Rajiv Gandhi As Prime Minister

On the night of October 31, 1985, Rajiv Gandhi, the son of Indira Gandhi and the grandson of Jawaharlal Nehru, was elected Prime Minister of India. Indira Gandhi was shot by two of her own bodyguards that morning. Rajiv Gandhi, a fourteen-year pilot with Indian Airlines, had stayed away from politics until his younger brother, Sanjay, died in an air crash in June 1980. Indira persuaded him to help her after Sanjay's death, and in June 1981, he formally entered politics by being elected to the Lok Sabha from Amethi, the U.P. constituency vacated by Sanjay's death. He was in charge of organising the Asian Games in New Delhi in 1982, and he did an excellent job by all accounts.

•    In February 1983, he was appointed as one of the Congress's seven new general secretaries, with the task of revitalizing the party at the grassroots, a task made more urgent by losses in provincial elections. However, his gradual introduction to politics was cut short, and he was thrust into the driver's seat. 

 

•    With elections coming up in a few months, Congress leaders needed someone who could Galva noise the public.  According to their assessment, Rajiv was most likely to capitalize on the outpouring of sympathy generated by Indira's martyrdom.

 

•    In the end, they were correct, and the Congress won by the largest margin ever in general elections held from December 24-27, 1984, a few days earlier than planned. If the seats won in later elections in Punjab and Assam are included, the party will have won 415 of the 543 Lok Sabha seats. Rajiv Gandhi won by a large margin in Amethi, Uttar Pradesh, defeating Sanjay Gandhi's wife, Maneka, who was seeking to establish her claim to Sanjay's legacy. 

 

•    The Congress election campaign focused on the threat to India's unity and integrity, and the public's response was massive because Indira Gandhi's death was seen as proof of the threat. The overwhelming majority also meant lofty, if not unrealistic, expectations, which Rajiv once described as "scary."

 

•    Rajiv was, in fact, confronted with major crises from the start. He didn't have much time to process his personal grief over his mother's violent death. As world leaders arrived in Delhi for Indira Gandhi's funeral, a horrific massacre of Sikhs in retaliation for her assassination was taking place in the city, particularly on the outskirts in the so-called "resettlement colonies," where the poorer sections lived. Many Sikhs were attacked, their businesses and homes looted and burned between October 31 and November 3, the day Indira Gandhi died, and around 2,800 were killed. 

 

•    The perpetrators were poor slum dwellers who saw Indira as their leader and sympathizer and were confused by her violent death. It is also claimed that Congress party workers and even some local level leaders were involved in assisting and guiding the crowd, and that local police turned a blind eye to the situation. This charge has been expanded into a broader charge that the Congress, acting on orders from the top, orchestrated the massacre, which is obviously unfounded and impossible to prove. 

 

•    It's also true that Hindu friends and neighbors sheltered and protected thousands of Sikhs. The government's delay in bringing the situation under control can only be explained by the confusion that followed Indira's assassination, with the new prime minister's swearing-in, the responsibility of planning the funeral, which was attended by thousands of people, and looking after the foreign guests. It took a long time for the full gravity of the massacre to be communicated and comprehended at the highest levels of government. 

 

•    Rajiv paid a morning visit to some of the affected areas on November 3rd, the day of the funeral, and later the army was called in and the violence was put down. Many volunteer organizations, the majority of whom were Hindu, worked for months to provide relief to the victims' families. Similar violence erupted in other North Indian cities, particularly Kanpur and Bokaro, though on a smaller scale.

 

•    Within two weeks of becoming Prime Minister, the Bhopal gas leak tragedy occurred, in which approximately 2,000 people, mostly poor slum dwellers, died and many thousands more became ill as a result of poisonous emissions from a multinational company, Union Carbide. The compensation battle dragged on for years in Indian and US courts, and the final settlement was not generous, and it was further slowed by bureaucratic delays caused by difficulties identifying the victims.

 

•    Despite these difficulties, Rajiv's administration began on a positive note, launching a number of policy initiatives. On a political level, he initiated the process that resulted in the Punjab and Assam accords, which are discussed in more detail elsewhere in the book. But perhaps his most well-known initiative was the establishment of six "technology missions," which for many Indians embodied the young prime minister's new, modern, and technological approach. 

 

•    The goal was to use science and technology to solve problems in six areas of underdevelopment where a scientific approach would be beneficial. These goal-oriented projects were dubbed "technology missions," and the millennium's arrival was set as the target date in most cases, with the idea that India must enter the new millennium as a modern nation. 

