1)Manmohan Singh
Manmohan Singh (Punjabi: ਮਨਮੋਹਨ ਸਿੰਘ) (born 26 September 1932) is the 17th and current Prime Minister of India. An economist by profession, Dr. Singh worked at organizations like the International Monetary Fund and the United Nations. From 1982 to 1985, he was the governor of the Reserve Bank of India. Singh is a member of the Indian National Congress party, and became the first Sikh Prime Minister of India on 22 May 2004. He is considered one of the most influential figures in India's recent history, mainly because of the Economic Reforms he had initiated in 1991 when he was Finance Minister under Prime Minister Narasimha Rao.[1]
Early life
Singh was born on 26 September 1932, in Gah, Punjab (now in Chakwal District, Pakistan). He has an Undergraduate (1952) and a Master's degree (1954) from Panjab University, Chandigarh; an Undergraduate degree (1957) from Cambridge University (St. John's College) and a Ph.D (1962) from Oxford University (Nuffield College). In 1997, the University of Alberta presented him with an Honorary Doctor of Laws. The University of Oxford awarded him an honorary Doctor of Civil Law degree in June 2005, and in October 2006, the University of Cambridge followed with the same honour. St John's College and the University of Cambridge further honoured him by naming a PhD Scholarship after him, the Dr Manmohan Singh Scholarship.
Singh married Gursharan Kaur in 1958, and they have three daughters. His youngest daughter, Amrit Singh, is a staff attorney at American Civil Liberties Union and is married to Barton Beebe, an Associate Professor of Law of Jewish faith.
Career as an economist and Early Political Career
After completing his Ph.D, Dr. Singh, worked for institutions like the International Monetary Fund and the United Nations. During the 1970s, he worked for the Ministry of Foreign Trade, and the Finance Ministry of India. He also taught at the University of Delhi, and Jawaharlal Nehru University. He was Governor of the Reserve Bank of India from 1982 to 1985. He was deputy chairman of the Planning Commission of India from 1985 to 1987.
Finance Minister
In 1991, P.V. Narasimha Rao, chose Singh to be the Finance Minster of India. At the time, India was facing an economic crisis. Rao, and Singh, decided to open up the Indian Economy, and change the socialist economic system, to a capitalist economy. The economic reform package, included dismantling License Raj, that made it virtually impossible for private businesses to exist and prosper, removing many obstacles for Foreign Direct Investment, and beginning the process of the privatization of public sector companies. These economic reforms are credited with bringing high levels of economic growth in India, and changing the annual 3%, to an average of 8-9% economic growth in the following years. However inspite of these reforms, Rao's government was voted out in 1996. However, the economic reforms, were continued by ensuing administrations.
Career in the Rajya Sabha
Singh was first elected to the upper house of the Indian Parliament, the Rajya Sabha in 1995, and was re-elected, in 2001, and 2007. From 1998 to 2004, while the conservative Bharatiya Janata Party, was in power, Singh was the Leader of the opposition in the Rajya Sabha. In 1999, he ran for the Lok Sabha, from South Delhi, but was unable to win in that seat, thus making himself, the only Indian Prime Minster, never to have been elected, from the Lok Sabha.
Tenure as Prime Minister
Singh's image is generally regarded as intellectual, honest but cautious, attentive to working class people (on whose votes he was elected), and technocratic. Although legislative achievements have been few and the Congress-led alliance is routinely hampered by conflicts, Singh's administration has focused on reducing the fiscal deficit, providing debt-relief to poor farmers, extending social programs and advancing the pro-industry economic and tax policies that have launched the country on a major economic expansion course since 2002. Singh has been the image of the Congress campaign to defuse religious tensions and conflicts and bolster political support from minorities like Muslims, Christians and Sikhs.
Foreign Policy
Prime Minister Singh, and the Foreign ministry, has continued the pragmatic foreign policy, that was started by P.V. Narasimha Rao, and was continued by Atal Bihari Vajpayee. The Prime Minister's foreign policy has been to continue the new peace process with Pakistan initiated by his predecessor, Atal Bihari Vajpayee. Exchange visits by top leaders from both countries have highlighted his tenure, as has reduced terrorism and increased prosperity in the state of Kashmir. Border disputes, with the People's Republic of China, have been solved to some extent. In November 2006, Chinese President Hu Jintao, visited India, as did Dr. Singh, in January 2008. A big achievement, was the reopening of the Nathula Pass, in 2006, after being closed for more than 4 decades. In 2007, China became the biggest trade partner of India. Relations, with Afghanistan, have been very good. When Afghan President Hamid Karzai, visited India, in August 2008, Dr. Singh increased the aid package to Afghanistan for the development of more schools, health clinics, the economy, the infrastructure, the police, and the defence, of Afghanistan.
Dr. Singh's government, has worked towards stronger ties, with the United States. Dr. Singh, visited the US, in July 2005, when negotiations started over the Indo-US Civilian Nuclear Agreement, that Dr. Singh has said will give India energy security, and give India access to nuclear fuels for nuclear energy. This was followed by George W. Bush's successful visit in March 2006 to India. Dr. Singh, has enjoyed a good relationship with President Bush.
Dr. Singh, visited Japan, in December 2006, and a new, strong relationship has grown with this Asian country. Relations have improved with European Union countries, like the United Kingdom, France, and Germany. Relations, with Iran, have continued, and negotiations, over the Iran-Pakistan-India gas pipeline, have taken place. The construction of this pipeline, shall start in 2009. The Government suffered a setback when it lost the support of a key ally, several African Union members, for its bid for a permanent membership to the U.N. Security Council with veto privileges[citation needed]. However, relations have improved with Africa in general. A summit, with African leaders, took place, in New Delhi, in April 2008. Relations, have improved, with other developing countries, like Brazil, and South Africa. In 2006, a dialogue forum with these countries, the IBSA Dialogue Forum, was started. Relations, have continued to grow with strong allies like Israel, ASEAN, and Russia.
Economic Policy
Dr. Singh, along with Finance Minister, P. Chidambaram, have presided over a period, where the Indian economy, has grown with an 8-9% economic growth rate. Dr. Singh, has focussed on reducing the budget deficit. In June 2007, India became a trillion dollar economy. As prime minister, Dr. Singh, has continued the economic reforms, that he, and P.V. Narasimha Rao, started in 1991, and were continued by Atal Bihari Vajpayee. Dr. Singh's government, has continued the Golden Quadrilateral, and the highway modernization programme, that was initiated by Mr. Vajpayee's government. Dr. Singh, has also been working on reforming the banking and financial sectors, and has been working towards reforming public sector companies. The Finance ministry, and Dr. Singh, and his government, has been working towards relieving farmers of their debt, and has been working towards pro-industry policies, and reforming and cutting taxes.
Healthcare and Education
In 2005, Prime Minister Singh, and his government's health ministry, has started the National Rural Health Mission, which has mobilized half a million community health workers.
Dr. Singh, has announced, that eight more Indian Institutes of Technology, will be opened, in the states of Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Gujarat, Orissa, Punjab, Madhya Pradeshand Himachal Pradesh. The Singh government, has also continued the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan programme, begun by his predecessor, Mr. Vajpayee. The programme has included, the introduction and improvement of Mid-day meals, and the opening of schools, all over India especially in rural areas, to fight illiteracy. The ancient university, Nalanda University, shall be restarted, in Bihar.
Security and Home Affairs
Dr. Singh's government, has been criticised, by opposition parties for revoking POTA, and for the many bomb blasts in various cities, like in Mumbai, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Ahmedabad, Delhi, Jaipur, etc. and for not being able to reduce the Naxal terrorism, that is menacing rural areas in Eastern and Central India. Dr. Singh's government, has however, extended the ban on the radical Islamic terror group, Student's Islamic Movement of India, (SIMI). Terrorism in Kashmir, has however, reduced significantly, during the Singh administration.
Legislation
The important NREGA act and the RTI act were passed by the Parliament in 2005 during his tenure. While the effectiveness of the NREGA has been successful at various degrees, in various regions, the RTI act has proved crucial in India's fight against corruption.
Criticism
- Manmohan Singh is criticized by BJP leader Lal Krishna Advani by portraying him as the "weakest Prime Minister until now". [2] Dr. Manmohan Singh responded by saying that Advani's astrologers had misled him, when they said that he'd win the 22 July trust vote. He also accused Advani of being the inspiration behind the destruction of the Babri Masjid.
- Some Parties have been criticising him since he was elected as Rajya Sabha member in 1991 from Assam. Their main argument was that he is not eligible to become a Member of Parliament from a state where he does not reside.
- His statement about losing sleep on Hanif's arrest in Australia was also criticised.[4]. Opposition asked whether he lost sleep when hundreds of people were killed in Hyderabad, Varanasi and Ajmer blasts.
Trust-vote
On 22 July 2008 the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) faced it's first confidence vote in the Lok Sabha after the Communist Party of India (Marxist) led Left Front withdraw support from the government over India approaching the IAEA for Indo-US nuclear deal. The President had asked Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to prove the majority. The UPA won the trust vote with 275-256. However, there were allegations from the opposition BJP, that certain coalition allies, of the government had bribed certain opposition parliamentarians to abstain from the confidence vote.
Degrees and posts held
- First Class Honours degree in Economics, University of Cambridge, St John's College, Cambridge (1957)
- Panjab University, Chandigarh, India
- D. Phil in Economics, Nuffield College at University of Oxford, (1962)
- Delhi School of Economics, University of Delhi
- Chief, Financing for Trade Section, UNCTAD, United Nations Secretariat, New York
- Economic Advisor, Ministry of Foreign Trade, India (1971-1972)
- Chief Economic Advisor, Ministry of Finance, India, (1972-1976)
- Honorary Professor, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi (1976)
- Director, Reserve Bank of India (1976-1980)
- Director, Industrial Development Bank of India (1976-1980)
- Secretary, Ministry of Finance (Department of Economic Affairs), Government of India, (1977-1980)
- Governor, Reserve Bank of India (1982-1985)
- Deputy Chairman, Planning Commission of India, (1985-1987)
- Advisor to Prime Minister of India on Economic Affairs (1990-1991)
- Finance Minister of India, (21 June 1991 - 15 May 1996)
- Leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha (1998-2004)
- Prime Minister of India (22 May 2004 - Present)
2)Sonia Gandhi
Sonia Gandhi, born Edvige Antonia Albina Maino[1] on 9 December 1946, is an Indian politician, the President of the Indian National Congress and the widow of former Prime Minister of India, Rajiv Gandhi. She is the Chairperson of the ruling United Progressive Alliance in the Lok Sabha, and the leader of the Congress Parliamentary Party. She was named the third most powerful woman in the world by Forbes magazine in the year 2004[2] and currently ranks 6th.[3] She was also named among the Time 100 most influential people in the world for the years 2007[4] and 2008.[5] She was returned to Parliament by a margin of over 400,000 votes in the by-election for Rae Bareilly after the office of profit controversy.[6]
Early life
Italy
Born to Stefano and Paola Maino in Lusiana, a little village 20 km from Vicenza, Italy, she spent her adolescence in Orbassano, a town near Turin being raised in a Roman Catholic family and attending a Catholic school. Her father, a building contractor, and former Fascist soldier, died in 1983. [7] Her mother and two sisters still live around Orbassano.[8]
UK
In 1964, she went to study English at The Bell Educational Trust's language school in the city of Cambridge. While enrolled in this certificate course she met Rajiv Gandhi, who was enrolled at the time in Trinity College at the University of Cambridge.
