Rajiv Gandhi was an Indian politician and government official who was born in Bombay, India, on August 20, 1944, and passed away in Sriperumbudur, near Madras, India, on May 21, 1991. He joined the Indian National Congress in 1981 and became its leader. Following his mother Indira Gandhi’s assassination in 1984, Gandhi led the Congress (I) Party and served as prime minister of India from 1984 to 1989. 1991 saw the murder of the man himself.
Rajiv Gandhi Biography
| Full Name | Rajiv Ratna Gandhi |
| Political Party | Indian National Congress |
| DOB | 20/08/1944 |
| Place of Birth | Mumbai |
| Died | 05/21/1991 |
| Education | Rajiv first studied at Welham Boys’ School in Dehra Dun, and then went on to the Doon School |
| Marital Status | Married |
| Spouse Name | Sonia Gandhi |
| Children | Son: Rahul Gandhi Daughter: Priyanka Gandhi |
| Father’s Name | Feroze Gandhi |
| Mother’s Name | Indira Gandhi |
| Position Held | 6th Prime Minister of India (31 October 1984 – 2 December 1989) |
Rajiv Gandhi Jayanti
PM Narendra Modi, Rahul Gandhi, Ajit Pawar, and Others Remember Former Prime Minister on His 78th Birth Anniversary.
| Birth Place | Bombay Bombay Presidency British India |
| Eye Color | Black |
| Hair Color | Black |
| Height In CM | 178 CM |
| Height In Meter | 1.78 M |
| Nationality | Indian |
| Parents | Father: Late Feroze Gandhi Mother: Late Indira Gandhi |
| Profession | Politician |
| Siblings | Brother: Late Sanjay Gandhi |
| Weight | 72 Kg 159 Lbs |
| Zodiac Sign | Leo |
Also Read : Sonia Gandhi (Indian Politician) Biography
Childhood & Early Life
- Rajiv Gandhi was born in India’s politically affluent family to Feroze Gandhi, member of the Indian National Congress party and editor of the National Herald newspaper, and Indira Gandhi.
- Strained relationship of his parents led to his relocation to Delhi along with his mother and younger brother. It was during this time that his mother contributed significantly in the Indian political scenario, assisting her father Jawaharlal Nehru who was serving as the Prime Minister of the country.
- Academically, he attained his preliminary education from Welhams Boys’ School and The Doon School in Dehradun before moving to London to complete his A levels. He enrolled at the Trinity College Cambridge in 1962 to study engineering. Four years henceforth, he moved out but without a degree.
- Following year, i.e. in 1966, he was offered a seat at Imperial College London, which he took up but a year later dropped out of the same too. Same year, his mother ascended to premiership.
- Upon returning to India, he, unlike his family members, was dispassionate about politics and instead took to working as a professional pilot for Indian Airlines.
- The tragic untimely death of his younger brother, Sanjay Gandhi, in 1980 changed the course of his life, as he was forced to enter politics.
Political Career
- Succumbing to the pressure of the Congress party politicians and his mother, he reluctantly made his entry into the world of politics, a move that earned the wrath from press, public and opposition politicians as they saw his emergence as a forced hereditary participation.
- Soon, he found himself in the midst of active politics. He acquired significant party influence and became an important political advisor.
- In 1981, he won Amethi Lok Sabha seat, once held by his brother, by defeating Sharad Yadav.
- In 1982, he became member of the Asian Games Organizing Committee and played a vital role in successful conduct of the games.
- In the subsequent years, he was elected as the General Secretary of the All India Congress Committee and was chosen as the President of the Youth Congress. Press and public criticized this move as his mother’s effort to groom him for prime ministerialship.
- Following the assassination of his mother on October 31, 1984, he succeeded her to become the Prime Minister of the country. He was also unanimously elected as the President of the Congress Party.
- A fresh election was called by the President Zail Singh in which the Congress party won a landslide victory, and Rajiv Gandhi became Prime Minister once again.
- During his tenure as the prime minister, he brought energy, enthusiasm, and vision to a country divided on the basis of creed, caste and religion. Securing his office, he first resolved to deal with the Punjab problem which caused turbulence in the country.
