By : Satyaki Paul
On May 21, 1991 our former PM Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated, this year marks the 30th death anniversary of him. Shri RajeevratnaBirjeesGandhi (1944-1991) was the sixth Indian prime minister from 1984-1989.
He attended the Doon School in Himalayan foot hills and later he went to Trinity College for further studies. At Cambridge he met Sonia Maino who later became his life-partner and is currently acting as the President of Indian National Congress. Initially he started working as a commercial pilot of Air India (erstwhile Indian Airlines). However, due to his brother Sanjay Gandhi’s death in a plane crash in 1980; he was pressured into entering the political realm due numerous external and internal turmoil’s. His first victory in political career was from Amethi, Uttar Pradesh. Later, he was sworn into office after the tragic assassination of his mother the then PM Indira Gandhi in 1984. After the death of Indira Gandhi our country was engulfed in a riot known as anti-Sikh riot of 1984. In this context, he had issued a pan-Indian appeal through government radio for remaining calm and maintaining communal harmony.
He was for passing the anti-defection law and including it in the tenth schedule of our Indian constitution. This law acted as the bulwark for horse-trading and corruption, which was a common fad in the 1980s.His administration also took vigorous measures to reform the government bureaucracy and liberalize the country’s economy. He employed Sam Pitroda who brough forward public sector telecom companies MTNL and VSNL which led to revolution in telecom sector. His National Policy on Education of 1986 ventured out to modernize the higher education system of our country with the further introduction of Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalaya.
He tried to modernize and deregulate the Nehruvian state by lessening the policies of license raj.He also intervened in Maldives and Sri Lanka, and placed Punjab under martial law for “terrorism”. His efforts to deject separatist movements in Punjab state and the Kashmir region did not go as planned, however, and after his government became embroiled in several financial scandals (such as Bofors scandal and HDW scandal), his leadership became increasingly unsuccessful. His foreign policy was also a mix bag of events such as Operation Flowers are Blooming (for Seychelles), Operation Rajiv (against Pakistan), Assam Accords and support towards Sri Lankan government for its Civil War (Operation Pawan). Later, he had to resign his post as the prime minister in November 1989 after the Congress (I) Party was beaten in parliamentary elections by the oppositions, yet he remained leader of the party.
In May 1991, Shri Gandhi was campaigning in Sriperumbudur, Tamil Nadu state for the next round of parliamentary elections when he and 14 others were assassinated by a bomb concealed in a basket of flowers carried by a woman associated with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Elam (LTTE). The assassination was carried out due to his previous intervention in Sri Lankan Civil War. Later, a state funeral was held at Veer Bhumi wherein dignitaries from several countries took part in an effort to offer condolences for the loss of an Indian PM.
In 1998, an Indian court found26 people guilty in the conspiracy to assassinate Gandhi. The conspirators, who were comprised of Tamil militants from Sri Lanka and their Indian allies, had sought revenge against Gandhi because the Indian troops he had sent to Sri Lanka in 1987 to help enforce a peace accord there had ended up fighting the Tamil separatist guerrillas. After an investigation conducted by Jain committee on the assassination it was revealed that an Indian political party secretly supported LTTE, thereby leading to the fall of another coalition government led by Inder Kumar Gujral. Since his death, May 21 has been declared as the Anti-Terrorism Day to spread the message of peace and humanity among our Indian brother’s and sister’s. The author works as a Ph.D. Research Scholar at the Department of Anthropology, University of Calcutta, and the co-author of the book Anthropology For All (2021).