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Was Rajiv Gandhi A victim of Sabatoge

Prof Pradeep Mathur

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New Delhi | Wednesday | 21 August 2024

With unprecedented public support Rajiv Gandhi got the biggest ever mandate in the Lok Sabha elections and  rose very fast on the horizon of Indian politics in the year 1984-85. However, within three years  Rajiv Gandhi's downfall started at much  the same speed as his rise was. He was assassinated during the election campaign in the year 1991. But with the disclosure of the Bofors scam an attempt to assassinate him politically was started in the year 1987 itself. The question is whether the bid for his political assassination in the year 1987 and then his physical assassination in 1991 were natural or offshoots of a political conspiracy .

Indeed, the unprecedented success of the Congress under the leadership of Rajiv Gandhi in the elections of December 1984 was the result of the wave of sympathy that arose in the whole country due to the brutal murder of his mother Prime Minister Indira Gandhi by the security guards. It is also true that Rajiv Gandhi, who had no interest in politics, had to enter politics to support Indira Gandhi after the death of his brother Sanjay Gandhi in a plane crash and circumstances put this politically inexperienced and immature youth on the biggest chair in the country. But what is not understandable is why Rajiv Gandhi was initially glorified so much and after a short time so harshly criticised.

The truth is that an unbiased and scientific evaluation of Rajiv Gandhi's short but eventful political life (1981-91) has never been done. Therefore, it is a problem to ascertain his place in the contemporary history.

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Article at a Glance
The rise and fall of Rajiv Gandhi is a mystery. After the unprecedented success of his party in 1984, he started declining within three years.

He was assassinated in 1991. But was it natural or was it a political conspiracy? Rajiv Gandhi opened the doors to the information revolution and promoted discussions on modern thinking. But after the Bofors scandal, he began to be criticized.

Was he inexperienced and immature? Did his opponents try to oust him? There are many more half-open pages in the book of Rajiv Gandhi's political life. There is a need to open and understand them.

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After the socialist rule of Mrs Indira Gandhi, the capitalist class of India saw immense possibilities in Rajiv Gandhi to further their vested interests. Perhaps this is the reason why Rajiv Gandhi was warmly welcomed by the bourgeois class of India. Rajiv Gandhi not only opened the doors of the information revolution but also promoted discussions on modern thinking and economic reforms. His clean image, gentlemanliness and mild nature put him at the peak of fame. A newspaper gave him the title of 'Mr. Clean. But after a short time, the wind started blowing in the opposite direction. This had started even before Bofors. The Bofors scandal gave it new dimensions. If Rajiv Gandhi was inexperienced, immature and not politically intelligent, then this was known even on the day he became the Prime Minister. Then why did it happen that when he started his tenure as Prime Minister, he received immense praise and widespread support and after a short time his opposition started?

Some political analysts have said that bringing a person to power, establishing him in power and removing him from power are three different tasks which are carried out by different sets of people. Rajiv Gandhi was brought to power due to wide public support. But it seems that soon after he came to power, vested interests felt that he was not suitable for serving their interests and started trying to oust him. He took quite   long to understand it .

Perhaps making Raja Vishwanath Pratap Singh the finance minister was his biggest mistake. Raja Sahab started raiding capitalists and big industrialist organisations for tax evasion. This created a stir and opposition to Rajiv's government began. On getting the signal from the corporate world, the Sangh Parivar and the professional opponents of the Nehru family started misleading propaganda against him. It was said that he had accepted Christianity and his name was Robert Gandhi. Fierce propaganda was also started against his wife Sonia Gandhi.

Even in his own Cabinet, V. P Singh and Arun Nehru started conspiring against Rajiv Gandhi. V P Singh had the ambition of becoming the Prime Minister and Arun Nehru was a lobbyist  of the corporate world and Hindutva forces and he was in cahoots with the Prime Minister's secretary and senior IAS officer Gopi Arora.