- He worked towards eliminating the corrupt and criminal politicians from the Congress party and looked to bring about reforms in the bureaucracy.
- It was during his premiership that science and technology were given foremost impetus. He worked to raise the educational standard by both modernizing and expanding the sector so as to be reachable to the masses against the limited few. It was during his rule that a new education policy was framed and Indira Gandhi Open National University was established.
- On the foreign policy front, unlike his predecessors, he took a liberal view and looked to modify the bilateral relations with the United States by expanding economic and scientific cooperation.
- He promoted a sustained and continued cooperation among members of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation Countries (SAARC). Furthermore, he brought forth an action plan before the Special Session on Disarmament at the United Nations.
- During his reign, he brought about a revolution in country’s information technology and telecom industry, by initiating MTNL Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited in 1986.
- However, not all was glorious and magnificent during his tenure as the Prime Minister as the time was marked by numerous controversies. The biggest industrial disaster took place in Bhopal at a Union Carbide plant which caused poisonous gas leak that took an estimated 16000 lives and injured more than half a million.
- The Bofors scandal was yet another black mark in his career. It involved alleged payoffs by the Swedish Bofors arms company through Italian businessman and Gandhi family associate Ottavio Quattrocchi, in return for Indian contracts. The scandal shattered his image of honest politician.
- In 1987, he sent the Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF) to end the Sri Lankan Civil War between the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and the Sri Lankan military. This action earned him the wrath of Sri Lankan political parties as well as LTTE.
- Controversies, scandals and disasters marred the belief of people in Congress and Rajiv Gandhi’s popularity declined rapidly. In the 1989 general elections, Congress emerged as the single largest party but could not achieve majority. Rajiv Gandhi resigned from the post of Prime Minister and in his place V.P. Singh became the Prime Minister. Rajiv Gandhi was elected as the Leader of the Opposition.
- Rajiv Gandhi’s last public meeting was at Sriperumbudur on May 21, 1991, where he was campaigning for Lok Sabha elections. He was assassinated by a suicide bomber at the meeting.
Personal Life & Legacy
- During his college days in London, he fell in love with an Italian girl, named Albina Maino, who later came to be known as Sonia Gandhi. They married in 1968. The couple was blessed with two children, son Rahul Gandhi in 1970 and daughter Priyanka Gandhi in 1972.
- He was assassinated by a female suicide bomber on May 21, 1991 at a public meeting in Sriperumbudur. The woman bomber bent down to touch his feet, detonating a belt laden with 700 grams of RDX explosives. The massive explosion took the life of about 25 people including Rajiv Gandhi.
- Three days later, on May 24, 1991, he was given a state funeral and later cremated according to Hindu ritual on the banks of the river Yamuna. The site is today known as Vir Bhumi.
Political Career
Entry into Politics
Rajiv did not incline to follow his family’s tradition and join politics. His younger brother, Sanjay Gandhi, was being groomed to take the reins of the political legacy. But Sanjay’s premature death in a plane crash changed Rajiv’s fate. Leading members of the Indian National Congress party approached Rajiv Gandhi to persuade him to join politics, but Rajiv was reluctant, telling them “no”. His wife, Sonia Gandhi, also supported Rajiv’s position not to enter politics. But after the constant request of his mother, Indira Gandhi, he decided to enter the contest. His entry was criticized by many in the press, public and opposition. They viewed the Nehru-Gandhi scion’s entry into politics as forced hereditary participation. Within months of his election as a Member of Parliament for Amethi, Uttar Pradesh, Rajiv Gandhi gained significant influence in the party and became an influential political adviser to his mother. He was also elected General Secretary of the All India Congress Committee and later became Chairman of the Youth Congress.
Prime Minister of India
Following the assassination of Indira Gandhi on 31 October 1984 by her bodyguards at her New Delhi residence, Rajiv Gandhi took over as Prime Minister. The Congress Party, at the height of the tragedy, witnessed a landslide victory in the following parliamentary elections.