India
Sonia and Rajiv were married in 1969, after which she moved into the house of her mother-in-law and then Prime Minister, Indira Gandhi. [9] The couple had two children, Rahul Gandhi (born 1970) and Priyanka Gandhi (born 1972). Despite the family's heavy involvement in politics (her mother-in-law Indira Gandhi, daughter of Jawaharlal Nehru, was Prime Minister), Sonia and Rajiv avoided all involvement - Rajiv worked as an airline pilot, and Sonia took care of her family. [10]When Indira was ousted from office in 1977 in the aftermath of the Emergency, the Rajiv family moved abroad for a short time. When Rajiv entered politics in 1982 after the tragic death of his younger brother Sanjay in a plane crash in 1980, Sonia continued to focus on her family and avoided all contact with public.[11] She acquired Indian citizenship in 1983 after 14 years of her marriage.
Political career
Wife of the Prime Minister
Sonia Gandhi's involvement with Indian public life began after the assassination of her mother-in-law and her husband's election as Prime Minister. As the Prime Minister's wife she acted as his official hostess and also accompanied him on a number of state visits.[citation needed] In 1984, she actively campaigned against her sister-in-law Maneka Gandhi who was running against Rajiv in Amethi. At the end of Rajiv Gandhi's five years in office, the Bofors Scandal broke out. Ottavio Quattrocchi an Italian business man believed to be involved, was said to be a friend of Sonia Gandhi, having access to the Prime Minister's official residence. [14]
Congress President
Following her husband's assassination on 21 May 1991, there was tremendous pressure on her to accept the leadership of the party. However, Sonia refused and was vehement in her denunciation of politics and politicians. She is said to have stated that she would have rather seen her children beg than enter into the maelstrom of Indian political life.[15] After her refusal, the party settled on the choice of P V Narasimha Rao who became leader and subsequently Prime Minister. Over the next few years, however, the Congress fortunes continued to dwindle and it lost the 1996 elections. Several senior leaders such as Madhavrao Scindia, Rajesh Pilot, Mamata Banerjee, G K Moopanar, P.Chidambaram, Jayanthi Natarajan were in open revolt against the incumbent President Sitaram Kesri and quit the party, splitting the Congress into many factions.
In an effort to revive the party's sagging fortunes, she joined the Congress Party as a primary member in the Calcutta Plenary Session in 1997 and became party leader in 1998[16].
She contested Loksabha elections from Bellary, Karnataka and Amethi, Uttar Pradesh in 1999. She won both the seats. In Bellary she defeated veteran BJP leader, Sushma Swaraj. In 2004, she was elected to the Lok Sabha from Rai Bareli, Uttar Pradesh.
Leader of the Opposition
She was elected the Leader of the Opposition of the 13th Lok Sabha in 1999.
Despite her party not having a majority, she made the claim to the President that she had the numbers to form the government. However, the final numbers fell short of the halfway mark of 272. When the BJP-led NDA formed a government under Atal Behari Vajpayee, she took on the office of the Leader of Opposition. As Leader of Opposition, she called a no-confidence motion against the NDA government led by Vajpayee in 2003.
She holds the record of having served as Congress President for 10 years consecutively.
2004 elections and aftermath
In the 2004 general elections, Gandhi launched a nationwide campaign, criss-crossing the country on the Aam Aadmi (ordinary man) slogan in contrast to the 'India Shining' slogan of the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) alliance. She countered the BJP asking "Who is India Shining for?" In the election, she won by a large margin in the Rae Bareilly constituency in Uttar Pradesh. Following the unexpected defeat of the NDA, she was widely expected to be the next Prime Minister of India. On 16 May, she was unanimously chosen to lead a 15-party coalition government with the support of the left, which was subsequently named the United Progressive Alliance (UPA).
After the election result, the defeated NDA protested once again her 'foreign origin' and senior NDA leader Sushma Swaraj threatened to shave her head and "sleep on the ground", among other things, should Sonia become prime minister [18]. The NDA also claimed that there were legal reasons that barred her from the Prime Minister's post, and, indeed, from Parliament.[19] They pointed, in particular, to Section 5 of the Indian Citizenship Act of 1955, which they claimed implied 'reciprocity'. This was contested by others[20] and eventually the suits were dismissed by the Supreme Court of India.
A few days after the election, Gandhi declined the leadership of the Congress Parliamentary Party in the Lok Sabha, and by doing so, rejected the post as prime minister. Her supporters and some in the media compared it to the old Indian tradition of renunciation[21], while her opponents attacked it as a political stunt. If she had accepted the post, she would have been India's first Roman Catholic prime minister[22].
The Congress registered wins in states like Andhra Pradesh, Haryana and Assam under her Presidency. There were losses when it lost in 11 states, including Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal and Karnataka in the same period.
UPA Chairperson
On 18 May, she recommended noted economist Dr. Manmohan Singh for the Prime Minister's post.
On 23 March 2006, Gandhi announced her resignation from the Lok Sabha and also as chairperson of the National Advisory Council under the office-of-profit controversy and the speculation that the government was planning to bring an ordinance to exempt the post of chairperson of National Advisory Council from the purview of office of profit.She was re-elected from her constituency Rae Bareilly in May 2006 by a huge margin of over 400,000 votes.
As chairperson of the National Advisory Committee and the UPA chairperson, she played an important role in making the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme and the Right to Information Act into law.[23][24]
She addressed the United Nations on 2 October 2007, Mahatma Gandhi's birth anniversary which is observed as the International day of non-violence after a UN resolution passed on 15 July 2007[25].
Criticism
Gandhi's foreign birth has sparked intense debate and opposition[26][27][18]. Although Sonia Gandhi is actually the fifth foreign-born person to be leader of the Congress Party, she is the first since independence in 1947 [28].
There has also been opposition from within the Congress Party, however. In May 1999, three senior leaders of the party (Sharad Pawar, Purno A. Sangma and Tariq Anwar) challenged her right to try to become India's Prime Minister because of her foreign origins. In response, she offered to resign as party leader, resulting in a massive outpouring of support and the resignation from the party of the three rebels who would go on to form the Nationalist Congress
Family
Her son, Rahul Gandhi, was elected to Parliament from the Amethi constituency (UP) in 2004. Priyanka Gandhi has not stood for office, though she has worked as a Congress campaign manager. There has been considerable media speculation about their future in the Congress. Sonia and her children are estranged from Maneka Gandhi, the widow of Rajiv's younger brother Sanjay Gandhi, and her son Varun Gandhi, who are both members of the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
Publications
Gandhi has published two books about her late husband, Rajiv and Rajiv's World; and edited two volumes of letters exchanged between Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira Gandhi from 1922 to 1964, Freedom's Daughter and Two Alone, Two Together.
Lal Krishna Advani
Lal Krishna Advani (Sindhi: लाल कृष्ण आडवाणी لال ڪرشنا آڏواڻي), also known as Lal Kishenchand Advani (Sindhi: लाल किशनचंद आडवाणी لال ڪشن چند آڏواڻي) (born 8 November 1927[1]) is an Indian politician and a former president of the Bharatiya Janata Party. He served as the Deputy Prime Minister of India from 2002 to 2004 and is currently the leader of opposition in the 14th Lok Sabha.
Advani, who began his political career as a worker of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, is often credited with having made the BJP a formidable force in Indian politics.
Early life
Lal Krishna Advani was born in Karachi (then British India) to Kishanchand D. Advani and Gyani Devi. Initially, he joined the D.G. National College in Hyderabad, Sindh (now in Pakistan) for his education. He later graduated with a law degree from the Government Law College, Bombay University.
Political career
Initial stages
Advani's political career began when he joined the RSS in 1942. He later became the secretary of the organization's Karachi branch. In 1947, Advani was sent to Mewat in Rajasthan, which had witnessed communal violence following partition, to oversea the affairs of the Sangh.
Jana Sangh days
In 1951, Advani was drafted in to the Jana Sangh - a nationalist party ideologically similar to the RSS - headed by Shyama Prasad Mukherjee. He was first elected to the parliament in 1970 and in 1973 became the President of the party. During Emergency, Advani was detained under MISA and was in prison for the whole period. In the Janatha Government that succeeded Indira Gandhi's regime, Advani was made the minister for Information and Broadcasting. After the collapse of the government, Advani became a prominent leader of the newly founded BJP and represented the party in the Rajya Sabha.
The rise of BJP
Advani became the president of the BJP in 1986. He gradually brought in a shift in the party's policies by advocating Hindutva and subsequently, the party came to power in several Indian states. The period that followed also witnessed a change in Indian politics with the Congress party and especially it's Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi getting embroiled in the Bofors scandal. After the elections that followed the Rajiv government, BJP decided to support a coalition headed by V P Singh.
Under Advani, the BJP had launched an agitation on the issue of Ramjanmabhoomi. For quite a while it had been the demand of many Hindutva groups that a temple be built at the site of the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya, which according to them had been built over the ruins of a Rama temple. The movement gained momentum in the early 1990s, when Advani embarked on a "rath yatra" to mobilize "karsevaks" to converge upon the Babri Masjid to offer prayers (During Rajiv Gandhi's reign, an idol of Rama had been installed at the mosque). However, despite assurances given to the government and the supreme court, the edifice was brought down by the "karsevaks". Soon after, Advani was charged with delivering inflammatory speeches to spread communal hatred.
BJP, under Advani, sat in opposition from 1992-1996 during the reign of P V Narasimha Rao. The Rao regime was marred by accusations of corruptions and various scandals and BJP made good use of all these issues to project itself as the only corruption free alternative to the Congress.
After the 1996 general elections, the BJP became the single largest party and was consequently invited by the President to form government. Atal Behari Vajpayee was sworn in as Prime Minister in May 1996. However, the government did not last long and resigned in June that year.
BJP, under the umbrella of NDA, again came to power with Vajpayee as PM in March 1998, when elections were called after India saw two unstable governments headed H D Deve Gowda and I K Gujral respectively. Advani assumed the office of Home Minister and was later elevated to the position of Deputy Prime Minister. As union minister Advani had a tough time with India facing a string of internal disturbances in the form of terror attacks and communal riots. Earlier, Advani had been exonerated in the Jain-Hawala scandal.
BJP suffered a shocking defeat in the general elections held in 2004, and was made to sit in the opposition with Advani as the leader. The NDA disintegrated with the Telugu Desam Party, which had supported their government from the outside, deserting the alliance.
During this period, Advani had to deal with opposition from within the party. His two close associates, Uma Bharati, and Madan Lal Khurana, and long time rival Murali Manohar Joshi public voiced against Advani. In June 2005, Advani drew much criticism when he, while on a visit to the Jinnah Mausoleum at Karachi - his town of birth, allegedly endorsed Mohammad Ali Jinnah and described him a secular leader. This did not sit well with the RSS and Advani relinquished his post a BJP president. However, he withdrew the resignation a few days later.
The relationship between Advani and the RSS reached a low point when K S Sudarshan, opined that both Advani and Vajpayee give way to new leaders. At the Silver Jubilee celebrations of the BJP in Mumbai in December 2005, Advani stepped down as party president and Rajnath Singh, a leader from Uttar Pradesh was elected in his place. In March 2006, following a bomb blast at one of the holiest Hindu shrines at Varanasi, Advani undertook a "Bharat Suraksha Yatra"( Sojourn for National Security), to highlight the alleged failure of the ruling UPA in combating terror.
