signed an agreement with Sant Longowal in July 1985.

Writing with the benefit of the hindsight, the author says the accord” was a great political triumph for Rajiv Gandhi” and it proved that “even the most intractable problem could be solved if there was political will”. As it happened, Sant Longowal was assassinated in August 1985. The author acknowledges that it was a big setback.

The accord ran into rough weather and it had no impact on militants who killed over 1,000 in the first five months of 1988. It worsened until Operation Black Thunder in May 1988 was launched to flush out militants from the Golden Temple, It was a great success and Rajiv played a major role in it .

Sustained security operations ensured that militancy was contained and issues like the Anandpur Sahib resolution, transfer of Chandigarh to Punjab, sharing of river water, etc slowly disappeared from public debate, says the author in order to show that the Punjab problem lost its sting during Rajiv’s lifetime.

Far from it. Miltancy continued unabated right upto the tenure of Bent Singh as Chief Minister from 1992 to 1995. In fact, he himself was assassinated on August 31, 1995. It died a slow death after ruthless and sustained police operations under K P SGill.