 

1.    The drinking water mission was the most important of these, with the goal of providing drinking water to all Indian villages, only one-fifth of which had potable water supplies. The plan was to use satellites, as well as geology, civil engineering, and biochemistry, to locate, extract, and purify water supplies. 

 

2.    The literacy mission was created to address the serious problem of mass illiteracy, which afflicted nearly 60% of the population almost forty years after independence. This was to be accomplished by utilising and expanding the television network in rural areas, as well as through the use of video and audio cassettes and other means. In fact, the Total Literacy Campaign that it spawned made a major dent in many regions and brought the issue to the forefront of political debate, making it the most important of the missions in the long run. 

 

3.    The third mission focused on immunising pregnant women and children, an idea that has since gained traction and is being pursued with greater vigour today, as evidenced by the recent mass campaign to immunise children against polio. 

 

4.    The fourth mission was to promote the 'White Revolution,' or milk production, by increasing milk yield and improving the health of cows and buffaloes, which was a huge success. 

5.    India imported a large amount of edible oils, which increased her foreign exchange deficit significantly, and the fifth mission was tasked with increasing edible oil production. 

 

6.    The sixth mission's goal was to have a phone in every village in the country by the turn of the century.

 

•    The importance of doing something to strengthen local self-government institutions had received a lot of lip service. Rajiv and his government were the ones who took the initiative to deepen and strengthen Panchayati institutions by sparking debate and introducing legislation to make panchayat elections a constitutional requirement. 

 

•    This necessitated a constitutional amendment, and Rajiv was disappointed that the opposition parties blocked the bills' passage in the Rajya Sabha, where the Congress did not have a majority. 

 

•    The process was just as eye-catching as the goal. Rajiv met 400 district collectors or officers in charge of districts between December 1987 and June 1988. A meeting with chief secretaries, the highest officers of states, was held in July 1988, followed by a Panchayati Raj sammelan with 8,000 delegates in January 1989, and a conference on Panchayati Raj for Women in May 1989. 

 

•    In May 1989, the All India Congress Committee discussed and endorsed the proposals, and a meeting of state chief ministers followed. ‘Never before has a government at the highest level taken so carefully into account the views of so many tens of thousands of people at every level about democracy and development at the grassroots,' Rajiv could claim with some justification, as he did.

 

A.    The Jawahar Rozgar Yojana: Also called Employment Plan, was another measure aimed at the rural poor, with the goal of providing employment to at least one member of every rural poor family for 50-100 days per year. 

 

•    The scheme was launched to commemorate the birth centenary of Jawaharlal Nehru (born in 1889), with the central government promising to cover 80% of the costs. 

 

B.    The literacy campaign, Operation Blackboard (which aimed to provide basic amenities to schools), and distance education were all central to the new education policy's focus on rural areas and the poor. 

 

•    The much-despised Navodaya Vidya-layas, a favourite whipping boy of Rajiv baiters and cited ad nauseam as proof of Rajiv's elitist education policy, were in fact designed to provide quality education to children from poor rural families who would be chosen on the basis of merit for free education and stay in residential schools to be set up in every district. 

 

C.    The National Perspective Plan for Women was drafted in 1988, and one of its major recommendations was to reserve 30% of elected seats in all panchayat bodies for women, which was incorporated into the Panchayati Raj legislation. 

 

•    It was also suggested that half of the people working at the grassroots level should be women. Women's health and education were also addressed in the plan. In 1986, legislation was passed that strengthened the penalties for dowry-related offences.

 

D.    Environmental protection was a project near and dear to Rajiv's heart, as it had been to his mother's, and he launched a massive effort to clean the Ganga, India's holiest river, which had become shamefully polluted in many parts. 

 

•    He established a new Ministry of the Environment and made environmental clearance for large projects a requirement. 

 

•    He proposed a Planet Protection Fund at the Non-Aligned Movement's ninth summit to help developing countries gain access to advanced technology for environmental protection. 

 

E.    While it became fashionable in certain elite circles to criticise the Rajiv government's cultural policy as catering to the West by holding very expensive India festivals in many western countries, it was forgotten that at the same time, seven zonal cultural centres were established across the country to shift the focus of state patronage of the arts away from the capital and toward the provinces. 

 

F.    The Anti-Defection Act, drafted after consultation with opposition parties and passed in 1985, stipulated that a change in loyalties by one-third of a political party's members in parliament would be considered a split in the party. Any further defections would result in the House's expulsion. This was done to prevent horse-trading and shifting party loyalties, which had become a problem in India's political system. 