Prime Minister candidacy
A major factor going in favor of Advani is that he has always been the most powerful leader in the BJP with the exception of Atal Bihari Vajpayee, who endorsed Advani's candidacy shortly after the interview was done. On 2 May 2007, BJP President Rajnath Singh, in an interview, stated that: "After Atal there is only Advani. Advani is the natural choice. It is he who should be PM". [4]
On 10 December 2007, the Parliamentary Board of BJP formally announced that L. K. Advani would be its prime ministerial candidate for the General Elections due in May 2009.
Controversy
Jinnah murder conspiracy
It is believed that a criminal case is still pending against Advani and 17 others for allegedly conspiring to assassinate Pakistan's first Governor-General Mohammad Ali Jinnah and other leaders.[2][3][4] Advani has been declared an absconder in Jinnah murder conspiracy case.[5]
On 7 June 2005, Advani offered his resignation from his post as BJP President amid controversial comments he is said to have made during a trip to Pakistan. [6]Both Hindu nationalist groups aligned with the BJP and officials from the ruling Congress party lashed out against Advani for his statements.
Babri Masjid demolition and the consequences
In 1980, the BJP launched a movement led by Advani on the issue of the Ram Temple. The BJP demanded that a temple dedicated to Lord Rama be created at the site of a mosque where, according to their claim, a temple stood till Babar's invasion of India in 1528. The mosque there destroyed by Hindu extremists in 1992, sparking riots nationwide that cost 2,000 lives. Speaking to correspondents on his appointment as President of the BJP, Advani said: "We must be candid enough to recognise the Hindu anger that exploded on the streets in the early 1990s has given way to a patient wait for the new temple whose construction, I feel is inevitable." However, he was unable to follow through on this, even during his period as Home Minister of the Republic (1998-2004). The reason often quoted is that the rule was by the NDA government and BJP was only a major part of the coalition government.
Jain-Hawala scandal
L.K. Advani was charrged with Jain-Hawala scandal where he allegedly received payments through hawala brokers. He and others were later acquitted, because there was no prima facie evidence which could be used to charge them [7]. According to the judicial inquiry by CBI they could not find any substantive evidences. [8] The failure of this prosecution by the CBI was widely criticized. [9], which some believe catapulted his rise through the BJP on his newfound "moral authority"[10]. Some observers have claimed the CBI inquiry was a political
Published work
In 2008, Advani released a personal autobiography, My Country, My Life. The book was published by the Rupa & Co and released by former Indian president Abdul Kalam on March 19, 2008.
Indira Priyadarshini Gandhi (Hindi: Indirā Priyadarśinī Gāndhī) (née: Nehru) (19 November 1917 - 31 October 1984) was the Prime Minister of the Republic of India for three consecutive terms from 1966 to 1977 and for a fourth term from 1980 until her assassination in 1984. She was India's first and to date only female Prime Minister. She is also the only Indian Prime Minister to be defeated in her own district in a general election.
Born in the politically influential Nehru dynasty, she grew up in an intensely political atmosphere. Her grandfather, Motilal Nehru, was a prominent Indian nationalist leader. Her father, Jawaharlal Nehru, was a pivotal figure in the Indian independence movement and the first Prime Minister of Independent India. Returning to India from Oxford in 1941, she became involved in the Indian Independence movement.
In the 1950s, she served her father unofficially as a personal assistant during his tenure as India's first Prime Minister. After her father's death in 1964, she was appointed as a member of the Rajya Sabha by the President of India and became a member of Lal Bahadur Shastri's cabinet as Minister of Information and Broadcasting.[1]
The then Congress Party President K. Kamaraj was instrumental in making Indira Gandhi the Prime Minister after the sudden demise of Shastri. Gandhi soon showed an ability to win elections and outmaneuver opponents through populism. She introduced more left-wing economic policies and promoted agricultural productivity. A decisive victory in the 1971 war with Pakistan was followed by a period of instability that led her to impose a state of emergency in 1975; she paid for the authoritarian excesses of the period with three years in opposition. Returned to office in 1980, she became increasingly involved in an escalating conflict with separatists in Punjab that eventually led to her assassination by her own bodyguards in 1984.
Early life
Indira Priyadarshini, was born on 19 November 1917 to Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru and his young wife Kamala Nehru. She was their only child. The Nehru family can trace their ancestry to the Brahmins of Jammu and Kashmir and Delhi. Indira's grandfather Motilal Nehru was a wealthy barrister of Allahabad in Uttar Pradesh. Nehru was one of the most prominent members of the Indian National Congress in pre-Gandhi times and would go on to author the Nehru Report, the people's choice for a future Indian system of government as opposed to the British system. Her father Nehru was a well-educated lawyer and was a popular leader of the Indian Independence Movement. At the time of Indira's birth, Nehru entered the independence movement under the leadership of Mahatma Gandhi.
Growing up in the sole care of her mother, who was sick and alienated from the Nehru household, Indira developed strong protective instincts and a loner personality. Her grandfather and father continually being enmeshed in national politics also made mixing with her peers difficult. She had conflicts with her father's sisters, including Vijayalakshmi Pandit, and these continued into the political world.
Indira created the Vanara Sena movement for young girls and boys which played a small but notable role in the Indian Independence Movement, conducting protests and flag marches, as well as helping Congress politicians circulate sensitive publications and banned materials. In an often-told story, she smuggled out from her father's police-watched house an important document in her schoolbag that outlined plans for a major revolutionary initiative in the early 1930s.
In 1936, her mother, Kamala Nehru, finally succumbed to tuberculosis after a long struggle. Indira was 18 at the time and thus never experienced a stable family life during her childhood. She attended prominent Indian, European and British schools like Santiniketan, Badminton School and Oxford, but she showed no great aptitude for academics, and was detained from obtaining a degree.[citation needed]
While studying at Somerville College, University of Oxford, England, during the late 1930s, she became a member of the radical pro-independence London based India League.[2]
In her years in continental Europe and the UK, she met a Parsi, Feroze Ghandhi, a Congress activist, and eventually married him on 16 March 1942 at Anand Bhawan Allahabad in a private Adi Dharm Brahmo Vedic ceremony still noted for its unconventionality[3]. Just before the beginning of the Quit India Movement - the final, all-out national revolt launched by Mahatma Gandhi and the Congress Party. In September 1942 they were arrested by the British authorities and detained without charge. She was ultimately released on 13 May 1943 having spent over 243 days in jail.[4] In 1944, she gave birth to Rajiv Gandhi with Feroze Gandhi, followed two years later by Sanjay Gandhi.
During the chaotic Partition of India in 1947, she helped organize refugee camps and provide medical care for the millions of refugees from Pakistan. This was her first exercise in major public service.
The Gandhis later settled in Allahabad where Feroze worked with a Congress Party newspaper and an insurance company. Their marriage started out well, but deteriorated later when she moved to New Delhi to be at the side of her father, the Prime Minister at the time, who was living alone in a high-pressure environment at Teen Murti Bhavan. She became his confidante, secretary and nurse. Her sons lived with her, but she eventually separated from Feroze, though they remained legally married.
When India's first general election approached in 1951, Gandhi managed the campaigns of both Nehru and her husband, who was contesting the constituency of Rae Bareilly. Feroze had not consulted Nehru on his choice to run, and even though he was elected, he opted to live in a separate house in Delhi. Feroze quickly developed a reputation for being a fighter against corruption, exposing a major scandal in the nationalized insurance industry, resulting in the resignation of the Finance Minister, a Nehru aide.
At the height of the tension, Gandhi and her husband separated. However, in 1958, shortly after re-election, Feroze suffered a heart attack, which dramatically healed their broken marriage. At his side to help him recuperate in Kashmir, their family grew closer. But Feroze died on 8 September 1960, while Gandhi was abroad with Nehru on a foreign visit.
President of the Indian National Congress
During 1959 and 1960, Gandhi ran for and was elected the President of the Indian National Congress. Her term of office was uneventful. She also acted as her father's chief of staff. Nehru was known as a vocal opponent of nepotism, and she did not contest a seat in the 1962 elections.
Nehru died on 27 May 1964, and Gandhi, at the urgings of the new Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri, contested elections and joined the Government, being immediately appointed Minister for Information and Broadcasting. She went to Madras when the riots over Hindi becoming the national language broke out in non-Hindi speaking states of the south. There she spoke to government officials, soothed the anger of community leaders and supervised reconstruction efforts for the affected areas. Shastri and senior Ministers were embarrassed, owing to their lack of such initiative. Minister Gandhi's actions were probably not directly aimed at Shastri or her own political elevation. She reportedly lacked interest in the day-to-day functioning of her Ministry, but was media-savvy and adept at the art of politics and image-making.
"During the succession struggles after 1965 between Mrs. Gandhi and her rivals, the central Congress [party] leadership in several states moved to displace upper caste leaders from state Congress [party] organizations and replace them with backward caste persons and to mobilize the votes of the latter castes to defeat its rivals in the state Congress [party] and in the opposition. The consequences of these interventions, some of which may justly be perceived as socially progressive, have nevertheless often had the consequences of intensifying inter-ethnic regional conflicts...[5]
While the Indo-Pakistani War of 1965 was ongoing, Gandhi was vacationing in the border region of Srinagar. Although warned by the Army that Pakistani insurgents had penetrated very close to the city, she refused to relocate to Jammu or Delhi and instead rallied local government and welcomed the media attention. Shastri died in Tashkent, hours after signing the peace agreement with Pakistan's Ayub Khan, mediated by the Soviets.
The Congress Party President K. Kamaraj was then instrumental in making Indira Gandhi as Prime Minister, despite the opposition from Morarji Desai who was later defeated by the members of the Congress Parliamentary Party,where Indira Gandhi beat Morarji Desai by 355 votes to 169 to become the fourth Prime Minister of India and the first woman to hold that position.
Prime Minister
First term
Domestic Policy and the 1971 War
When Mrs. Gandhi became Prime Minister in 1966 the Congress was split in two factions, the socialists led by Mrs. Gandhi, and the conservatives led by Morarji Desai. Morarji Desai called her "Gungi Gudiya" which means 'Dumb Doll'. The internal problems showed in the 1967 election where the Congress lost nearly 60 seats winning 297 seats in the 545 seat Lok Sabha. She had to accommodate Desai as Deputy Prime Minister of India and Finance Minister of India. In 1969 after many disagreements with Desai, the Indian National Congress split. She ruled with support from Socialist and Communist Parties for the next two years. In the same year, in July 1969 she nationalised banks. In 1971, to solve the Bangladeshi refugee problem, she declared war, on Pakistan, on the side of the East Pakistanis, who were fighting for their independence. During the 1971 War, the US under President Richard Nixon sent its Seventh Fleet to the Bay of Bengal as a warning to India keep away from East Pakistan as a pretext to launch a wider attack against West Pakistan, especially over the territory of Kashmir. This move had further alienated India from the First World, and Prime Minister Gandhi now accelerated a previously cautious new direction in national security and foreign policy. India and the USSR had earlier signed the Treaty of Friendship and Mutual Cooperation, resulting in political and military support contributing substantially to India's victory in the 1971 war.
