Unlike his grandfather, Jawaharlal Nehru, or even his mother, Indira Gandhi, Rajiv appears to have been singularly lacking in intellectual attainments, and his interventions in Parliamentary debates were notoriously prosaic and dull. His years in office cannot be described as having contributed in any healthy way to the political life
of the nation, and the precipitous decline of the Congress party can also be attributed to his inept handling of party affairs, and the encouragement he gave to those willing to do his bidding.Rajiv Gandhi, born in 1944, served as the Prime Minister of India from 1984 to 1989. The first son of Indira and Feroze Gandhi, Rajiv attended Cambridge University, where he met and married Sonia. He was not a man of any unusual academic achievements or other distinctions, and appears to have had few ambitions until the death of his brother Sanjay in 1980. The following year, his mother, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, appears to have induced Rajiv, an airline pilot, to enter politics. He stood successfully for election in 1981 and became a political adviser to his mother. After her assassination in 1984, Rajiv succeeded her as head of the Congress party, and was sworn in as Prime Minister of India. Rajiv, rather keen on preparing India for the twenty-first century, collected his buddies and cronies around him, and sought to increase Indian investments in modern technology. His “vision” of India, insofar as he had one, was that of a technocrat, and his policies did little to eradicate or diminish poverty and the vast inequities of power and wealth which are to be found in Indian society. Like his mother, he could not contain the political problems afflicting India, and found refuge in international entanglements and commitments. He committed the so-called Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF) to Sri Lanka in an endeavor to help the government there to eradicate militants agitating for a separate Tamil homeland. His period in office was marred by scandals and allegations of corruption on so huge a scale that he undoubtedly lost the election of 1989 partly on account of the public perception that he had received “kick-backs” from a Swedish company manufacturing Bofors machine-guns. The Congress suffered an electoral defeat. His successor, Vishwanath Pratap Singh, could not hold office for very long, and Rajiv started campaigning in earnest in 1991. It was while he was on this campaign in South India that a bomb explosion took his life; even his body could not be pieced together. As he had named thousands of buildings and institutions after his mother and brother, so his wife, Sonia Gandhi, has named everything after her dead husband.
Interesting links
Here are some interesting links for you! Enjoy your stay :)Pages
- ‘Quit India’ Movement
- “Exploring the Human Psyche”
- “Gandhi’s Last Fast”
- “Hey Ram”
- “Indologists’ India”
- “Jolly Good Fellows and Their Nasty Ways”
- “Man of Action”?
- “Talking India”: Ashis Nandy & Ramin Jehanbegloo
- 12-year-old’s journey to hell
- 2nd Level Nested Sample Page
- 2nd Level Nested Sample Page 2
- A Monumental Non-event: The India’s Commonwealth Games
- A Pyrrhic Victory?
- A. K. Ramanujan, 1929-1993: Scholar, Poet, and Writer
- About Vinay
- Abul Kalam Azad
- Adoor Gopalakrishnan
- Agni Sakshi
- Agrarian Unrest: The Deccan Riots of 1875
- Ajanta
- Alexander and the Gymnosophists
- Alexander Overbeck-Wright
- Amartya Sen, Argumentative Indians, and Bengali Modernity
- Amitabh Bachhan
- An Ad from Delhi
- Anand Patwardhan
- Ancient India
- Anti Christian Violence
- Anti-terrorist Legislation
- Architecture
- Arguing with “Amartya Sen” (PDF version)
- Art
- Atman Ramchalon
- Aurangzeb, Akbar, and the Communalization of History
- Aurangzeb: A Political History
- Aurangzeb: Religious Policies
- Aurangzeb’s Fatwa on Jizya
- Avatars of Vishnu
- Avatars, Divinities
- Ayodhya As Another Nodal Point
- Babur
- Bamiyan Buddhas
- Battle of Plassey
- Bernard S. Cohn and Indian History in the American Academy: A Brief Note
- Bernard S. Cohn, 1928-2003: Scholar, Democrat, Mentor, and Friend
- Bhagvad Gita
- Bhagvata Purana
- Bhajans
- Bhoot
- Bhopal
- Bhopal and the Crime of Union Carbide
- Bihar
- Bimal Roy (1909-1966)
- Bishnoi
- Black Hole of Calcutta
- Border Hindustan Ka
- BP, Union Carbide, and Corporate Responsibility
- British India
- Buddha
- Buddhism
- Buddhist Architecture
- Calcutta Mail (2003)
- Caste conflicts
- Caste, the Census, and the Political Arithmetic of Modernity
- Categories
- Cinema
- Clive and his Pet Tortoise
- Coca-Cola in India
- Cochin’s Jews
- Colonial Epistemologies
- Consumerism
- Contact
- Contemporary Electoral Politics in Trinidad
- Corporate Greed and Bhopal’s Continuing Tragedy
- Criminality and Colonial Anthropology
- Cuisine
- Cultural Politics of the National Flag
- Culture
- Current Affairs
- Dalits beheaded for falling in love
- Dalton’s Ethnology of Bengal
- Dance
- Dandi: Salt March
- Death of an Empire (Ashis Nandy)
- Deewaar: Between the Footpath and the Skyscraper
- Deewangee
- Deewar [The Wall]
- Democracy and the Indian Polity
- Diaspora
- Diaspora Purana: The Indic Presence in World Culture
- Directors
- Diwali
- Do Bigha Zameen
- Dussehra
- East India Company
- Edwin Felix Atkinson
- Eliot and Dowson’s History of India
- English, August: An Indian Story
- Epigraphica Indica
- Faisal Devji’s Gandhi
- Fast, Counter-Fast, Anti-Fast
- Fatehpur Sikri
- Father of the Nation?
