(NOTE: This article was originally published in the India Today edition dated June 15, 1991)
“I have a dream,” he said then, in that summer of ‘85. And we, too, dreamed with him. It was truly an Indian summer then, that summer of Rajiv Gandhi. No leader since Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru had brought with him such brightness and hope. Or such a believable vision of 21st century India. It was not just his age. Or the attractiveness of his personality. Nor even his pedigree. There was, then, a special radiance accompanying him, a karmic configuration that had led him to this moment of awesome responsibility. Out of tragedy, had emerged lustre and light.
That was then, when the world was his appreciative stage and the applause a genuine acknowledgement of a leader who promised both excitement and glamour. And, above all, change. That all that changed in the blink of history’s eye was a tragedy made greater by his promise and his prestige. Somewhere along that lonely road, the dream died. And we all died, a little.
History is the harshest of judges. When all the eulogies are over and his ashes borne aloft on the leaden wings of India’s holy rivers, it may not judge him too well. In the sum total of his young life as leader of the world’s most populous democracy, the good will oft be interred. Then only his failures will return, ghostlike, to haunt the memory of a man who could have been king.
That there was much in him that was good and honourable and decent there can be no doubt. That was, indeed, the special quality which endeared him to millions of his people. Few leaders are blessed with charm and charisma. He had both. That, and the freshness symbolised by a generational change in India’s discredited leadership and the debut of a new political culture.
Perhaps we saw too much. Perhaps we hoped too much. Like drowning men clutching at imaginary straws, India grabbed him, worshipped him, set him on an impossibly high pedestal. And then, finally, violently, consumed him.
With him, perhaps, dies a dynasty. For India, it is a tragic loss. Not for what he had become but because of what he symbolised. In the psyche of the subcontinent, dynasties are the most durable—and acceptable. In his case, the emotional osmosis was further fuelled by the fact that his family—one single family—had ruled the country for virtually 37 of its 44 freedom years.
Rajiv’s unique public attraction was his image as the reluctant prince. An intensely private family man, a happy aviator, sucked greedily into the quicksand of Indian politics to fill the void left by the natural heir, his brother Sanjay. “Someone has to help Mummy,” was his justification then. That it wears a hollow ring now is an indication of the bewildering changes that Rajiv Gandhi went through, a complex metamorphosis that turned him into an unrecognisable enigma, a man with many faces and many masks, each one made more grotesque by his original promise and endearing naivete.
There was Rajiv the Reluctant, the western-educated liberal, dabbling hesitatingly in the one thing he detested the most—Indian politics. “I don’t understand politics. I find it dirty. No one knows who is saying what and why,” he remarked in all honesty.
Fiercely protected by his friends, later to become his aides, the political debutant was finding his feet, starting to enjoy his new role, seeing himself as a possible instrument of change. The apolitical man and the immovable political object were on a collision course even then, except no one doubted his ability to transform the system. He wore the look of a winner.
The unprecedented mandate afforded him after the assassination of his mother only reinforced that image. Fate, however tragic, had provided India with just the leader it was looking for. Young. Dynamic. Modern-minded. A man with no political baggage to weigh him down in his oft-declared mission—to propel India into the 21st century. He had neither the intellect and vision of his grandfather nor the political comprehension and savvy of his mother. But he was Mr Clean. Mr Uncomplicated. Mr Idealism. And Mr Hope.
The euphoria he generated in those early years was entirely justified. Rajiv the Moderniser had arrived. Suddenly, he was a man in a hurry, waving the magic wand of liberalisation. India’s consumer boom, the computer culture, deregulation, a new political language. The Anti-Defection Act. New economic policy. Political reform. The direction of his initial thrust was awesome in its potential.
His scathing attack at the Congress centenary celebrations in Bombay against the “brokers of power and influence riding on the backs of millions of Congress workers, converting a mass movement into a feudal oligarchy”, was not seen as a politician’s homage to rhetoric but a genuine desire to clean the Augean stables. That those stirring words, uttered with such oratorical flourish, would one day become Rajiv’s own political epitaph, is the boldest and most compelling testimony to Rajiv’s failure to grapple with the malaise that eventually overtook his century-old party and his government.
But in those first 18 months, the teflon held firm. The arrival of Rajiv the Statesman seemed like natural progression. The swift succession of accords—Punjab, Mizoram, Assam—was broadened in scope by dazzling success on foreign fronts. A personal rapport with Mikhail Gorbachev, his wooing of Ronald Reagan’s America, South Asian Cooperation. Almost overnight, he transformed India’s image in the world arena. The champagne bubbled—and then burst.
