Rajiv Gandhi
![Official portrait, 1984](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d0/Rajiv_Gandhi%2C_the_6th_PM_of_India.jpg)
Gandhi was not related to the world-famous Mahatma Gandhi. Instead, he was from the politically powerful Nehru–Gandhi family, which had been associated with the Indian National Congress party. For much of his childhood, his maternal grandfather Jawaharlal Nehru was prime minister. Gandhi attended The Doon School, an elite boarding institution, and then the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom. He returned to India in 1966 and became a professional pilot for the state-owned Indian Airlines. In 1968, he married Sonia Maino; the couple settled in Delhi for a domestic life with their children Rahul and Priyanka. For much of the 1970s, his mother was prime minister and his younger brother Sanjay an MP; despite this, Gandhi remained apolitical.
After Sanjay died in a plane crash in 1980, Gandhi reluctantly entered politics at the behest of his mother. The following year he won his brother's Parliamentary seat of Amethi and became a member of the Lok Sabha, the lower house of India's Parliament. As part of his political grooming, Rajiv was made general secretary of the Congress party and given significant responsibility in organising the 1982 Asian Games.
On the morning of 31 October 1984, his mother (the then prime minister) was assassinated by her two Sikh bodyguards Satwant Singh and Beant Singh in the aftermath of Operation Blue Star, an Indian military action to remove Sikh separatist activists from the Golden Temple of the Harmandir Sahib. Later that day, Gandhi was appointed prime minister. His leadership was tested over the next few days as organised mobs rioted against the Sikh community, resulting in anti-Sikh massacres in Delhi. That December, the Congress party won the largest Lok Sabha majority to date, 414 seats out of 541. Gandhi's period in office was mired in controversies such as Bhopal disaster, Bofors scandal and ''Mohd. Ahmed Khan v. Shah Bano Begum''. In 1988, he reversed the coup in Maldives, antagonising militant Tamil groups such as PLOTE, intervening and then sending peacekeeping troops to Sri Lanka in 1987, leading to open conflict with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). His party was defeated in the 1989 election.
Gandhi remained Congress president until the elections in 1991. While campaigning for the elections, he was assassinated by a suicide bomber from the LTTE. In 1991, the Indian government posthumously awarded Gandhi the Bharat Ratna, the country's highest civilian award. At the India Leadership Conclave in 2009, the Revolutionary Leader of Modern India award was conferred posthumously on Gandhi. Provided by Wikipedia
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11by Joghee Suresh, Raja Gopal Rajiv Gandhi, Sundaram Gowri, Samayanan Selvam, Mahalingam SundrarajanGet full text
Published 2012-01-01
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12by Rajiv Gandhi, Dmitry Tsvetkov, Herman Dhottar, J Roderick Davey, Nizar N MahomedGet full text
Published 2010-01-01
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16by Appadurai Daniel Reegan, Munusamy Rajiv Gandhi, Antony Cruz Asharaja, Chitra Devi, Shanmugam Perumal ShanthakumarGet full text
Published 2020-10-01
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18by Rajiv Gandhi, Anthony V. Perruccio, Randy Rizek, Omar Dessouki, Heather M.K. Evans, Nizar N. MahomedGet full text
Published 2013-12-01
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