Foreign Policy
She invited the new Pakistani President Zulfikar Ali Bhutto to Shimla for a week-long summit. After the near-failure of the talks, the two heads of state eventually signed the Shimla Agreement, which bound the two countries to resolve the Kashmir dispute by negotiations and peaceful means. Due to her antipathy for Nixon, relations with the United States grew distant, while relations with the Soviet Union grew closer.
Indira Gandhi was criticized by some for not making the Line of Control a permanent border while a few critics even believed that Pakistan-administered Kashmir should have been extracted from Pakistan, whose 93,000 prisoners of war were under Indian control. But the agreement did remove immediate United Nations and third party interference, and greatly reduced the likelihood of Pakistan launching a major attack in the near future. By not demanding total capitulation on a sensitive issue from Bhutto, she had allowed Pakistan to stabilize and normalize. Trade relations were also normalized, though much contact remained frozen for years.
Devaluation of the Rupee
Nuclear Weapons Programme
A national nuclear programme, was started by Mrs. Gandhi, in 1967, which evolved from the nuclear threat from the People's Republic of China and the intrusive interest of the two major superpowers not conducive to India's stability and security. In 1974, India successfully conducted an underground nuclear test, unofficially code named as smiling Buddha, near the desert village of Pokhran in Rajasthan. Describing the test as for peaceful purposes, India became the world's youngest nuclear power.
Green Revolution
Special agricultural innovation programs and extra government support launched in the 1960s finally transformed India's chronic food shortages into surplus production of wheat, rice, cotton and milk. Rather than relying on food aid from the United States - headed by a President whom Mrs. Gandhi disliked considerably (the feeling was mutual: to Nixon, Indira was "the old witch"[6]), the country became a food exporter. That achievement, along with the diversification of its commercial crop production, has become known as the Green Revolution. At the same time, the White Revolution was an expansion in milk production which helped to combat malnutrition, especially amidst young children. 'Food security', as the programme was called, was another source of support for Mrs. Gandhi in the years leading up to 1975.
Established in the early 1960s, the Green Revolution was the unofficial name given to the Intense Agricultural District Programme (IADP) which sought to insure abundant, inexpensive grain for urban dwellers upon whose support Gandhi -- as indeed all Indian politicians -- heavily depended.[7] The program was based on four premises: 1) New varieties of seed(s), 2) Acceptance of the necessity of the chemicalization of Indian agriculture, i.e. fertilizers, pesticides, weed killers, etc., 3) A commitment to national and international cooperative research to develop new and improved existing seed varieties, 4) The concept of developing a scientific, agricultural institutions in the form of land grant colleges.[8] Lasting about ten years, the program was ultimately to bring about a tripling of wheat production, a lower but still impressive increase of rice; while there was little to no increase (depending on area, and adjusted for population growth) of such cereals as millet, gram and coarse grain, though these did, in fact, retain a relatively stable yield.
1971 Poll Victory , and Second term (1971-1975)
Gandhi's government faced major problems after her tremendous mandate of 1971. The internal structure of the Congress Party had withered following its numerous splits, leaving it entirely dependent on her leadership for its election fortunes. Garibi Hatao (Stop Poverty) was the theme for Gandhi's 1971 bid. The slogan and the proposed anti-poverty programs that came with it were designed to give Gandhi an independent national support, based on rural and urban poor. This would allow her to bypass the dominant rural castes both in and of state and local government; likewise the urban commercial class. And, for their part, the previously voiceless poor would at last gain both political worth and political weight.
The programs created through Garibi Hatao, though carried out locally, were funded, developed, supervised, and staffed by New Delhi and the Indian National Congress party. "These programs also provided the central political leadership with new and vast patronage resources to be disbursed...throughout the country."[9] In the end, Garibi Hatao did little to help the poor: Only about 4% of all funds allocated for economic development went to the three main anti-poverty programs, and almost none of it ever reached the 'poorest of the poor'. So although the program failed to stop poverty it achieved its goal of getting Gandhi elected.
Accusations of authoritarianism
Gandhi had already been accused of authoritarianism. By using her strong parliamentary majority, her ruling Congress Party had amended the Constitution and altered the balance of power between the Centre and the States in favour of the Central Government. She had twice imposed President's Rule under Article 356 of the Constitution by declaring states ruled by opposition parties as "lawless and chaotic", and thus seizing control. In addition, elected officials and the administrative services resented the growing influence of Sanjay Gandhi, who had become Gandhi's close political adviser at the expense of men like P. N. Haksar, Gandhi's previous adviser during her rise to power. In response to her new tendency for authoritarian use of power, public figures and former freedom-fighters like Jaya Prakash Narayan, Satyendra Narayan Sinha and Acharya Jivatram Kripalani toured India, speaking actively against her and her government.
Charges
On 12 June 1975 the High Court of Allahabad declared Indira Gandhi's election to the Lok Sabha void on grounds of alleged malpractices in an election petition filed by Raj Narain (who had repeatedly contested her Parliamentary constituency of Rae Bareli without success). The court thus ordered her to be removed from her seat in Parliament and banned from running in elections for six years. The Prime Minister must be a member of either the Lok Sabha (lower house in the Parliament of India) or the Rajya Sabha (the upper house of the Parliament). Thus, this decision effectively removed her from office.
When Gandhi appealed the decision; the opposition parties and their supporters, eager to gain political capital from the situation, rallied en masse calling for her resignation. The sheer number of strikes by unions and protesters paralyzed life in many states. To strengthen this movement, J. P. Narayan called upon the police to disobey orders if asked to fire on unarmed crowds. Public disenchantment with her government combined with hard economic times and huge crowds of protestors surrounded the Parliament building and her residence in Delhi, demanding her resignation.
State of Emergency (1975-1977)
Gandhi moved to restore order by ordering the arrest of most of the opposition participating in the unrest. Her Cabinet and government then recommended that President Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed declare a state of emergency, because of the disorder and lawlessness following the Allahabad High Court decision. Accordingly, Ahmed declared a State of Emergency caused by internal disorder, based on the provisions of Article 352 of the Constitution, on 26 June 1975.
Rule by Decree
Within a few months, President's Rule was imposed on the two opposition party ruled states of Gujarat and Tamil Nadu thereby bringing the entire country under direct Central rule.[10] Police were granted powers to impose curfews and indefinitely detain citizens and all publications were subjected to substantial censorship by the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting.Inder Kumar Gujral, a future prime minister himself, resigned as Minister for Information and Broadcasting to protest Sanjay Gandhi's interference in his work. Finally, impending legislative assembly elections were indefinitely postponed, with all opposition-controlled state governments being removed by virtue of the constitutional provision allowing for a dismissal of a state government on recommendation of the state's governor.
Gandhi used the emergency provisions to grant herself extraordinary powers.
"Unlike her father [Nehru], who preferred to deal with strong chief ministers in control of their legislative parties and state party organizations, Mrs. Gandhi set out to remove every Congress chief minister who had an independent base and to replace each of them with ministers personally loyal to her...Even so, stability could not be maintained in the states..."[11]
It is alleged that she further moved President Ahmed to issue ordinances that did not need to be debated in Parliament, allowing her to rule by decree.
Simultaneously, Gandhi's government undertook a campaign to stamp out dissent including the arrest and detention of thousands of political activists; Sanjay was instrumental in initiating the clearing of slums around Delhi's Jama Masjid under the supervision of Jag Mohan, later Lt. Governor of Delhi, which allegedly left thousands of people homeless and hundreds killed, and led to communal embitterment in those parts of the nation's capital; and the family planning program which forcibly imposed vasectomy on thousands of fathers and was often poorly administered.
Third term
Elections
In 1977, Gandhi called elections. One factor was the economic gains, though there may have been political considerations at play. Gandhi may have grossly misjudged her popularity by reading what the heavily censored press wrote about her, or may have feared a military coup had she attempted to rule by decree any longer (There were reports that the Armed Forces would forcibly remove her from power and hold elections. See Tapishwar Narain Raina). In any case, she was soundly defeated by the Janata Party. Janata, led by her long-time rival, Desai and with Jai Prakash Narayan as its spiritual guide, claimed the elections were the last chance for India to choose between "democracy and dictatorship." Indira and Sanjay Gandhi both lost their seats, and Congress was cut down to 153 seats (compared with 350 in the previous Lok Sabha), 92 of which were in the south.
Removal, Arrest, and Return
Desai became Prime Minister and Neelam Sanjiva Reddy became the President, the establishment choice of 1969, became President of the Republic. Gandhi found herself without work, income or residence until winning a by-election in 1978. The Congress Party split during the election campaign of 1977 with veteran Gandhi supporters like Jagjivan Ram abandoning her for Janata. The Congress (Gandhi) Party was now a much smaller group in Parliament, although the official opposition.
Unable to govern owing to fractious coalition warfare, the Janata government's Home Minister, Choudhary Charan Singh, ordered the arrest of Indira and Sanjay Gandhi on several charges, none of which would be easy to prove in an Indian court. The arrest meant that Indira was automatically expelled from Parliament. However, this strategy backfired disastrously. Her arrest and long-running trial, however, gained her great sympathy from many people who had feared her as a tyrant just two years earlier.
Indira Gandhi was awarded the Lenin Peace Prize (for 1983-84).
Currency crisis
Operation Blue Star and assassination
Gandhi's later years were bedeviled with problems in Punjab. In September 1981, Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale 's separatist Sikh militant group took up positions within the precincts of the Golden Temple, Sikhism's holiest shrine.[12] Despite the presence of thousands of civilians in the Golden Temple complex at the time, Gandhi ordered the Army into the shrine in an attempt to clear it of the militants. Accounts differ in the number of military and civilian casualties. Government estimates include four officers, seventy-nine soldiers, and 492 militants; other accounts are much higher, perhaps 500 or more troops and 3,000 others, including many pilgrims caught in the crossfire.[13]. While the exact figures related to civilian casualties are disputed, the timing and method of the attack remain controversial.
Indira Gandhi had numerous bodyguards, two of whom were Satwant Singh and Beant Singh, both Sikhs. On 31 October 1984 they assassinated Indira Gandhi with their service weapons in the garden of the Prime Minister's Residence at No. 1, Safdarjung Road in New Delhi. As she was walking to be interviewed by the British actor Peter Ustinov filming a documentary for Irish television, she passed a wicket gate, guarded by Satwant and Beant. According to information available immediately following the incident, Beant Singh shot her thrice using his side-arm and Satwant Singh fired twenty-two rounds into her using a Sten submachine gun. Beant Singh was shot dead and Satwant Singh was shot and arrested by her other bodyguards.
Gandhi died on her way to the hospital, in her official car, but she was not declared dead until many hours later. She was taken to the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, where doctors operated on her. Official accounts at the time stated as many as 29 entry and exit wounds and some reports stated 31 bullets were extracted from her body. She was cremated on 3 November, near Raj Ghat and the place was called Shakti Sthal. After her death, sectarian unrest engulfed New Delhi and several other cities in India, including Kanpur, Asansol and Indore, leading to the death of thousands of Sikhs. Gandhi's friend and biographer Pupul Jayakar would later reveal Indira's tension, and her premonition about what might happen in the wake of Operation Blue Star.