Economic Policies
The economic policies adopted by Rajiv Gandhi were different from those of his predecessors, like Indira Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru. He introduced policies bordering on mild reforms of the country’s existing economic agenda based on protectionism following a Soviet model. These reforms paved the way for the more extensive linearization efforts of the economy in 1991. Another important decision during his tenure as Prime Minister was removing the Raj license and fee. He reduced the tax on the technology industry and reformed import policies related to telecommunications, defense and commercial airlines. He emphasized on introducing contemporary technological advances in various sectors, thus modernizing industries to attract more foreign investment in the economy.
Domestic Policies
His efforts to reduce the culture of “red tape” existing in the government’s economic and financial processes aimed to encourage the establishment of the private sector. In 1986, Rajiv Gandhi announced a “national education policy” to modernize and expand higher education programs in India. Rajiv Gandhi brought a revolution in the field of information technology and telecommunications. The idea led to Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited, popularly known as MTNL. Rajiv Gandhi was the man who transcended telecommunication services to rural India or “India in the true sense”. As Prime Minister, Rajiv Gandhi strove to eliminate corrupt and criminal faces within the Indian National Congress party. Regarding the Shah Bano case, the government led by Rajiv Gandhi sought to pass the Muslim Women (Protection of Rights in Divorce) Act in 1986, a reversal of the judgment handed down by the Supreme Court. The government’s decision to uphold unfair Islamic provisions to women made it look like “regressive obscurantism for minority populism in the short term.”
Foreign Policies
Contrary to traditional socialism, Rajiv Gandhi decided to improve bilateral relations with the United States of America and later expanded economic and scientific cooperation with it. A revived foreign policy, with an emphasis on economic liberalization and information and technology, brought India closer to the West. As India’s Prime Minister, Gandhi secured stronger economic ties with the United States. He promoted Gandhi’s philosophy of nonviolence in the United Nations General Assembly by refusing to join the nuclear weapons bandwagon and vocalizing in favour of a “nonviolent, nuclear-free world order.” He decided to lend his helping hand to deal with the internal problems of various neighbouring countries. In 1988, the Maldives faced a coup and sought the help of Rajiv Gandhi. He promptly ordered the deployment of the Indian Army in an operation codenamed Cactus. During the Sri Lankan Civil War, Gandhi sent the Indian Peacekeeping Force to the country to protect civilians.
First Election
Until the death of his brother Sanjay Gandhi, Rajiv remained as a commercial pilot with Indian Airlines for 10 years. Rajiv Gandhi contested and won his first election from Amethi.
Rise To Power
Following the assassination of Indira Gandhi in 1984, Rajiv Gandhi became not only Prime Minister but also Congress Party’s President. The same year, Congress won a huge majority of 414 seats in the Lok Sabha election under Rajiv’s leadership, which is a record for the highest number of seats ever won by a single party.
Assassination
In the month of May 1991, Rajiv Gandhi was in the campaigning of the general elections. He was assassinated by an LTTE (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam) suicide bomber, during a rally in Sriperumbudur, Tamil Nadu.
Controversies
On Anti-Sikh Riots Post-election
While commenting on the anti-Sikh riots, which followed the assassination of Indira Gandhi in Delhi, Rajiv Gandhi said, “‘ When a giant tree falls, the earth below shakes”. The statement was widely criticized both within and outside the Congress Party. Many viewed the statement as “provocative” and demanded an apology from him. To deal with the anti-Sikh riots, that followed the death of his mother, Rajiv Gandhi signed an accord with Akali Dal president Sant Harchand Singh Longowal, on 24 July, 1985. The key points of the pact were:
- Along with ex-gratia payment to those innocent killed in agitation or any action after 1-8-1982, compensation for property damaged will also be paid.
- All citizens of the country have the right to enroll in the Army and merit will remain the criterion for selection.
- For all those discharged, efforts will be made to rehabilitate and provide gainful employment.
Bofors Case
The Bofors Scandal was a major black mark on the political image of Rajiv Gandhi. The then Finance Minister turned Defense Minister, V. P. Singh, uncovered details of corruption involving the Government and a Swedish arms company called Bofors. The company allegedly paid the Indian Government millions of dollars, 640 million to be exact, in return for contracts for the Defense Department. The deals were being mediated by Ottavio Quattrocchi, an Italian businessman who was a close associate of the Gandhi Family. Top tier Congress leaders along with PM Rajiv Gandhi were implicated in the scandal, and were accused of receiving kickbacks from Bofors for winning a bid to supply India’s 155 mm field howitzer (a type of artillery piece). Although Rajiv Gandhi’s name was later cleared in 2005, the media storm that the scandal kicked up ultimately led to his abysmal defeat in the 1989 elections.
