Remembering Rajiv, who had a passion for India’s greatness

Today, May 21, is  Rajiv Gandhi’s 27th death anniversary

Forty-seven years ago, this day, India lost the 47-year-old Rajiv Gandhi — a former Prime Minister to a human bomb in Tamil Nadu’s Sriperumbudur. The country wept, the world mourned. As many as 63 world leaders joined lakhs of Indians at his funeral on the banks of Yamuna adjoining Rajghat. This bore testimony, as the then President R. Venkataraman said, to the stature that Rajiv had acquired among world statesmen in the short span of five years during which he was Prime Minister. Venkataraman went on to add: Rajiv’s contribution in the international sphere lived up to the standards set by Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira Gandhi. Rajiv’s response to the call for assistance by Sri Lanka in 1987 and later from the Maldives showed his commitment to Saarc. His visit to Beijing in December 1988 and his pathbreaking talks with China’s then paramount leader Deng Xiaoping is acknowledged as a turning point in the history of our relations with that ancient neighbour of ours. The Six-Nation Five-Continent initiative on disarmament with a time-bound plan of action and the improvement in our bilateral relations with the US are Rahiv Gandhi’s major contributions. The historic Delhi Declaration of November 1986, calling for nuclear-free non-violent world, set the pace for subsequent steps culminating in the Soviet-American Start (Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty) agreement. The setting up of the Africa Fund, of which he was the chairman to assist front-line states to fight the pernicious system of apartheid and his personal efforts towards Namibian freedom, won his Africa’s eternal friendship. On North-South issues, South-South Cooperation and protection of the environment, Rajiv articulated Indian opinion in a manner that compelled international attention.

Rajiv had become Prime Minister at a very critical juncture in the country’s post-Independence history. He was sworn in on October 31, 1984, an hour after his mother and Prime Minister Indira Gandhi had been assassinated. He had hardly any time to come to terms with his personal grief, but he rose to the occasion suppressing his own sorrow to provide succour to the victims of violence following Indira Gandhi’s murder. Recalled the then home minister (later Prime Minister) P.V. Narasimha Rao: “The violence began to snowball into near uncontrollable frenzy… Rajiv Gandhi took matters in hand. He showed his mettle early in the day. He rose above the tragedy, which was for him also a very personal one and dealt with the situation with determination and sense of purpose. The situation was contained. He succeeded in bringing back not only a sense of security among the people but also, over a period of time, succeeded in instilling in them a spirit of dynamism and securing for India a place of importance in the international scene.”

According the highest priority to the preservation of India’s unity and integrity, the young Prime Minister at 40, the youngest ever, strove to find solutions to some of the seemingly intractable problems on the domestic scene. His efforts bore fruit in the very first year of his prime ministership, and in 1985, he signed the Punjab, Assam and Mizo accords thus consolidating the nation’s unity, which had come under threat in the last few years. Rajiv realised that his party’s interest will have to be sacrificed and paved the way for formation of non-Congress governments in these states to ensure that the agitating leaders and their outfits become part of the mainstream. Rajiv had realised early that if India had to make rapid progress, it could be only through massive application of science and technology, accepting modern methods of management while opening the economy to competition. He exhorted scientists: “We must learn from what we have done, and we must take that jump and get to the front to the cutting edge of research, the cutting edge of technology.” He launched “technology missions” in areas he identified needed immediate attention for the benefit of people. The six missions were:

•  Drinking water
•  Literacy
•  Immunisation of pregnant woman and children
•  White Revolution to promote milk production
•  Edible oil production and
•  Telecommunications to connect every village

A big push was given to India’s computerisation programme, which was ridiculed by many short-sighted Opposition leaders. Rajiv rightly ignored all their misgiving and went ahead with his farsighted policy, the fruits of which India is enjoying today and has become a leading software and IT power in the world.

To benefit millions of the rural poor, Rajiv introduced the Jawahar Rozgar Yojana or employment scheme, which aimed at providing employment to at least one member of every rural poor family for 50-100 days in the year. The Central government promised to meet 80 per cent of the cost of the scheme. The new education policy too had its focus on the rural areas and the poor, with its main planks being the literacy campaign, Operation Blackboard (which aimed at providing basic amenities to schools) and distance education. Navodaya Vidyalayas were set up, aimed at providing quality education to the children of poor rural families who were to be chosen by merit for free education and stay in residential schools to be set up in every district. The protection of the environment was a project close to Rajiv’s heart, and among other things he launched a massive effort to clean river Ganga, which had become heavily polluted in many parts. He created a new ministry for environment and environmental clearance for big projects was made mandatory.

Rajiv made earnest efforts to clean up the electoral system by introducing greater openness, accountability, and taking legislative and other measures to eliminate political and bureaucratic corruption. Among these was the Anti-Defection Act, drafted after discussions with Opposition parties and passed in 1985, which laid down that one-third of the members of a political party in Parliament would have to change loyalties for it to be recognised as a split in a party. Any other defections would invite expulsion from the House. This was meant to check the tendency of horse trading and shifting party loyalties that was becoming a bane of the Indian political system. Unfortunately, horse-trading continues as political parties have invented new ways to circumvent the policy.

Amongst the monumental contributions of the Rajiv Gandhi government was the bringing forward of a legislation to make elections to panchayat institutions and Nagar Palikas mandatory reserving 33 per cent seats for women. This revolutionary step has not only strengthened democracy at the grassroots, as envisioned by the Mahatma and India’s first Prime Minister, but has been a gigantic leap towards women empowerment after the Hindu Code Bill passed during the premiership of Jawaharlal Nehru.

How will Rajiv be remembered today, 47 years after his death? What Subramanian Swamy, veteran political leader, wrote one year after Rajiv’s demise is relevant today as it was in 1992: “Rajiv Gandhi’s memory evokes in me the picture of a modern man, totally committed to the greatness of India. His modernity came out in everything he did — on facts Rajiv Gandhi was a walking computer — there was simply no match for him.”

The writer, an ex-Army officer and a former member of the National Commission on Minorities, is a New Delhi-based political analyst