Personal life
Nehru-Gandhi family
Initially Sanjay had been her chosen heir; but after his death in a flying accident, his mother persuaded a reluctant Rajiv Gandhi to quit his job as a pilot and enter politics in February 1981.
After Indira Gandhi's death, Rajiv Gandhi became Prime Minister. In May 1991, he too was assassinated, this time at the hands of Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam militants. Rajiv's widow, Sonia Gandhi, led the United Progressive Alliance to a surprise electoral victory in the 2004 Lok Sabha elections.
Sonia Gandhi declined the opportunity to assume the office of Prime Minister (though some debate if a foreign born could have been the prime minister) but remains in control of the Congress' political apparatus; Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh, formerly finance minister, now heads the nation. Rajiv's children, Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, have also entered politics. Sanjay Gandhi's widow, Maneka Gandhi - who fell out with Indira after Sanjay's death and was famously thrown out of the Prime Minister's house[14] - as well as Sanjay's son, Varun Gandhi, are active in politics as members of the main opposition BJP party.
Indira Gandhi in popular culture
- Her assassination is mentioned by Tom Clancy in his novel Executive Orders.
- Although never mentioned by name, Indira Gandhi is clearly the prime minister in A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry.
- In Salman Rushdie's novel Midnight's Children, Indira is responsible for the eponymous characters' downfall, referred to throughout the novel as "The Widow." This portrayal of Indira Gandhi raised controversy in some circles for its harsh depiction both of her and of her policies.
- In Shashi Tharoor's The Great Indian Novel, the character of Priya Duryodhani clearly refers to Indira Gandhi.
- Aandhi, a Hindi feature film directed by Gulzar, is a partly fictionalized adaptation of some events in Indira's life, particularly her (played by Suchitra Sen) difficult relationship with her husband (played by Sanjeev Kumar).
- In Yann Martel's Life of Pi, Indira Gandhi is noted several times as "Mrs. Gandhi" when referring to the political climate of India in the mid 1970s.
5)Rajiv Gandhi
Rajiv Gandhi राजीव गांधी (IPA: [raːdʒiːv gaːnd̪ʰiː]), born in Bombay, (20 August 1944 – 21 May 1991), the elder son of Indira and Feroze Gandhi, was the 9th Prime Minister of India (and the third from the Nehru-Gandhi family) from his mother's death on 31 October 1984 until his resignation on 2 December 1989 following a general election defeat. He was the youngest Prime Minister of India (at the age of 40).
Rajiv Gandhi was a professional Pilot for Indian Airlines (now Air India) before entering politics. While at Cambridge, he met Italian-born Sonia Maino whom he later married. He remained aloof from politics despite his mother being the Indian Prime Minister, and it was only following the death of his younger brother Sanjay Gandhi in 1980 that Rajiv entered politics. After the assassination of his mother in 1984 after Operation Blue Star, Indian National Congress party leaders elected him Prime Minister.
Rajiv Gandhi led the Congress to a major election victory in 1984 soon after, amassing the largest majority ever in Indian Parliament. The Congress party won 411 seats out of 542. He began dismantling the License Raj - government quotas, tariffs and permit regulations on economic activity - modernized the telecommunications industry, the education system, expanded science and technology initiatives and improved relations with the United States.
In 1988, Rajiv reversed the coup in Maldives antagonising the militant Tamil outfits such as PLO. He also was responsible for sending Indian troops (Indian Peace Keeping Force or IPKF) for peace efforts in Sri Lanka, which soon ended in open conflict with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) group. In mid-1987, the Bofors scandal broke his honest, corruption-free image and resulted in a major defeat for his party in the 1989 elections.
Rajiv Gandhi remained Congress President until the elections in 1991. While campaigning, he was assassinated by a female LTTE suicide bomber Thenmuli Rajaratnam. His widow Sonia Gandhi became the leader of the Congress party in 1998, and led the party to victory in the 2004 elections. His son Rahul Gandhi is a Member of Parliament.
Rajiv Gandhi was posthumously awarded the Highest National Award of India, Bharat Ratna, joining a list of 40 luminaries, including Mrs. Indira Gandhi.
As a religious leader, he (like his mother and other family elders) "served as Acharya" of his family Gurudev's (Rabindranath Tagore) Adi Dharm Ashram (and Brahmo Mandir) in Viswa-Bharati at Shantiniketan (West Bengal) for about 5 years.[1]
Early life
Rajiv Gandhi was born into India's most famous political family. His grandfather was the Indian independence leader Jawaharlal Nehru, who would later become India's first Prime Minister after independence.
Rajiv is not related to Mahatma Gandhi although his surname is. His father was Feroze khan and mother had "Gandhy" surname before her marriage.After marrying Indira Nehru Feroze khan was adopted by Mahtma Gandhi and got the surname Gandhi. Feroze was one of the younger members of the Indian National Congress party, and had befriended the young Indira, and also her mother Kamala Nehru, while working on party affairs at Allahabad. Subsequently, Indira and Feroze grew closer to each other while in England, and they married, despite initial objections from Jawaharlal due to his religion.[2][3], in March 1942.
Rajiv was born in 1944, during a time when both his parents were in and out of British prisons. In August 1947, Jawaharlal Nehru became the prime minister of independent India, and the family settled in Allahabad, and then at Lucknow, where Feroze became the editor of The National Herald newspaper (founded by Motilal Nehru). However, a coolness had developed in the marriage and in 1949, Indira and the two sons moved to Delhi to live with Jawaharlal, ostensibly so that Indira could assist her father in his duties, acting as official hostess, and helping run the huge residence. Meanwhile, Feroze continued alone in Lucknow. Nonetheless, in 1952, Indira helped Feroze manage his campaign for elections to the first Parliament of India from Rae Bareli.
After becoming an MP, Feroze Gandhi also moved to Delhi, but "Indira continued to stay with her father, thus putting the final seal on the separation.".[4] Relations were strained further when Feroze challenged corruption within the Congress leadership over the Haridas Mundhra scandal. Jawaharlal suggested that the matter be resolved in private, but Feroze insisted on taking the case directly to parliament:
- "Parliament must exercise vigilance and control over the biggest and most powerful financial institution it has created, the Life Insurance Corporation of India, whose misapplication of public funds we shall scrutinise today." Feroze Gandhi, Speech in Parliament, 1957-12-16.[5].
The scandal, and its transparent and efficient investigation by justice M C Chagla, would lead to the resignation of one of Nehru's key allies, finance minister T.T. Krishnamachari, further alienating Feroze from Jawaharlal.
Education
By then Rajiv was away at a private boarding school for boys: initially at the Welham Boys' School and later The Doon School. Subsequently he went to university in the United Kingdom, at the Imperial College London and Trinity College, Cambridge. At Cambridge, he met and fell in love with an Italian student, Sonia Maino, who was there to learn English. Maino's family opposed the match, but Maino came to India with Rajiv and they were married in 1968.
Rajiv began working for Indian Airlines as a professional pilot while his mother became Prime Minister in 1966. He exhibited no interest in politics and did not live regularly with his mother in Delhi at the Prime Minister's residence. In 1970, his wife, Sonia gave birth to Rahul, their first child, and in 1972, to Priyanka, their second. Even as Gandhi remained aloof in politics, his younger brother Sanjay became a close advisor to their mother.
Entry into politics
It was following his younger brother's death in 1980 that Rajiv was pressured by Indian National Congress party politicians and his mother to enter politics. Rajiv and his wife were both opposed to the idea, and Rajiv even publicly stated that he would not contest for his brother's seat, but he finally accepted his mother's urging and announced his candidacy for Parliament[citation needed]. His entry was criticized by many in the press, public and opposition political parties, who saw the role of Nehru's dynasty intensifying in Indian politics[citation needed].
Elected for Sanjay's Lok Sabha (parliamentary) constituency of Amethi in Uttar Pradesh state in February 1981, Rajiv became an important political advisor to his mother. It was widely perceived that Indira Gandhi was grooming Rajiv for the prime minister's job, and Rajiv soon became the president of the Youth Congress - the Congress party's youth wing.
Prime Minister
Rajiv was in West Bengal when Indira Gandhi was assassinated on 31 October 1984. Top Congress leaders, as well as President Zail Singh pressed Rajiv to become India's Prime Minister, within hours of his mother's assassination by two of her Sikh bodyguards. Commenting on the anti-Sikh riots in the national capital Delhi, Rajiv Gandhi said, "' When a giant tree falls, the earth below shakes" [6]; a statement for which he was widely criticised. Many Congress politicians were accused of orchestrating the violence [7]. Soon after assuming office, Rajiv asked President Zail Singh to dissolve Parliament and hold fresh elections, as the Lok Sabha completed its five year term. Rajiv Gandhi also officially became the President of the Congress party.
Owing largely to the feelings of sympathy in wake of Indira's murder, the Congress party won a landslide victory - with largest majority in history of Indian Parliament[8], giving Rajiv absolute control of government. Rajiv Gandhi also benefited from his youth and a general perception of being Mr. Clean, or free of a background in corrupt politics . Rajiv thus revived hopes and enthusiasm amongst the Indian public for the Congress.
Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi began leading in a direction significantly different from Indira Gandhi's socialism. He improved bilateral relations with the United States - long strained owing to Indira's socialism and close friendship with the USSR - and expanded economic and scientific cooperation[citation needed]. He increased government support for science and technology and associated industries, and reduced import quotas, taxes and tariffs on technology-based industries, especially computers, airlines, defence and telecommunications. He introduced measures significantly reducing the License Raj - allowing businesses and individuals to purchase capital, consumer goods and import without red-tape and bureaucratic restrictions. In 1986, Rajiv announced a national education policy to modernize and expand higher education programs across India. Rajiv Gandhi was the founder of Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalaya System in the year 1986. Rajiv Gandhi can be called the father of telecom revolution. His efforts created MTNL in 1986 and the public call offices, better known as PCOs, helped spread telephones in the rural areas. The work that he did then laid the foundation for a telecom boom in 1990s.
Rajiv authorized an extensive police and Army campaign to contain terrorism in Punjab. A state of martial law existed in the Punjab state, and civil liberties, commerce and tourism were greatly disrupted[citation needed]. There are many accusations of human rights violations by police officials as well as by the militants during this period. It is alleged that even as the situation in Punjab came under control, the Indian government was offering arms and training to the LTTE rebels fighting the Government of Sri Lanka. The Indo-Sri Lanka Peace Accord was signed by Rajiv Gandhi and the Sri Lankan President J.R.Jayewardene, in Colombo on 29 July 1987. The very next day, on 30 July 1987, Rajiv Gandhi was assaulted by a Sinhalese naval cadet named Vijayamunige Rohana de Silva, while receiving honour guard. Though the embarrassed Sri Lankan President J.R. Jayewardene initially attempted to pass off the bizarre assault as "Rajiv tripped a little and slightly lost his balance", Rajiv Gandhi while enroute to New Delhi asserted to J.N. Dixit who was in charge of arranging that disastrous visit, "What is all this nonsensical speculation. Of course, I was hit." Rajiv's government suffered a major setback when its efforts to arbitrate between the Government of Sri Lanka and the LTTE rebels backfired[citation needed].
