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On October 31, 1984 the celebrated pilot son, under highly trying circumstances, force landed in the alien territory. He found himself firmly grounded on the chair of the Indian Prime Minister and he knew that the `tighten your seat belts' sign would never go off.
Rajiv was the youngest Prime Minister of the country and in a situation, which could have intimidated the most experienced ones. The country was engulfed by the unprecedented anti-Sikh riots in the wake of Mrs. Gandhi's assassination. The terrified people looked up at him for restoring peace and tranquility. The Congress expected him to reap a rich harvest out of the sympathy wave. The country anticipated a fresh flow of young blood in the system to come to terms with the arduous challenges of the 20th century.
Rajiv slipped on to a stylish thin khadi kurta and a trouser like pajama to fulfill the aspirations. His appeals on the television instantly calmed down the communal passions. He brought the largest ever Lok Sabha majority for the Congress, which won 415 of the 543 seats. Then he got down to the real business of preparing the country for the approaching century. Large-scale compuerisation and modern communication systems in the country today speak volumes about his ability to figure out the requirements of the times ahead. His instant global acceptability could be even today would prove the neighbour's envy.
Administration, specially the nitty-gritty part of it, was where Rajiv's inexperience proved chaotic. That is why his detractors, specially his defence minister V.P. Singh, could take the Bofors scandal to a crescendo which eventually uprooted Rajiv.
His apprenticeship in politics started after Sanjay Gandhi's tragic air crash death in June 1980. Obviously the tutelage came from the protective mother Mrs. Indira Gandhi, who was then the Prime Minister. Regardless of his initial reluctance to take up active politics, Rajiv filed the nomination papers for his brother's Amethi and in June 1981 he entered the Lok Sabha. He was made the party general secretary in February1983.
He was virtually on a comeback trail with huge crowds turning up for his public meetings during the 1991 election campaign trail. Such overwhelming was the people's response that his entourage took nearly 10 hours to cross just a 15 kms stretch in Kanpur during the campaign. Political observers hardly had much doubts about his return to power but LTTE had fixed a different course for him. The nation sobbed and whaled as his famous Lotto shoes were the only testimony of his violent death on May 21, 1991.
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