 

G.    Greater freedom for government media, particularly the increasingly popular television, as well as encouragement for critical government programming aimed at keeping ministers and bureaucrats on their toes, bore the imprint of the prime minister. 

 

•    V. P. Singh's well-publicized raids on business houses, which Rajiv backed at first, also contributed to the atmosphere that earned Rajiv the Mr. Clean moniker. But it was his speech at the Congress's centennial celebrations in December 1985 that shocked both critics and admirers (and at that time there were more admirers than critics, as Rajiv enjoyed a honeymoon for the first eighteen months of his term). 

 

•    Rajiv took advantage of the opportunity to launch a frontal attack on the "power brokers" who, he claimed, had reduced the great party to a shell of its former self, promising to resurrect it by breaking their stranglehold. This was interpreted as a warning to the old leaders to get their act together or face the consequences. 

 

•    Many party members who were otherwise supportive of Rajiv's policies disliked his "disrespectful" demeanour and thought the centennial of the grand old party was an inappropriate time to conduct this exercise. 

 

•    Rajiv, on the other hand, had no more success than his mother or his successor as Congress Prime Minister in holding internal elections within the party. Because of their control at the local level, party bosses were able to register phoney members and manipulate elections, gaining further legitimacy as a result of their election! 

 

•    Rajiv soon discovered that he needed to establish relationships with party stalwarts, and that politics was not the same as running a successful business. He brought back old advisers over time, partly because his own close advisers, Arun Nehru, Arun Singh, and V. P. Singh, had become estranged. 

 

•    In early 1989, the process came full circle with the return of R.K. Dhawan, Mrs. Gandhi's close adviser, who embodied the old system that Rajiv had vowed to overthrow in his innocence in December 1985!

 

•    Rajiv pursued foreign policy with the zeal of an activist, travelling widely to both large and small countries and participating in a variety of international forums. Even as he followed in his grandfather and mother's footsteps, he added his own personal stamp to foreign policy. 

 

•    This he accomplished by zealously promoting nuclear disarmament, the fight against apartheid in South Africa, and Namibian independence. Indira had formed the Six-Nation Five-Continent Initiative, which brought together the heads of government of Argentina, Greece, Mexico, Sweden, Tanzania, and India, just before her death, to put international pressure on superpowers to reduce weapons and eliminate nuclear weapons. 

 

•    Rajiv convened the first summit of the six leaders less than a month after winning the elections. It's important to remember that this was before Gorbachev took power, and before nuclear disarmament was a priority in superpower relations. Rajiv met Gorbachev after he assumed power in the Soviet Union and discovered in him a believer in chaos. 

 

•    In fact, Rajiv began hailing Gorbachev as a peacemaker long before the United States became aware of the new leader's new ideas. On the occasion of Gorbachev's visit in November 1986, he and Rajiv issued a call for a nonviolent world, and the Delhi Declaration, as the programed was dubbed, outlined a disarmament plan.

 

•    In June 1988, Rajiv presented the UN General Assembly's third special session on disarmament with the Six Nation Initiative, which evolved into an Action Plan for Nuclear Disarmament. The goal of this plan was to eliminate all nuclear weapons by 2010.

 

•    The struggle against apartheid in South Africa was close to Rajiv's heart. In keeping with tradition (Gandhiji was the first to raise the issue in South Africa in 1893, Nehru was the first to raise it in the UN in the late 1940s, and India was the first country to impose sanctions by cutting off trade and diplomatic ties), Rajiv took up the cause with zeal, even getting a majority in the Commonwealth to support sanctions but failing to get an odd resolution passed. 

 

•    The establishment of the AFRICA (Action for Resisting Invasion, Colonialism, and Apartheid) Fund at the nonaligned summit in Harare in 1986 was more successful. He was able to show a collection of half a billion dollars given by developing and developed countries to help frontline African states overcome the losses they suffered as a result of sanctions against South Africa at the Belgrade Non-Aligned Summit three years later.

 

•    Namibian independence was a closely related cause, as Namibia was a colony of South Africa at the time. In May 1986, Rajiv extended diplomatic recognition to SWAPO, the organization fighting for Namibian independence, and travelled to the frontline states of Zambia, Zimbabwe, Angola, and Tanzania, as well as speaking out at all international gatherings in support of the cause. 

 

•    Rajiv was no longer Prime Minister when Namibia gained independence in 1990, but he attended the celebrations, where he met Nelson Mandela, and thus was able to witness the success of two of his favorite causes. During Rajiv's tenure, relations with the superpowers improved slightly, but not significantly. 

