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Rajiv Gandhi — an appreciation

V.R. Krishna Iyer

His political tenure was tragically brief. He had promises to keep and miles to go.

THE FIRST time I met Rajiv Gandhi was when he was flying an aircraft from Jaipur to Delhi and I happened to be a passenger. The flight was smooth. This young pilot struck me as a personable operator concerned with the comforts of the passengers. He was simple, silent, mindful of his business with no airs as the son of the Prime Minister. The next time I met him was at a public meeting when he was the All-India Congress Committee (AICC) secretary. I was also a speaker at the meeting. The audience was a little rough because his predecessor, a Congress leader, was tactless, even offensive in his speech while referring to the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes. Rajiv Gandhi, next on the rostrum, mollified the audience.

When Indira Gandhi was treacherously assassinated, Rajiv Gandhi assumed the gaddi of Prime Minister. He was young, handsome, and looked intelligent, and the high office seemed to suit him. Full of vitality and conscious of his Nehruvian heritage, he was occasionally rash, hasty, and opinionated. I must concede that when I was hearing the kissa kursi ka case, both the brothers, Rajiv and Sanjay, quietly sat and listened to the arguments. Rajiv's behaviour impressed me as gentle, respectful; he appeared keen to follow the case.

However, as Prime Minister he was a different man, a powerful personality even in the babel of Parliament. Perhaps, he thought history was hurrying him to play a high role at the world level, as the proud Prime Minister of a great country. Surely, India is a great nation and swaraj is a sublime glory. Rajiv had a princely mien, often flattered into folly by pretentious friends, but he was proud in not bending before U.S. hegemony or accepting a quasi-colonial economy. He was confident of India's human and natural resources and wanted our near-one-billion-strong population to rise to the 21st century on its own. I never heard or read about him using the word socialism as an Indian economic desideratum, but he did frown on disdain for the depressed classes.

I do feel that he will be remembered for long as the legislative founder of Panchayati Raj. His parliamentary address with stress on "power to the people" was great.

Opposition parties and senior, seasoned political leaders paid scant respect to him as an upstart who unexpectedly leapt into high office. He was not demoralised but dismissed them. This attitude resulted in loss of national solidarity. Unity is strength, a divided India is vulnerable. In his election campaign and on other ceremonial occasions, he discarded pomp and did not surround himself with security paraphernalia — and paid the price.

His leadership potential was great but he had none to guide and many to mislead, little knowledge of Bharat's ancient wonder, the Asoka-Akbar traditions, and the struggles of Gandhi.

I remember criticising his dubious mission separating Muslim women from others vis-à-vis post-divorce maintenance. Nehru's grandson was prone to be secular but was a victim of political expediency. I was bitter and unsparing in my speech at the Indian Law Institute. His secret police conveyed to him my diatribe. The magnanimity of the man was, however, revealed to me when the next day I received his courteous letter at Kochi requesting me to meet him on my next visit to Delhi to discuss fairly the points I had made against his bill. This was a democratic attitude. We did discuss for nearly an hour and he seemed to agree with me on the grave flaws I pointed out. He was willing to change some provisions and wanted to continue the conversation; but neither of us had the time.

I told him that I would visit Delhi next for a seminar on the role of MNCs in their exploitative money-grabbing operations vis-à-vis pharmaceuticals. To my surprise, he sprang into an alert mood, became greatly concerned, and expressed his alarm at the greedy, immoral anti-people disposition of mega corporations charging extravagant prices for lifesaving drugs. And when the Government sought to control the prices they stopped manufacture. He hated this MNC irresponsibility. I was heartened that Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi was against this corporate pathological menace. He sent Gopi, his private secretary, to meet me at my distant residence and get my views about the MNCs' pharmaceutical terrorism, what with TRIPS and TRIMS and patent processes with the hidden agenda to rob Third World consumers.

Once he told me when I met him by chance that he was the only leader of a Third World country who had condemned the U.S. for bombing the palace of Muammar Qadhafi, the President of Libya.

He missed many grave problems but his political tenure was tragically brief. He had promises to keep and miles to go. His finest hour never arrived. Posthumous salutations to you!

Rajiv Gandhi, as a committed peace leader, commands my respect. The lunatic tumults in India, the communal and other discords, which made the country constantly disturbed revealed a new facet of Rajiv's personality — a passion for peace. The Longowal accord and the Assam accord demonstrated this young man's great concern for peace and justice within India. His commitment to Panchayati Raj and power to the people was admirable. His vision for the world led him to the Rajiv Peace Initiative along with Olaf Palme. It was something substantial on nuclear disarmament. His address to the U.S. Congress was a message of world peace.

His creative initiative in support of Afghanistan during Najibullah's time was an excellent gesture. At that time I was personally friendly with Najibullah. I wrote a letter to Rajiv Gandhi (October 8, 1988). "I have deeply appreciated your statesmanly gesture of inviting President Najibullah to Delhi some months ago. The friendship between the two countries is strategic and abiding."

A calm world and a long peace were his ambition, but a canker of chaos afflicted the universe. He died early by grisly treachery and never achieved his pacifist dream.

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