IPKF
In 1987, the Indian Peace Keeping Force was formed to end the Sri Lankan Civil War between the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and the Sri Lankan military. The acts of the Indian military contingent was opposed by the Opposition parties of Sri Lanka and as well as LTTE. But, Rajiv Gandhi refused to withdraw the IPKF. The idea also turned out to be unpopular in India, particularly in Tamil Nadu. The IPKF operation cost over 1100 Indian soldiers and a cost of over Rs 2000 crores. The widespread feeling of malice against Rajiv Gandhi prevailing in Sri Lanka was evident when an honour guard Vijitha Rohana tried to injure Gandhi by hitting him with the rifle on July 30, 1987. Gandhi was in Colombo to sign the Indo-Sri Lanka Accord which was expected to resolve the tensions caused by the Civil War.
Assassination
On 21 May, 1991, on his way towards the dais, Rajiv Gandhi was garlanded by many Congress supporters and well-wishers. At around 10 pm, the assassin greeted him and bent down to touch his feet. She then exploded an RDX explosive laden belt attached to her waist-belt. The act of violence was reportedly carried out by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), in retaliation to the involvement of Indian Peace-keeping Force (IPKF) in Sri Lanka.
Historical Events
- 1984-10-31 Rajiv Gandhi takes office as India’s 6th Prime Minister succeeding his mother Indira Gandhi who was assassinated
- 1984-12-28 Rajiv Gandhi’s Congress party wins the general election in India
- 1984-12-29 Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi claims victory in parliamentary elections
- 1985-07-24 Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi signs a peace accord with Sikh leader Harchand Singh Longowai to settle the three-year Punjab crisis
- 1985-08-17 Rajiv Gandhi announces Punjab state elections in India
- 1986-10-02 Sikhs attempt to assassinate Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi
- 1989-11-26 India’s Congress Party led by then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi loses the general election to an opposition front led by V. P. Singh
- 1989-11-29 Rajiv Gandhi resigns as Prime Minister of India after losing national elections
Death
On 21 May 1991, as Rajiv Gandhi approached the podium, Congress supporters and well-wishers showered him with flowers. At approximately 10 p.m., the assassin greeted him and touched his ankles. She then detonated an RDX-filled belt that was affixed to her waistbelt. According to reports, the violent act was committed by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in response to the presence of the Indian Peace-keeping Force (IPKF) in Sri Lanka.
Rajiv Gandhi International Cricket Stadium
Hyderabad, Telangana, India is home to the Rajiv Gandhi International Cricket Stadium, also referred to as Uppal Stadium. Hyderabad Cricket Association (HCA) owns and runs it. Both the Hyderabad women’s cricket team and the Hyderabad cricket team call it home.
Situated on 15 acres of ground in the Uppal area to the east, it can accommodate 39,200 people for seating. It is home field for Sunrisers Hyderabad, an IPL team. It has held six Tests, ten ODIs, and three T20Is as of January 28, 2024. The 2017 Indian Premier League championship game, as well as the 2019 IPL final, were held at the stadium. During the 2023 Cricket World Cup, the stadium played host to its first ICC event in October of 2023.It is renamed after the former prime minister of India Rajiv Gandhi.
One day international cricket
Stadium records
- Australia had scored 350/4, it is the highest score at the stadium.
- England had scored 174, it is the lowest score at the stadium.
- Yuvraj Singh’s 233 scored in three matches is the most of runs scored at the stadium.
- Shubman Gill’s 208 is the highest individual score at the stadium.
- Sachin Tendulkar completed 17,000 ODI runs, made his 45th ODI century and received his 60th ODI Man of the match award.
- 697 runs made for the loss of 14 wickets in one match.
- India completed its 500th ODI win at this venue in 2019.
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