Currency crisis
Bofors scandal
Rajiv's finance minister, Vishwanath Pratap Singh uncovered compromising details about government and political corruption, to the consternation of Congress leaders. Transferred to the Defence ministry, Singh uncovered what became known as the Bofors scandal, involving tens of millions of dollars - concerned alleged payoffs by the Swedish Bofors arms company through an Italian businessman and Gandhi family associate, Ottavio Quattrocchi, in return for Indian contracts. Upon the uncovering of the scandal, Singh was conspicuously dismissed from office, and later from Congress membership. Rajiv Gandhi himself was later personally implicated in the scandal, when the investigation was continued by Narasimhan Ram and Chitra Subramaniam of The Hindu newspaper, shattering his image as an honest politician, however, he was cleared over this allegation in 2004 [9]
V. P. Singh's image as an exposer of government corruption made him very popular with the public[citation needed], and opposition parties united under his name to form the Janata Dal coalition. In the 1989 elections, the Congress suffered a major setback. With the support of Indian communists and the Bharatiya Janata Party, V. P. Singh and his Janata Dal formed a government. Rajiv Gandhi became the Leader of the Opposition, while remaining Congress president. While some believe that Rajiv and Congress leaders influenced the collapse of V. P. Singh's government in October 1990 by promising support to Chandra Shekhar, a high-ranking leader in the Janata Dal, sufficient internal contradictions existed, within the ruling coalition, especially over the controversial reservation issue, to cause a fall of government. Rajiv's Congress offered outside support briefly to Chandra Sekhar, who became Prime Minister. But this support was withdrawn in 1991 and fresh elections were announced.
Sri Lanka policy
The Indo-Sri Lanka Peace Accord signed was opposed by the then Sri Lankan Prime Minister Ranasinghe Premadasa and was forced to accept it due to pressure from then President Junius Richard Jayewardene. In January 1989 Premadasa was elected President and on a platform that promised that the Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF) leave within three months.[10]In the 1989 elections both the Sri Lanka Freedom Party and United National Party wanted the IPKF to withdraw and they got 95% of the vote.
The police action was unpopular in India as well, especially in Tamil Nadu as India was fighting the LTTE Tamil separatists.
Rajiv Gandhi refused to withdraw the IPKF, believing that the only way he could succeed in ending the civil war was to politically force Premadasa and militarily force the LTTE to accept the accord. Meanwhile in December 1989 Indian elections V.P.Singh became the Prime Minister and completed the pullout. The IPKF operation cost over 1100 Indian soldiers lives and cost over 2000 crores.
Shah Bano case
In 1985, Supreme Court of India gave a judgement in favour of a Muslim divorcee Shah Bano that her husband should give alimony to her. Muslim fundamentalists in India treated it as an encroachment in Muslim Personal Law and protested against it. Prime Minister, Rajiv Gandhi, agreed to their demands and cited the gesture as an example of "secularism"[citation needed]. In 1986, the Congress (I) party, which had an absolute majority in Parliament at the time, passed an act that nullified the Supreme Court's judgement in the Shah Bano case.
Assassination
Rajiv Gandhi's last public meeting was at Sriperumbudur on 21 May 1991, in a village approximately 30-miles from Madras, Tamil Nadu, where he was assassinated while campaigning for the Sriperumbudur Lok Sabha Congress candidate.[11] The assassination was carried out by the LTTE suicide bomber Thenmuli Rajaratnam also known as GayatriDhanu. and
At 10:10 p.m., the assassin Dhanu approached him in a public meeting and greeted the former Prime Minister. She then bent down to touch his feet (an expression of respect among Hindus) and detonated a belt laden with 700 grams of RDX explosive tucked below her dress.[12] The former Prime Minister along with many others were killed in the explosion that followed. The assassination was caught on film through the lens of a local photographer, whose camera and film were found at the site. The cameraman himself also died in the blast but the camera remained intact.
The Rajiv Gandhi Memorial was built at the site recently and is one of the major tourist attractions to the small industrial town.
As per the Supreme Court judgement, by Judge Thomas, the killing was carried out due to personal animosity of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) chief Prabhakaran towards Mr Rajiv Gandhi arising out of his sending the Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF) to Sri Lanka and the alleged IPKF atrocities against Srilankan Tamils. However, it should be noted that the Rajiv Gandhi administration had already antagonised other Tamil militant organisations like PLO for reversing the military coup in Maldives back in 1988.
The judgement further cites the death of Thileepan in a hunger strike and the suicide by 12 LTTE cadres in a vessel in Oct 1987.
In the Jain Commission report, various people and agencies are named as suspected of having been involved in the murder of Rajiv Gandhi. Among them, the cleric Chandraswami was suspected of involvement, including financing the assassination. interim report of the Jain Commission created a storm when it accused Karunanidhi of a role in the assassination, leading to Congress withdrawing its support for the I. K. Gujral government and fresh elections in 1998. LTTE spokesman Anton Balasingham told the Indian television channel NDTV that the killing was a "great tragedy, a monumental historical tragedy which we deeply regret." A memorial christened Veer Bhumi was constructed at his cremation spot.
6)Atal Bihari Vajpayee
Atal Bihari Vajpayee (Hindi: अटल बिहारी वाजपेयी, IPA: [əʈəl bɪhaːɾiː ʋaːdʒpeiː]) (born December 25, 1924) The eleventh Prime Minister of India. After two brief stints as Prime Minister in 1996, and 1998-'99, Vajpayee headed a coalition government from October 13, 1999 until May 19, 2004. He has since retired from active politics, though as a Member of Parliament, he has at times commented on various issues.
Early political career
Vajpayee's involvement in politics began as a freedom-fighter. He participated in the Quit India Movement before joining the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh.
He soon became a close follower and aide to Syama Prasad Mookerjee, the leader of the Bharatiya Jana Sangh (BJS). Vajpayee was at Mookerjee's side when he went on a fast-unto-death in Kashmir in 1953, to protest what the BJS claimed the inferior treatment of Indian citizens visiting Kashmir. Mookerjee's fast and protest ended the identity card requirement, and hastened the integration of Kashmir into the Indian Union. However, Mookherjee died soon after due to health problems caused by his confinement in jail.
As the leader of BJS, he expanded its political appeal, organization and agenda. Vajpayee was elected to the parliament in 1957 from the Balrampur. In spite of his youth, he soon became a respected voice in the opposition. His broad appeal brought respect, recognition and acceptance to a rising nationalist cultural movement.
The Janata phase
While the Bharatiya Jana Sangh had strong constituencies of support, it failed to dislodge the [[Indian National Congress]] from governance. The newly formed Congress(I) under Indira Gandhi came to power in 1967 and 1971. When Indira Gandhi declared state of emergency in 1975, the RSS and BJS joined a wide-array of parties in opposing the suspension of elections and civil liberties. Vajpayee, along with many of his colleagues, was briefly jailed during that period.
However, when the general election was held in 1977 following the resignation of Indira Gandhi, the BJS joined hands with a vast collage of regional groups, socialist parties and similar groups to form the Janata Party. The party swept the polls and formed a new government with Morarji Desai as Prime Minister. Vajpayee won the election from New Delhi parliamentary constituency and was sworn in as the Minister for External Affairs.
In a tenure lasting two years, Vajpayee achieved several milestones. He went on a historic visit to China in 1979, normalizing relations with China for the first time since the 1962 Sino-Indian War. He also visited Pakistan and initiated normal dialogue and trade relations that were frozen since the 1971 Indo-Pakistani War and subsequent political instability in both countries. Vajpayee represented the nation at the Conference on Disarmament, where he defended the national nuclear program, the centerpiece of national security in the Cold War world, especially with neighboring China being a nuclear power. (In 1974, India had become the sixth nuclear power of the world when she conducted an underground nuclear test at Pokhran) Although he resigned in 1979 when the government politically attacked the RSS, he had established his credentials as an experienced statesman and a respected political leader. During this tenure, he also became the first person to deliver a speech to the United Nations General Assembly in Hindi (in 1977), the "most unforgettable" moment in his life by his own admission.
The rise of the BJP
Atal Bihari Vajpayee, along with many BJS and RSS colleagues, particularly his long-time and close friends Lal Krishna Advani and Bhairon Singh Shekhawat, founded the Bharatiya Janata Party in 1980. Vajpayee became its first President. The BJP was a strong critic of the Congress(I) government that followed the Janata rule, and while it opposed the Sikh militancy that was rising in the state of Punjab, it also blamed Indira Gandhi for divisive and corrupt politics that fostered the militancy at national expense. Leader Darasingh opines that Vajpayee thus "brought in Hindu-Sikh harmony." [1]
Although it supported Operation Bluestar, the BJP strongly protested violence against Sikhs in Delhi that broke out in 1984 following the assassination of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi by one of her Sikh bodyguards. Vajpayee was known and commended for protecting Sikhs against Congress-followers seeking to avenge the death of their leader. The BJP was left with only two parliamentary seats in the 1984 elections; the party, however, had established itself in the mainstream of Indian politics, and soon began expanding its organization to attract young Indians throughout the country. During this period Vajpayee remained center-stage as party President and Leader of the Opposition in Parliament, but increasingly hard-line Hindu nationalists began to rise within the party and define its politics.
The BJP became the political voice of the Ram Janmabhoomi Mandir Movement, which was led by activists of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad and the RSS, and was seeking to build a temple dedicated to Lord Rama at the site of the Babri mosque in Ayodhya. Hindu activists believed the site was the birthplace of the Lord, and thus qualified as one of the most sacred sites of Hinduism.
With victory in assembly elections of Gujarat and Maharashtra in March 1995, and a good performance in the elections to the Karnataka assembly in December 1994 propelled the BJP to the centerstage. During the BJP session at Mumbai in November 1995, BJP President L.K.Advani declared that Vajpayee would be the Prime Minister of India if the BJP won next parliamentary elections held in May 1996.
Prime Minister of India
First Term: 1996
Political energy and expansion made BJP the single-largest political party in the Lok Sabha elected in 1996. Mired down by corruption scandals, the Congress was at a historic low, and a vast medley of regional parties and break-off factions dominated the hung Parliament. Asked to form the government, A.B. Vajpayee was sworn in as prime minister, but the BJP failed to gather enough support from other parties to form a majority. Vajpayee resigned after just 13 days, when it became clear that he could not garner a majority.
Second Term: 1998-1999
After the fall of two governments by the third-front between 1996 and 1998, the parliament was dissolved and fresh elections were held. These elections again put the BJP at the head. This time, a cohesive bloc of political parties lined up with it to form the National Democratic Alliance, and A.B. Vajpayee was sworn in as the prime minister. The NDA proved its majority in parliament. Towards the end of 1998 however, the AIADMK under J.Jayalalitha withdrew its support from the 13-month old government. The government lost the ensuing vote of confidence motion by a single vote. The Chief Minister of Orissa state voted in the parliament as sitting congress member. As the opposition was unable to come up with the numbers to form the new government, the country returned to elections with Vajpayee remaining the "care-taker prime minister".
Nuclear Bomb Testing
In May 1998, India conducted five underground nuclear tests in Pokhran, Rajasthan. The five tests shocked and surprised the world, especially considering that the government had been in power for only a month. Two weeks later, Pakistan responded with its own nuclear weapon tests, making it the newest nation with nuclear weapons.
While some nations, such as Russia and France, endorsed India's right to defensive nuclear power, others including the US, Canada, Japan, the UK and the European Union imposed sanctions on the sale of military equipment and high-tech scientific information, resources and technology to India or Pakistan. In spite of the intense international criticism and the steady decline in foreign investment and trade, the nuclear tests were popular domestically and the Vajpayee's popularity and the BJP's prestige rose in response.