- Festivals
- Film Music
- Film Music
- Films
- Folktales and Folklore
- Fort Architecture
- Framing a Discourse: China and India in the Modern World
- Framing Gandhi, Framing His Photograph
- From Masjid to Mandir: Across the Corentyne, Into Suriname
- Frontpage
- Fusion
- Gambling on Gandhi
- Gambling on Gandhi: On Being Timid and Taking Risks
- Gandhi and Hitler: A Case of Doppelgangers
- Gandhi and the Art of Dying (2014)
- Gandhi and the Nobel Peace Prize
- Gandhi at the Aga Khan Palace, Pune
- Gandhi in Guyana
- Gandhi, Citizenship, and the Idea of a Good Civil Society
- Gandhi, the Law Student
- Gandhi: A Select Bibliographic Guide
- Gandhi…and the Future of Dissent
- Gandhi’s ‘Relevance’: One More Round of Humbug
- Gandhi’s Not History
- Gandhi’s Religion: Politics, Faith, and Hermeneutics (2013)
- Gandhian Ecology
- Ganesh
- Ganpati Festival
- Gulf Indians and the Hierarchies of NRIs
- Guru Dutt
- Guru Nanak
- Guru Nanak
- Gurus, Sants
- Hill Stations: Pinnacles of the Raj
- Hind Swaraj
- Hindi Cinema — A Short Research Guide
- Hindu Rashtra
- Hinduism
- Hinduism and Bollywood: A Few Notes
- Hinduism in the Wild West
- Hinduism versus Hindutva
- Hindus in Chicago: A Short Note
- History & Politics
- History and Aesthetics
- Homepage with Boxed Image Slider
- Imperial Nostalgia
- Independent India
- Index Home
- India – US Relations in 2020
- India and Its Neighbors
- India and the Fear of Democracy
- India e seus vizinhos
- India és Szomszédai
- INDIA-US RELATIONS IN 2020: A FUTURIST PERSPECTIVE
- India’s Moment: Elections 2004
- India’s Problem with Toilets
- Indian Americans and The Spelling Bee
- Indian Hemp Drugs Commission
- Indian History Bibliography
- Indian History Bibliography
- Indian History Bibliography
- Indian Poetics
- Indian States
- Indians and the Guinness Book of Records
- Indians in Chicago: A Brief Note
- Indians in the Carribean
- Indians in the US
- Indie
- Indien och grannar
- Indija i njeni Susjedi
- Indira Gandhi
- Indo-Mauritians and the Innocents: A Photo Gallery
- Indus Valley Civilization
- Indus Valley Civilization
- Instrumental
- Intellectuals
- Intia ja sen naapureiden
- Jahangir
- Jindal and America: A Marriage in Heaven
- Jnaneshvari
- Jnaneshvari
- Joel Stein’s Edison and the Rage of Indian Americans
- John Stuart Mill
- Joseph Garcin de Tassy
- Kanchipuram
- Karwa Chauth
- Kashmir Earthquake, 2005
- Kasturba Gandhi
- Kautilya and Arthashastra
- Khajuraho
- Khalnayak
- Kirpan
- Krishna
- Krishna: A Select Research Bibliography
- Lal Bahadur Shastri
- Landscapes
- Linde Et Ses Voisins
- Literature
- Longer Research Articles
- Madhya Pradesh
- Mahabalipuram
- Mahatma Gandhi
- Mahavira
- Mahmud of Ghazni
- Main Madhuri Dixit Banna Chahti Hoon
- Male Bonding and Pink Rubbers at Kempty Falls
- Manmohan Singh and the Naxalites
- Marriage, Family, and Romance
- Media Gallery
- Medical care
- Meena Kumari
- Mera Saaya
- Mirabai
- Modi, the Mahatama, and Mendacity
- Mrinal Sen
- Mughal Architecture
- Muhammad Afzal and the Death Sentence
- Muhammad Yunus and the Nobel Prize
- Mujhe Tumare Sign Chaiyen
- Mujse Dosti Karoge
- Mukhtaran Mai, the Conscience of Pakistan
- Musharraf’s Lincoln, Bush’s Musharraf
- Music
- Myths and Characters
- Nandy: Select Bibliography
- Narasimha
- Naseeruddin Shah
- Nataraja
- Nathuram Godse, the RSS, and the Murder of Gandhi
- Nested Sample Page
- New Indian Cinema
- Nissim Ezekiel
- Obama, Gandhi, and a Few Morsels of Food
- Obama’s Dinner with Gandhi
- Oppression of women
- Orissan Architecture
- Ours But To Do and Die
- Pakistan: A Select Political Chronology, 1947-2008
- Panj Kakke
- Partition of India
- Partition of India-Bibliography
- Partitioned Selves…
- Paths
- Pats
- Pats: Example
- Peasant Insurgency in Colonial India
- Pietermaritzburg: The Beginning of Gandhi’s Odyssey
- Political Documentaries in India
- Political Documentaries in India [PDF, abridged in German]
- Pollution
- Portuguese in India: Early Phase, Part I
- Prabhakaran: In the Shadow of Che?