 

•    Rajiv did not favor the United States, contrary to speculation based on the young PM's preference for open-market policies and a technocratic bias. In 1985, he paid a successful visit to the United States, and he got along well with Reagan, even persuading him to give India the supercomputer she needed to process weather data. 

 

•    There was little chance of any radical shifts because the US was committed to supporting Pakistan and promoting the Mujahideen against the USSR in Afghanistan. 

 

•    However, a close relationship developed with Gorbachev, and the two leaders met eight times in five years.

 

•    Rajiv Gandhi's visit to China in 1988, the first by an Indian prime minister since Nehru's first visit in 1954, was notable for its rarity. It was also made memorable by television images of Deng clinging to Rajiv Gandhi's hand for what seemed like an eternity, as well as his references to mistakes made by his generation that the new generation represented by Rajiv Gandhi should not repeat. 

 

•    The significance of this meeting was also due to a sudden deterioration in relations in 1986 as a result of border incidents. Following the visit, efforts were made to resolve long-standing issues on a regular basis, improve trade, and expand consular contacts. 

 

•    India even refused to condemn the massacre in Tiananmen Square on June 4, 1989, demonstrating that recent improvements in relations were not to be jeopardized. 

 

•    During Rajiv's reign, relations with his immediate neighbors were strained. Bangladesh was moving in a more Islamic direction, and water disputes persisted. There was trouble with Nepal; their government imposed high tariffs on Indian goods, gave Chinese goods duty breaks, received massive amounts of assault rifles and antiaircraft guns from China in 1988, and required Indian residents to obtain work permits to work in Nepal (this when lakhs of Nepalis work and live in India without any permits). 

 

•    In March 1989, the Indian government imposed what amounted to an economic blockade, and by September, talks for a solution had begun.

 

•    However, in Sri Lanka, India became embroiled in a tangled situation from which she was unable to free herself. When the Sri Lankan government launched heavy repression on Jaffna, the base of the LTTE, an organization fighting for Tamil autonomy and later independence from Sri Lanka, thousands of Tamils from Sri Lanka fled to Tamil Nadu in India. 

 

•    India's public opinion, particularly in Tamil Nadu, where the people spoke the same language as the refugees, was overwhelmingly in favor of India helping the Sri Lankan Tamils. When Sri Lanka imposed a blockade on Jaffna, preventing people from receiving basic necessities, tensions were heightened even more. 

 

•    The Indian Navy sent supplies in fishing boats, but they were intercepted by the Sri Lankan Navy. Following that, supplies were airdropped by Indian transport planes, which also carried Indian and foreign journalists. Sri Lanka realized it had gone too far and decided to allow supplies to be delivered by boat. 

 

•    However, the Tamil insurgency persisted, and the Sri Lankan government realized that India was the only country that could help. President Jayewardene approached Rajiv, and the negotiations resulted in an agreement in July 1987 under which the majority-Tamil provinces of Sri Lanka would be merged into a single province, substantial devolution of power would occur, the LTTE would be dissolved and arms surrendered in a short period of time, and the Indian Army would come to the aid of the Sri Lankan armed forces. 

 

•    The agreement failed to take off because the LTTE only gave their reluctant consent, were not signatories, and refused to surrender because they did not trust the Sri Lankan government. Meanwhile, Jayewardene requested that the Indian Army assist in the implementation of the agreement, and because the LTTE was standing in the way, the army became embroiled in an increasingly messy battle with the Tamil guerillas, who had an advantage because they knew the terrain and had local support. 

 

•    The Indian Army was in a difficult situation, with Tamils hating it because it was disarming the LTTE and Sri Lankans hating it because it was a foreign army. With Premadasa succeeding Jayewardene and asking the Indian government to withdraw its army, the situation became even more complicated. 

 

•    Rajiv agreed to a phased withdrawal, and the soldiers began returning home in mid-1989, but only after the 1989 elections were completed. Rajiv would die as a result of the Sri Lankan crisis.

 

•    The Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) was given new life by Rajiv Gandhi, who gave it a goal: nuclear disarmament. He also tried to promote the idea of a G-15, a smaller version of the G-77 that was more similar to the G-7. 

 

•    He positioned India prominently on the global stage, making her voice heard in a variety of forums on a variety of issues. 

 

•    During his five-year term, he travelled abroad on average once a month, prompting snipes from political opponents about his "occasional visits to India." 