He had the mandate. And the opportunity. But soon, like sand, it started slipping through his fingers. Rajiv the Vacillator had arrived. Palace plots had taken their toll. Trusted friends had gradually been discarded, the team that worked so well in tandem—V.P. Singh, Arun Nehru, Arun Singh, Arjun Singh—sidelined in favour of sycophants and self-seekers. The doers and thinkers had given way to gate-keepers, men of petty minds and shrunken stature.
Many of his one-time political advisers saw the dangers but were helpless to act. The political handlers had taken over. Rajiv seemed to be now basing his decisions on the last person who had his ear. More so, if the returns were politically favourable to the Congress(I). Like his mother, Rajiv was equating the party with the country. What was good for the party became, in some distorted fashion, good for India.
The gap between the promises and the performance had visibly started to widen. The Shah Bano case. The bungling over the Punjab accord. The lack of will and poor advice that led him to stall the promised handing over of Chandigarh. A sudden, panicky hike in petrol prices only to bring them down a few days later. Rajiv seemed to be speaking in two voices. His and someone else’s.
This was a new Rajiv, Rajiv the Naive. A man obsessed with change but trapped in his own contradictions, seemingly—and suddenly—unable to decide for himself, increasingly dependent on the same hangers-on and power brokers he had promised to purge. Now, they were back, the mocking monkey on his back, diverting him from his chosen mission. The bureaucratic behemoth was still intact, undented by his attempts to change the status quo. “I came up against blocks, vested interests. I couldn’t break through,” he admitted later. He still had the mandate and much of the mission but he was now marching to a different drumbeat. The more he tried to change the system, the more it changed him.
Ultimately, the change was inexplicable. Rajiv was clearly a man with more in common with the world leaders he was so comfortable with. Abroad, he revelled in the spotlight, displaying devastating wit and a quick grasp of world affairs. In contrast, the politicians and members of his fossilised party seemed like aliens from another planet.
That he eventually became one with them—in mind and in spirit—is just another of the many ironies that dogged his life and times and turned him into something of a split personality. A modern young man schooled in moral courage who yet constantly sought refuge in the sycophantic security of the hidebound Congress culture.
The public sacking of his foreign secretary was the first sign that one mask—Mr Nice Guy—was peeling off to reveal the one beneath—Rajiv the Ruthless. The new Rajiv was more in the image of his mother, a hard-headed politician increasingly in league with intrigue and obsessed with paranoia. V.P. Singh, the Rajiv government’s symbol of economic liberalisation and anti-corruption, sidelined and finally forced out. The cabals were getting more powerful, more daring in their attempts to isolate Rajiv from the India of his dreams. The leader was being led.
The arrival of Rajiv the Insecure was thus ordained. Incongruously, he was now talking of conspiracies and foreign hands, sensing, subliminally, his own failures but convinced by the cliques around him that the fault lay elsewhere. “Conspiracies are being hatched and they have their godfathers abroad. We will teach them such a lesson that they will remember their grandmothers.”
This was another Rajiv, chopping and changing his cabinet and his chief ministers much in the manner of his late mother, suspicious, brooding and aloof, a victim of his own paranoia and uncaring of the increasingly sullen public mood. The once-quick mind and political courage were missing. Rajiv seemed unable to come to grips with the many complex crises that had overtaken his government.
Sri Lanka, Punjab, Kashmir, Assam. Once spectacular symbols of success were now forlorn signposts to failure. Quick-fix solutions that offered short-term gains appeared favourable to complex responses that required time and excessive thought and long-term returns. It almost appeared that Rajiv found it easier to let others do the thinking for him. The fact that it was his image that was being destroyed, his mandate that was being recklessly squandered, seemed inconsequential.
The result: Rajiv the Reckless. The Sri Lanka accord was a classic example of the new style, rushing into solutions without adequate preparation or thought. The Kashmir accord was another, fated to end in disaster but considered necessary for imaginary—and narrow—political gains. The entire policy-making framework was being subverted by the omnipotent PMO, a collection of loyal and over-enthusiastic bureaucrats who distanced Rajiv even further from his real responsibilities—and the real India.