- Prabhakaran‘s Death and the Politics of the Double
- Practices
- Public Interest Litigation
- Public Works Department
- Puranas
- Raghupati Raghav Rajaram
- Raj Kapoor
- Rajiv Gandhi
- Raksha Bandhan
- Ramacaritmanas
- Ramakrishna
- Ramayana
- Ramayana
- Ravana
- Reading Nandigram through ‘The Hindu’
- Religions
- Research
- Research Material in MANAS
- Return to the Womb: The NRI in the Motherland
- Review of Nandy et al, “The Blinded Eye”
- Review of Richard Fox, Gandhian Utopia
- Rivers
- Road
- Robert Clive
- Sardar Patel
- Satyajit Ray
- Set of 4 Articles on Vivekananda & the American Legacy
- Sexuality of a Celibate Life
- Shahrukh and the Shiv Sena
- Shakti [‘Strength’]
- Shiva
- Shivaji and the Marathas
- Shivaji and the Politics of History
- Sholay
- Shyam Benegal
- Sikhism
- Sir George A. Grierson
- Sir Herbert Hope Risley
- Sir Muhammed Iqbal
- Siraj-ud-daulah
- Smita Patil
- Snakes, Ladders, and Indian Billionaires
- Social and Political Movements
- Social Issues
- Sonia Gandhi
- South Indian Architecture
- Stars
- Stepwells
- Stories By Satyajit Ray
- Street Life
- Sweets and Cricket
- Sweets and Cricket
- Taj Mahal
- Texts
- The Ajmer Bomb Blast
- The Archivist’s Gandhi (2014)
- The Ayodhya Judgment (2010)
- The Bioscopewallah
- The California Textbook Controversy
- The centre will hold (with apologies to Yeats)
- The Chess Players
- The Courage of Bilkis Bano
- The Culture of Death in Modern India
- The Dalai Lama’s Laugh
- The Fear of Gandhi
- The Future of Indian Democracy
- The Gandhi Everyone Loves to Hate
- The Gandhi of Tavistock Square
- The Girl-Child in India: Play, Pedagogy, and Promise
- The Great Andamanese and the Extinction of Bo
- The Incident of the ‘Crawling Lane’
- THE INDIAN DIASPORA
- The Indian Minority in Malaysia
- The Indus, Ganga and Others Indian Rivers
- The Karma of Coca-Cola
- The Karma of Coca-Cola
- The Love Ballad of Rehman and Todi
- The Mughal Empire
- The Panj Pyare, or the Five Beloved
- The Politics and Ethics of Reservations
- The Social Fabric of Life
- The Strange and Beguiling Relationship of India and Pakistan
- The Tragedy of Komagata Maru
- Tukaram
- Udham Singh in Popular Memory
- Udham Singh: Avenger of the Amritsar Massacre
- Uttar Pradesh
- Vaishnava Janato
- Various Articles
- Vastushastra
- Veer Savarkar: Ideologue of Hindutva
- Victim of stripping moves court
- Vidyapati
- Violin
- Vivekananda
- Vocal
- Warren Hastings
- What’s New at MANAS…
- William Carey
- William Henry ‘Thugee’ Sleeman
- ИНДИЈА И НЕЈЗИНИТЕ СОСЕДИ
- Індія і її Сусіди
- Індыя
- Манас: Индия и ее соседи
- Before Vivekananda: Glimpses of Indian Spirituality in 19th Century US
- Reflections on the Indian Diaspora
- Freedom In Chains
- Vivekananda at the World Parliament of Religions
- At Home In Trinidad
- The American Acolytes of Vivekananda
- The Cultural Appropriation of Vivekananda by Indian Americans
- The Future of the Indians in the Diaspora