Rajiv Gandhi : The
Charismatic Leader
The first son of Indira and Feroze Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi, born in 1944.
Rajiv attended Cambridge University, where he met and married Sonia. He was
not a man of any unusual academic achievements or other distinctions, and
appears to have had few ambitions until the death of his brother Sanjay in
1980.
Political Journey
An airline pilot, Rajiv entered the arena of politics in the year 1981when
he contested the clections and became a political adviser to his mother.
After her assassination in 1984, Rajiv succeeded her as head of the Congress
party, and was sworn in as Prime Minister of India. He endeavored to
increase Indian investments in modern technology, his "vision" of
India, insofar as he had one, was that of a technocrat.
Like his mother, he could not contain the political problems afflicting
India, and found refuge in international entanglements and commitments. He
committed the so-called Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF) to Sri Lanka in an
endeavor to help the government there to eradicate militants agitating for a
separate Tamil homeland.
On
May 21st 1991 Rajiv Gandhi, the 46-year-old former Indian prime
minister, has been assassinated