Hemmed in by a security wall, isolated from the people, kept ignorant of the danger signals, it was Rajiv’s immaturity as a leader that was now on display. The petulance, the pettiness, the paranoia and, above all, the obsessive protectiveness of friends with dubious motivations. The transformation from an anti-establishment image to The Establishmentarian was now complete. He now-needed the system more than it needed him.
By the mid-point of his mandate, the dream had turned badly sour. Steeped in scandals, he shed his inherent openness in favour of unseemly attacks on the Opposition, on the press, on foreign forces. Bofors marked the major turning point in Rajiv’s evolution as a politician. Sharing a light moment with local children while on a trip to Mizoram along with wife Sonia. Mr Clean was now Mr Cornered. If any one event did the most damage to Rajiv—as a man, as a politician and as prime minister—it was Bofors. It was a devastating blow from which he never quite recovered.
Instead of coming clean and proving he had nothing to hide, he chose to sidestep and evade direct questions. The bungling on Bofors was easily his most serious mistake. The public impression was that of a desperate politician out to shield errant friends. The evasiveness was so unlike Rajiv that it single-handedly changed forever his image in the public eye.
The very weapons he chose for self-defence were self-destructive. The ill-advised Defamation Bill—a clumsy attempt to plug the flood of damaging media revelations—led to an embarrassing climbdown. The Muslim Women’s Bill damaged his secular image. The Panchayati Raj—’power to the people’—was seen as political desperation.
Flashes of the old Rajiv remained. In private, he was as charming as ever, claiming that he still didn’t feel like he was prime minister. The playful, adventurous side of his nature surfaced occasionally: the Dolphin-saving holidays, the Run For My Country jogs down Janpath, the para-jumping and the childlike enjoyment of flying his own plane and driving his own car. The vision seemed intact as was his awareness of the problems. The technology missions under Sam Pitroda were clearly a belated attempt to outflank the bureaucracy. But the reactions and instincts were unalterably changed. Clearly, the political Rubicon had been crossed. There was now no turning back.
Now, the Dhawans and Fotedars were back, people he had discarded without so much as a twinge of political conscience. Now, he clearly revelled in the sycophancy. Now, he gloried in his image as the Supreme Leader of India’s largest political party, cutting down potential challengers with a ruthlessness and arrogance that was an Indira Gandhi trademark.
The tyro had become the teacher, a master of manipulation and intrigue. That the road he chose ended at a political dead-end, he seemed blissfully unaware. Power had corrupted. Absolute power had corrupted absolutely. The political consequence was inevitable. The irony, inescapable. The man who had earned a historic mandate as Mr Clean in 1984, was, five years later, rudely ejected from power. His successors? The very people he had once trusted and then disdainfully discarded.
Enter Rajiv the Opposition Leader. Certainly, he seemed different, more humble and contrite. “In all humility, we accept the people’s verdict. We pledge to offer constructive support to the new government.” His farewell speech on Doordarshan brought back poignant memories of the old Rajiv, a man seemingly aware that he had gone horribly wrong and where exactly he had gone wrong.
But, in essence, nothing much appeared to have changed. The traditional, die-hard Congress culture served to ensure that. The coterie remained the same, playing on his vanity, feeding on his flaws and convincing him that it was only a matter of days before he was back in the prime minister’s chair. Soon, the familiar arrogance was back, the back-room intrigues, the wheeling and dealing—as evidenced by the dismissal of the Karunanidhi government under pressure from Rajiv and his party.
The sudden onset of the elections—19 months after he was thrown out of power—seemed to have recharged his old batteries. The image of the Happy Warrior plunging through the crowds, aware he had lost touch with them and was now eagerly striving to show them he still greatly cared, was once again in clear evidence.
This was Rajiv the Indefatigable, the man who received his energy—and his power—from the people. Throughout his tortuous campaign—sleeping barely a couple of hours a day—Rajiv was like a man reborn. Laughing and joking with the crowds, playfully throwing garlands at women, scolding his security for keeping the crowds at bay, Rajiv seemed to have rediscovered his place in the sun.
Forgotten were the scandals and the mismanagement, the bungles and the bluster. The crowds seemed to sense that here was a different Rajiv, even, perhaps, the old Rajiv. Shorn of the sycophants and the cliques and the courtiers, Rajiv was a man transformed. A man of the people.
The wheel had come full circle. That undefinable spark was once again in evidence. Whether it would flicker momentarily only to be snuffed out by the system that had trapped him once earlier, is a question that now lies buried in an obscure place with an unpronounceable name.
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