It’s the great might-have-been of Indian politics. What would India’s political landscape have looked like had Rajiv Gandhi not been assassinated in a late-night suicide bombing at Sriperumbudur in Tamil Nadu in 1991?
Gandhi was only 46 when he was killed and it seems almost certain he would have returned to the top job before long – if not in the very election campaign for which he was crisscrossing the country, addressing one jam-packed rally after another. But all that was not to be, He was just two days short of his 47th birthday on May 21 when his life was cut short.
In the final hours before the assassination, Rajiv Gandhi had promised an interview to journalist Neena Gopal and she was with him in his car and almost certainly the last person to speak to him. At Sriperumbudur he stepped out of his car and told her simply: “Follow me.” Moments later, the bomber struck.
Standing nearby was senior journalist and Rajiv’s close friend Suman Dubey, who initially muttered: “It’s a firecracker, it’s a firecracker.” But Gopal, a veteran war reporter, instantly realised it was a bomb.
In the chaos, she found her white sari spattered with the blood of the person who had been standing in front of her. Years later, her reporting career would place her close to another political assassination when Benazir Bhutto was blown up in Islamabad.
It is tempting to fall back on the familiar cynical refrain that politicians are all carbon copies of one another and that it makes little difference who comes and who goes. Yet it is difficult to deny that Rajiv Gandhi stood apart from the crowd of politicos who jostle for space on Parliament’s front benches.
In many ways, he was different even from members of his own family, who had followed more conventional routes to power. Says Vir Sanghvi, senior journalist and former editor: “He was one of the warmest, most decent human beings to become prime minister of India. With him, what you saw was what you got; there was no deviousness, no subterfuge and certainly, no megalomania.”
That is generous praise, but there was something genuinely unusual about Rajiv Gandhi. Most crucially, unlike many pampered scions of wealthy or politically connected families, he initially charted an entirely different and independent path for himself.
He did not try to build a business empire that could convert political connections into riches. Nor did he begin by targeting a safe parliamentary seat as the launchpad for a political career – that came later.
Instead, he climbed into the cockpit at Indian Airlines, working as a commercial pilot and often flying domestic routes to smaller destinations such as Jaipur and Jammu. He did not even aim for the more glamorous long-haul routes of Air India, which might have taken him around the globe.
Rajiv was the fourth-generation descendant of India’s most prominent political dynasty, a family accustomed to power and relentless public scrutiny, yet he consciously chose a relatively low-profile life.
Sanghvi argues that this unusual background shaped Rajiv Gandhi’s instincts as prime minister. Says Sanghvi: “We often forget that he may have been the first Indian PM to have ever held a regular job, to have paid income tax and PF. This gave him an understanding of how salaried people in India lived and how the system was tilted against them.”
His reluctant entry into politics came only after his younger brother, Sanjay Gandhi, widely seen as Indira Gandhi’s political heir, was killed when the aircraft he was piloting crashed near Delhi’s Safdarjung Airport. Rajiv’s transition into public life was memorably captured by India Today, whose cover showed him carefully placing a pristine white Congress topi on his head beneath the headline: “Will the Cap Fit?”
As it turned out, Rajiv Gandhi had more ideas about India’s future than most airline pilots. Long before it became fashionable, he recognised the beginnings of the technological revolution that would go on to reshape everyday life. He backed computerisation and telecommunications at a time when many in the political establishment remained deeply sceptical.
Rajiv was still politically inexperienced when he was abruptly thrust into the top job after his mother, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, was shot dead by her bodyguards in 1984. Unsurprisingly, he made mistakes. A big blow came from the Bofors scandal, which damaged his “Mr Clean” image amid allegations of kickbacks in a Swedish gun deal, though courts never established wrongdoing.
He was also criticised for overturning the Shah Bano judgment and for unlocking the Babri Masjid site. His decision to send troops to Sri Lanka turned into a costly, unpopular debacle and ultimately led to his assassination by the LTTE.
Rajiv also faced criticism over his response to the anti-Sikh riots of 1984 following his mother’s killing, particularly his remark that “when a big tree falls, the earth shakes”.
Yet supporters argue that his broader vision for India remains underestimated.
As Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge points out: “He laid the foundations for the country’s journey into the 21st century. His transformative initiatives included lowering the voting age to 18, empowering local self-governance through Panchayati Raj, ushering in the telecom and information technology revolution, advancing computerisation, securing important peace accords, launching the universal immunisation programme, and introducing a forward-looking education policy centred on inclusive learning.”
Kharge is undoubtedly a partisan observer, but there is considerable truth in his assessment. Rajiv Gandhi’s government lowered taxes, encouraged early economic modernisation and presided over the beginnings of a stock market boom.
Many others who encountered Rajiv Gandhi remember him with similar warmth. Journalist and television anchor Rajdeep Sardesai was a young reporter at the time and met him only briefly. He recalls: “I met Rajiv-ji only once: he was in the opposition at the time. What stayed with me was his warmth towards a young reporter: no airs, no hostility, just an easy smile and gentle manner. And yes, a willingness to answer all our questions!”