 

•    Rajiv was committed to maintaining and improving Indian security as part of his effort to improve India's image in the international community. 

 

•    He approved the modernization of the armed forces, which resulted in a doubling of defence spending. Mrs. Gandhi launched a guided missile development programme in 1983, and two short-range missiles, Trishul and Prithvi, and one intermediate-range missile, Agni, in which Rajiv was particularly interested, were successfully tested. With the lease of a nuclear-powered submarine from the Soviet Union and the purchase of a second aircraft carrier from the United Kingdom, India's navy was significantly strengthened. 

 

•    The army received howitzer guns from Sweden as well as approval for the development of the Arjun, an all-Indian battle tank. Defence spending accounted for one-fifth of total government spending in Rajiv's final two years in office.

 

•    Rajiv had a lot to be proud of now that he was a little older and wiser. With the exception of Sri Lanka, his handling of foreign affairs had received widespread praise. India's international standing had improved, not deteriorated, and relations with superpowers and neighbors had stabilized, if not improved, at least not deteriorated. The economy had performed admirably, with the highest rates of growth to date, despite mounting deficits and debt. 

 

•    With the long-overdue modernization of the armed forces in motion, the security and defense policy had been sound. Computerization was given a strong push, as it was deemed necessary if India was to remain relevant in the global system. 

 

•    The poor and rural areas were the main focus of anti-poverty programs in general, and literacy, drinking water, immunization, and Panchayat Raj initiatives in particular, putting to rest accusations of elitism.

 

•    There were, without a doubt, some flaws. Rajiv's proclivity for changing his mind was one of them. For example, he shuffled his Cabinet every two months on average. He was also prone to outbursts of rage and a proclivity for speaking without considering the consequences, as evidenced by the famous incident in which he fired the Foreign Secretary during a press conference. 

 

•    Accusations of inaccessibility began to circulate, and some speculated that he was becoming arrogant, but these are common issues in high office. The most serious issue was his lack of political experience, as well as his unfamiliarity with the nuts and bolts of grassroots mobilization, party organization, and so on. 

 

•    The Bofors scandal broke on April 16, 1987, just days after Singh's resignation. The allegations, which were first broadcast on Swedish radio, claimed that bribes totaling sixty crores of Indian rupees were paid to Indian officials and Congress party members in order to secure the contract for the 410 howitzer guns to Bofors of Sweden, despite stiff competition from a French gun. 

 

•    The allegations, which were widely covered by the Indian press, especially the Indian Express and later The Hindu, quickly escalated into a major attack on Rajiv himself, with opposition parties alleging that he and his family were the recipients of the funds. 

 

•    The situation was so bad that Rajiv publicly denied his and his family's involvement. It also gave President Giani Zail Singh an opportunity to settle his differences with Rajiv. Zail Singh became the centre of a major conspiracy to remove Rajiv from office in mid-1987, enraged because Rajiv had been lax in following the convention of regularly calling on the President to keep him informed of important developments, and also because he was not consulted about the Punjab and Mizo accords, and lured by the prospect of a second term. 

 

•    Opposition leaders and some Congress dissidents urged President to fire Rajiv on corruption charges or for failing to keep the President informed as required by the Constitution. Zail Singh was almost persuaded, but the alternative, V. P. Singh, refused to play the game, averting a major constitutional disaster.

 

•    It is to Rajiv's credit that, in the midst of scandals and conspiracies, he personally handled the crisis arising from one of the worst droughts in the twentieth century with great elan, according to all accounts. In 1987 (June-September), the South-West monsoon failed, affecting one-fourth of the country's population, who lived in one-third of all districts in eleven states. 

 

•    In the affected areas, a massive effort was launched to move food and drinking water, as well as to start employment programmed. Rajiv boasted with justifiable pride that not a single life had been lost. This in a country where millions of people died in a man-made famine just four years before independence, in 1943.

 

•    However, Bofors and the stench of corruption persisted, resurfacing in 1989, the election year. The Joint Parliamentary Committee Report had given a mostly clean bill of health, but the Comptroller and Auditor-Report General's questioned the process for selecting guns and raised other concerns. 

 

However, most observers agreed that he was learning quickly and that he was no longer the awkward leader, which he had begun to enjoy the tumultuous politics of India. In addition, by 1989, he had passed a crucial test of political leadership: the courage to do so. He had survived Bofors, where the most heinous personal accusations were levelled against him, and he was ready to face the arduous election campaign for the second time. Whether he won or lost, he had made up his mind that he would participate in the great Indian game.