The Lahore summit
In late 1998 and early 1999, Vajpayee began a push for a full-scale diplomatic peace process with Pakistan. With the historic inauguration of the Delhi-Lahore bus service in February 1999, Vajpayee initiated a new peace process aimed towards permanently resolving the Kashmir dispute and other territorial/nuclear/strategic conflicts with Pakistan. The resultant Lahore Declaration espoused a commitment to dialogue, expanded trade relations and the goal of denuclearized South Asia, and mutual friendship. This eased the tension created by the 1998 nuclear tests, not only within the two nations, but also in South Asia and the rest of the world.
The Vajpayee led government was faced with two crises in mid-1999. The AIADMK party had continually threatened to withdraw support from the coalition and national leaders repeatedly flew down from Delhi to Chennai to pacify the AIADMK chief J. Jayalalitha. Finally, in May 1999, the AIADMK did pull the plug on the NDA, and the Vajpayee administration was reduced to a caretaker status pending fresh elections scheduled for October.
Kargil Invasion
(see main article Kargil War) More importantly and soon after, it was revealed that thousands of terrorists and non-uniformed Pakistani soldiers (many with official identifications and Pakistan Army's custom weaponry) had infiltrated into the Kashmir Valley and captured control of border hilltops, unmanned border posts and were spreading out fast. The incursion was centered around the town of Kargil, but also included the Batalik and Akhnoor sectors and include artillery exchanges at the Siachen Glacier.
Indian army units were rushed into Kashmir in response. Operation Vijay (1999), launched in June 1999, saw the Indian military fighting thousands of terrorists and soldiers amidst heavy artillery shelling and while facing extremely cold weather, snow and treacherous terrain at the high altitude. Over 500 Indian soldiers died in the three-month long Kargil War, and it is estimated around 600 Pakistani militants and soldiers died as well. Pakistan's army shot down two air force jets. The mutilation of the body of pilot Ajay Ahuja inflamed public opinion in India. After both the United States and China refused to condone the incursion or threaten India to stop its military operations, Pakistan's Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif asked the militants to stop and withdraw to Pakistan-occupied Kashmir.
Third Term: 1999-2004
In October 1999, General Pervez Musharraf, chief of Pakistan's army and the chief architect of the Kargil plotting, seized power from the civilian, democratic government of Pakistan, and established his own dictatorship.
A national crisis popped up in December 1999, when an Indian Airlines flight (IC 814 from Nepal) was hijacked by Pakistani terrorists and flown via Pakistan to Taliban ruled Afghanistan. The media and the relatives of the hijacked passengers built up tremendous pressure on the government to give in to the hijackers' demand to release certain Kashmiri terrorists, including high-ranking Maulana Masood Azhar, from prison. The government ultimately caved in and Jaswant Singh, the Indian External Affairs minister, flew with the terrorists to Afghanistan and exchanged them for the passengers. No explanation was given by the Indian government for the External Affairs minister personally escorting the terrorists. The crisis also worsened the relationship between India and Pakistan, as the hijacked plane was allowed to re-fuel in Lahore, and all the hijackers, except one, were Pakistanis.
National Highways Development Project, Foreign Policy and Economic Reform
Vajpayee oversaw his National Highway Development Project begin construction, in which he took a personal interest.
In March 2000 Bill Clinton, the President of the United States paid a state visit to India. His was the first state visit to India by US President in 22 years. President Clinton's visit to India was hailed as a significant milestone in the relations between the two countries. Since the visit followed barely two years after the Pokhran tests, and one year after the Kargil invasion and the subsequent coup in Pakistan, it was read to reflect a major shift in the post-Cold War U.S. foreign policy. The Indian Prime Minister and the U.S. President discussed strategic issues, but the chief achievement was a significant expansion in trade and economic ties.Historic Vision Document on the future course of relations between the two countries was signed by Prime Minister Vajpayee and President Clinton during the visit.
Domestically, the BJP led government was under constant pressure from its ideological mentor, the RSS, and the hard-line VHP to enact the Hindutva agenda. But owing to its dependence on coalition support, it was impossible for the BJP to push items like building the Ram Janmabhoomi Mandir in Ayodhya, repealing Article 370 which gave a special status to the state of Kashmir, or enacting a uniform civil code applicable to adherents of all religions. The BJP was however accused of saffron-ising (saffron is the color of the flag of the RSS, symbol of the Hindu nationalism movement) the official state education curriculum and apparatus. Home Minister L.K. Advani and Education Minister Murli Manohar Joshi were indicted in the 1992 Babri Mosque demolition case for inciting the mob of activists. The RSS also routinely criticized the government for free-market policies which introduced foreign goods and competition at the expense of home industries and products.
Vajpayee's administration earned the ire of many unionized workers groups and government workers for their aggressive campaign to privatize government owned corporations. Vajpayee promoted pro-business, free market reforms to reinvigorate India's economic transformation and expansion that were started by former PM Narasimha Rao but stalled after 1996 due to unstable governments and the 1997 Asian financial crisis. Increased competitiveness, extra funding and support for the information technology and high-tech industries, improvements in infrastructure, deregulation of trade, investments and corporate laws - all increased foreign capital investment and set in motion an economic expansion.
These couple of years of reform however were accompanied by infighting in the administration and confusion regarding the direction of government. Cabinet portfolios were created and shuffled every six months apparently to pacify restless coalition partners. Vajpayee's weakening health was also a subject of public interest, and he underwent a major knee-replacement surgery at the Breach Candy Hospital in Mumbai to relieve great pressure on his legs.
In March 2001, the Tehelka group released incriminating videos of the BJP President Bangaru Laxman, senior army officers and NDA members accepting bribes from journalists posing as agents and businessmen. While the scandals were not linked to Vajpayee's personally, the Defence Minister George Fernandes was forced to resign following this Barak Missile Deal Scandal, another scandal involving the botched supplies of coffins for the soldiers killed in Kargil, and the finding of an inquiry commission that the Government could have prevented the Kargil invasion. These developments as well as an ambiguous response of the economy to the reforms, reduced the Vajpayee administration's popularity and undermined its future.
Vajpayee again broke the ice in the Indo-Pak relations by inviting Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf to Delhi and Agra for a joint summit and peace talks. His second-major attempt to move beyond the stalemate tensions involved inviting the man who had planned the Kargil invasions, but accepting him as the President of Pakistan, Vajpayee chose to move forward. But after three days of much fanfare, which included Musharraf visiting his birthplace in Delhi, the summit failed to achieve a breakthrough as President Musharraf declined to leave aside the issue of Kashmir.
Attack on Parliament
On December 13, 2001, a group of masked, armed men with fake IDs stormed the Parliament building in Delhi. The terrorists managed to kill several security guards, but the building was sealed off swiftly and security forces cornered and killed the men, who were later proven to be Pakistan nationals. Coming just three months after the September 11 terrorist attacks upon the United States, this fresh escalation instantly enraged the nation. Although the Government of Pakistan officially condemned the attack, Indian intelligence reports pointed the finger at a conspiracy rooted in Pakistan. Prime Minister Vajpayee ordered a mobilization of India's military forces, and as many as 500,000 servicemen amassed along the international boundary bordering Punjab, Rajasthan, Gujarat and Kashmir. Pakistan responded with the same. Vicious terrorist attacks and an aggressive anti-terrorist campaign froze day-to-day life in Kashmir, and foreigners flocked out of both India and Pakistan, fearing a possible war and nuclear exchange. For as long as two years, both nations remained perilously close to a terrible war.
The Vajpayee administrations passed the Prevention of Terrorist Act against vigorous opposition of non-NDA parties. Human rights groups have condemned the act which gives wide authority to the government to crack down and hold anybody. Its repeal was advocated by human rights organisations. [2]
But the biggest political disaster hit between December 2001 and March 2002: the VHP held the Government hostage in a major standoff in Ayodhya over the Ram temple. At the 10th anniversary of the destruction of the Babri mosque, the VHP wanted to perform a sheela daan, or a ceremony laying the foundation stone of the cherished temple at the disputed site. Tens of thousands of VHP activists amassed and threatened to overrun the site and forcibly build the temple. A grave threat of not only communal violence, but an outright breakdown of law and order owing to the defiance of the government by a religious organization hung over the nation.[citation needed]
Just a week following the standoff, a train carriage carrying hundreds of VHP activists returning from Ayodhya was attacked by a Muslim mob in Godhra, Gujarat and the bogey was set afire, killing 59 activists. The result was an episode of communal violence in which over 1,000 people were killed and displaced. Three fourths of the killed were Muslims while the rest were Hindus. Organizations such as VHP affiliated with the ruling BJP, as well as the State government led by BJP leader and Chief Minister Narendra Modi, were accused of fomenting the violence, though this only remained to be an allegation. Vajpayee visited the state and publicly criticized the Chief Minister for not doing his moral duty to protect the people; he also spoke at a national party convention in Goa in June, 2002 allegedly attacking Muslims for having tolerated the Godhra attackers, and not doing enough to counter Islamic terrorism entering the country. In a Cabinet reshuffle, his long-time and close associate Lal Krishna Advani was designated Deputy Prime Minister of India, and increased power in the party and the Cabinet, and more credibility with the RSS and the conservative Hindu base. In September 2002, Narendra Modi led the BJP to a major victory, and thus vindication through the state assembly elections. His defiant victory was seen standing right against the moral criticism handed down by the Prime Minister. (See also:2002 Gujarat violence)
In late 2002 and 2003 the government pushed economic reforms, and the country's GDP growth accelerated at record levels, exceeding 6-7%. Increasing foreign investment, modernization of public and industrial infrastructure, the creation of jobs, a rising high-tech and IT industry and urban modernization and expansion improved the nation's national image. Good crop harvests and strong industrial expansion also helped the economy. The Government reformed the tax system, increased the pace of reforms and pro-business initiatives, major irrigation and housing schemes and so on. The political energies of the BJP shifted to the rising urban middle-class and young people, who were positive and enthusiastic about the major economic expansion and future of the country.
In August 2003, Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee announced before Parliament his "absolute last" effort to achieve peace with Pakistan. Although the diplomatic process never truly set-off immediately, visits were exchanged by high-level officials and the military stand-off ended. The Pakistani President and Pakistani politicians, civil and religious leaders hailed this initiative as did the leaders of America, Europe and much of the world. In July 2003, Prime Minister Vajpayee, visited China, and met with various Chinese leaders. He recognised Tibet, as a part of China, which was reacted to positively, by the Chinese leadership, who the following year, recognised Sikkim, as a part of India. Sino-Indian Relations, improved greatly, in the following years.
In November-December 2003, the BJP won three major state elections, fought mainly on development issues, without ideological campaigns. A major public relations campaign was launched to reach out to Muslims and stop the 2002 controversies from haunting the party's future. But the attention of the media and of millions now moved from Vajpayee to his more possible successor, L.K. Advani, although the question was never directly raised or contested in any way. Vajpayee's age, failing health and diminished physical and mental vigor were obvious factors in such speculations. Advani assumed greater responsibilities in the party, and although no perceivable conflict has been known to arise between the longtime friends and political colleagues, several embarrassing statements were made. Once Vajpayee said "Advani would lead the BJP in the elections," prompting Advani to clarify that he would merely lead the election campaign, not the party. And then the BJP President Venkiah Naidu used mythological references to depict Vajpayee as a Vikas Purush, (Man of Progress), comparing him toBhishma Pitamah of the Mahabharata epic, a man respected by all political outfits and hundreds of millions of people. Advani was called the "Loh Purush" (Iron Man), a more potent reference suggestive of future developments.