Perhaps the problem of Rajiv Gandhi's opponents was that his support base was constantly growing. Coming from a big family, educated abroad and working in the Air Force, Rajiv Gandhi had not seen the reality of the life of the poor people of India. When he came face to face with this reality as the Prime Minister, his sensitive personality was inspired to do a lot for the life of the common man. At the behest of associates like Mani Shankar Aiyar, Rajiv Gandhi toured many backward and underdeveloped areas of India and learned a lot from this.

Due to his inexperience, Rajiv Gandhi made two more big mistakes. One was sending Indian army troops to help the Sri Lankan army fighting against Tamil rebels and an even bigger mistake was standing up during the debate on the Bofors bribery scandal in the Lok Sabha and saying that I have not taken bribe. The truth was that Rajiv Gandhi did not take any money in the Bofors scandal. But his childish statement in the Lok Sabha gave a good excuse to the opponents to accuse him of bribery.

One of the reasons for Rajiv Gandhi's growing popularity among the common people was Amitabh Bachchan's support for him. Amitabh was Rajiv's closest friend and had a lot of influence in Rajiv's administration. Amitabh Bachchan's closeness to Rajiv was not liked by VP Singh and Arun Nehru. Therefore, Amitabh Bachchan also became a victim of the conspiracy of Rajiv's opponents. He was also dragged into the Bofors scandal without any reason.About  28 years later, when Rajiv Gandhi, VP Singh and Arun Nehru had left this world, it was officially said that Amitabh Bachchan had nothing to do with the Bofors scandal.

In 1989, Congress lost under the leadership of Rajiv Gandhi and VP Singh became the Prime Minister. But he could not run the government for even a year. Then after three consecutive Prime Ministers, the Congress again came to power in the elections of 1991. But during the election campaign, Rajiv was assassinated on 21st May in Sriperumbur (Tamil Nadu).

In the international political scene dominated by the U.S. , Rajiv Gandhi was becoming the centre of hostility of the  vested interests. The resolution passed in the South American conference of five big developing nations saying  that the developing nations are entitled to the option of not repaying the debt of the World Bank and IMF  robbed America and capitalist countries of their sleep. Now Rajiv Gandhi had established himself as the biggest enemy of America's economic-strategic system. When he was going to Sriperumbur on his last journey, Congress Secretary Anil Shastri was also there to see him off at Delhi airport. Anil Shastri told him to accept congratulations. “Now we are going to win the elections and you will become the Prime Minister again,” he said . Rajiv Gandhi replied that is fine but only if the Americans allow us to function . Anil Shastri says that he was shocked by Rajiv Gandhi's reaction. He could not understand why Rajiv was saying this.

International capitalism, the Indian corporate sector, communal Hindutva, international Khalsa Movement and vested interests in Tamil extremism were opposed to Rajiv Gandhi. Also, in the Congress party, VP Singh, Arun Nehru, Venkataraman, Tariq Anwar etc. were looking for the right time to sabotage him. Leaders like Narayan Dutt Tiwari, Arjun Singh, Sharad Pawar and Narasimha Rao were not opposed to him  but were not very enthusiastic either. President Giani Zail Singh, who had once said that if Indira Gandhi asked him, he would even sweep the floor, had become a staunch opponent of Rajiv Gandhi. He felt that now a new generation was going to come to power and he could be removed anytime. Rajiv Gandhi had no idea of ​​the conspiracy against him within the party. He also did not know that some of his trusted bureaucrats were meeting his opponents.

Rajiv Gandhi also  did not even know who his political friends were. When President Zail Singh was working to dismiss his government with the help of an ordinance and wanted to talk to the army chief,  Opposition leaders like Chandrashekhar, Hemvati Nandan Bahuguna, Madhu Dandavate, RK Hegde, Jyoti Basu, and Indrajit Gupta . told President Zail Singh that any such step would be unconstitutional and if the President did so, a nationwide movement would be launched to impeach him and remove him from the office. This stopped Zail Singh's advancing steps to dismiss Rajiv Gandhi from the office.

There are many known and unknown   pages in the book of Rajiv Gandhi's political life. It is needed to tell the whole story of his charming but short political life to the people of this country.

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