Post 2004 elections
The National Democratic Alliance was widely expected to retain power after the 2004 genaral election. The parliament had been dissolved before the completion of term in order to capitalize on the economic boom and improved security and cultural atmosphere.
However, despite it's best efforts, the coalition - during camapign, controversial and ideological issues had been side-stepped in favor of bread-butter economic issues - lost almost half the seat it had, with several prominent cabinet ministers getting defeated. The congress(I), led by Sonia Gandhi became the single largest party and along with many minor parties formed the United Progressive Alliance. With the conditional support of the leftist parties from the outside, the UPA formed government under Dr. Manmohan Singh.
Vajpayee attended the swearing-in ceremony of the new government despite his party's decision to boycott it. Vajpayee was criticized for sacrificing core issues like Hindutva and the Ram Temple inorder to please Muslim voters (the BJP lost the Muslim vote by a heavy margin). Vajpayee expressed his anger and frustration at being blamed and at a high-level party meeting, he decided to give up the position of the Leader of the Opposition to Lal Krishna Advani. However, he retained his post as Chairman of the National Democratic Alliance.
In December of 2005, Vajpayee announced his retirement from active politics, declaring that he would not participate in the next general election. At a rally in the western city of Mumbai, Vajpayee said "I will not participate in any electoral politics. There are many other leaders to take forward the work which I and other senior leaders have been doing. In a now famous statement at the BJP's silver Jubilee rally at Mumbai's historic Shivaji Park, Vajpayee announced that "from now onwards, Lal Krishna Advani and Pramod Mahajan will be the Ram-Laxman (the two godly brothers much revered and worshipped by Hindus) of the BJP."
Legacy and criticism
Atal Bihari Vajpayee's six years at the Prime Minister's Office led to a major transformation and expansion of the country's economy. In the 1999 Kargil War, his leadership defended the country's integrity and security, while his broad-minded statesmanship in 1999, 2001 and 2004 kept the country's safety, peace and future on the high-course despite many discouraging events, failures and threats. During his 50 years as Member of Parliament, Vajpayee has established impeccable and virtually infallible credentials as a man of principle, integrity and commitment in the world of Indian politics, and as a leading visionary and statesman of the world.
However, the Vajpayee government was criticized over its ignorance of the issues and concerns of India's poor millions, over corruption scandals, and the episodes of communal violence and rise of both Hindu and Muslim radicalism in politics. While praised for his leadership during the Kargil War and for his peace efforts with Pakistan, the Vajpayee administration was blamed for not being able to detect and prevent two serious terrorist attacks on the country, and an incursion into Indian sovereign territory.
7)Abdul Kalam
Avul Pakir Jainulabdeen Abdul Kalam (Tamil: அவுல் பகீர் ஜைனுலாப்தீன் அப்துல் கலாம்) born October 15, 1931, Tamil Nadu, India, usually referred as Dr. A. P. J. Abdul Kalam^, was the eleventh President of India, serving from 2002 to 2007.[2] Due to his unconventional working style, he is also popularly known as the People's President. Before his term as India's president, he distinguished himself as engineering visionary and was awarded India's highest civilian honour Bharat Ratna in 1997 for his work with DRDO and his role as scientific advisor to the Indian government. He is popularly known as the Missile Man of India for his work on development of ballistic missile and space rocket technology[3]. In India he is considered a progressive mentor, innovator and visionary. Kalam played a pivotal organizational, technical and political role in India's Pokhran-II nuclear test in 1998, the first since the original nuclear test by India in 1974[4].
Honours
He has received honorary doctorates from as many as thirty universities .[5] The Government of India has honoured him with the nation's highest civilian honours: the Padma Bhushan in 1981; Padma Vibhushan in 1990; and the Bharat Ratna in 1997.
Kalam is the Fourth President of India to have been honoured with a Bharat Ratna before being elected to the highest office, the other three being Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan ,V. V. Giri and Zakir Hussain. He is also the first scientist and first bachelor to occupy Rashtrapati Bhavan.
Referred to as the "People's President", Kalam is often considered amongst India's greatest presidents, going on to win a poll conducted by news channel CNN-IBN for India's Best President.
Political views
Kalam's probable views on certain issues have been espoused by him in his book India 2020 where he strongly advocates an action plan to develop India into a knowledge superpower and into a developed nation by the year 2020. Kalam is credited with the view that India ought to take a more assertive stance in international relations; he regards his work on India's nuclear weapons program as a way to assert India's place as a future superpower.
Kalam continues to take an active interest in other developments in the field of science and technology as well. He has proposed a research programme for developing bio-implants. He is a supporter of Open source software over proprietary solutions and believes that the use of open source software on a large scale will bring more people the benefits of information technology.
Kalam's belief in the power of science to resolve society's problems and his views of these problems as a result of inefficient distribution of resources is modernistic. He also sees science and technology as ideology-free areas and emphasizes the cultivation of scientific temper and entrepreneurial drive. In this, he finds a lot of support among India's new business leaders like the founders of Infosys and Wipro, (leading Indian IT corporations) who began their careers as technology professionals much in the same way Kalam did.
His views on issues of peace and weapons are controversial. He is quoted as follows:
In the 3,000-year history of India, barring 600 years, the country has been ruled by others. If you need development, the country should witness peace and peace is ensured by strength. Missiles were developed to strengthen the country.[1]
Personal life
APJ Abdul Kalam was born in 1931 in a middle-class family in Rameshwaram, Tamil Nadu, a town well-known for its Hindu shrines. His mother tongue is Tamil. His father, a devout Muslim, owned boats which he rented out to local fishermen and was a good friend of Hindu religious leaders and the school teachers at Rameshwaram. APJ Abdul Kalam mentions in his biography that to support his studies, he started his career as a newspaper vendor. This was also told in the book, A Boy and His Dream: Three Stories from the Childhood of Abdul Kalam by Vinita Krishna. The house Kalam was born in can still be found on the Mosque street at Rameswaram, and his brother's curio shop abuts it. This has become a point-of-call for tourists who seek out the place. Kalam grew up in an intimate relationship with nature, and he says in Wings of Fire that he never could imagine that water could be so powerful a destroying force as that he witnessed when he was six. That was in 1934 when a cyclonic storm swept away the Pamban bridge and a trainload of passengers with it and also Kalam's native village, Dhanushkodi.
Kalam observes strict personal discipline, vegetarianism, teetotalism and celibacy. Kalam is a scholar of Thirukkural; in most of his speeches, he quotes at least one kural. Kalam has written several inspirational books, most notably his autobiography Wings of Fire, aimed at motivating Indian youth. Another of his books, Guiding Souls: Dialogues on the Purpose of Life reveals his spiritual side. He has written poems in Tamil as well. It has been reported that there is considerable demand in South Korea for translated versions of books authored by him.
Dr. Kalam received an honorary doctorate from Carnegie Mellon University.
Kalam as an engineer
Abdul Kalam graduated from Madras Institute of Technology majoring in Aeronautical Engineering. As the Project Director, he made significant contributions to the development of India's first indigenous Satellite Launch Vehicle (SLV-III). As Chief Executive of Integrated Guided Missile Development Programme (IGMDP), he also played major part in developing many missiles of India including Agni and Prithvi. He was the Chief Scientific Adviser to Defence Minister and Secretary, Department of Defence Research & Development from July 1992 to December 1999. Pokhran-II nuclear tests were conducted during this period, led by him.
Books
- India 2020: A Vision for the New Millennium by A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, Y.S. Rajan (Penguin Books India, 2003) ISBN 0-14-027833-8
- India-my-dream by A.P.J. Abdul Kalam (Excel Books, 2004) ISBN 81-7446-350-X
- Envisioning an Empowered Nation: Technology for Societal Transformation by A.P.J.Abdul Kalam (TATA McGraw-Hill Publishing Company Ltd, 2004) ISBN 0-07-053154-4
- Guiding Souls: Dialogues on the Purpose of Life by A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, Arun K Tiwari, (Ocean Books, 2005) ISBN 81-88322-73-3
- Children Ask Kalam by A.P.J Abdul Kalam (Pearson Education) ISBN 81-7758-245-3
- Biographies and Autobiographies
- Wings of Fire: An Autobiography of APJ Abdul Kalam by A.P.J Abdul Kalam, Arun Tiwari (Orient Longman, 1999) ISBN 81-7371-146-1
- Ignited Minds: Unleashing the Power Within India by A.P.J. Abdul Kalam (Penguin Books, 2003) ISBN 0-14-302982-7
- Scientist to President by Abdul A.P.J. Kalam (Gyan Publishing House, 2003) ISBN 81-212-0807-6
- Eternal Quest: Life and Times of Dr. Avul Pakir Jainulabdeen Abdul Kalam by S. Chandra (Pentagon Publishers, 2002) ISBN 81-86830-55-3
- President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam by R. K. Pruthi (Anmol Publications, 2002) ISBN 81-261-1344-8
- A. P. J. Abdul Kalam: The Visionary of India' by K. Bhushan, G. Katyal (A.P.H. Pub. Corp, 2002) ISBN 81-7648-380-X
- kalAM mEShTru, ಕಲಾಂ ಮೇಷ್ಟ್ರು. : The Life sketch of Dr. A. P. J. Abdul Kalam : A Story of, President , Dr. A. P. J. Abdul Kalam, as told to the Children of India, with interesting anecdotes, and Photos, in Kannada Language, By Prof. Shri. H. R. Ramakrishna Rao, Published by the Kannada Pustaka Pradhikara, Bengaluru, Karnataka. ISBN : 81-7713-199-0, 1,000 Copies.
8)Morarji Desai
Morarji Ranchhodji Desai (Hindi: मोरारजी देसाई) (29 February 1896 – 10 April 1995) was an Indian independence activist and the Prime Minister of India from 1977-79. He was the first Indian Prime Minister who did not belong to the Indian National Congress. He is the only Indian to receive the highest civilian awards from both India and Pakistan, namely the Bharat Ratna and Nishaan-e-Pakistan.
Early life
Morarji Desai was born into an Anavil Brahmin family in Bhadeli, Valsad in Bombay Presidency (now in Gujarat). After graduating from Wilson College, Mumbai, he joined the civil service in Gujarat. Later, he left the service of the British in 1924 and joined the civil disobedience movement against British rule in India in 1930. He spent many years in jail during the freedom struggle and owing to his sharp leadership skills and tough spirit, he became a favourite amongst freedom-fighters and an important leader of the Indian National Congress in Gujarat. When provincial elections were held in 1934 and 1937, Desai was elected and served as the Revenue Minister and Home Minister of the then Bombay Presidency.
In government
Before the independence of India, he became Bombay's Home Minister and later was elected as Chief Minister of Bombay State in 1952. The state was home to Marathi linguistic movements, with calls for the creation of a separate linguistic state. Considered as a tough leader, Desai was also known for pioneering beliefs and enforcing strict discipline and authority and thus possessed a radical mindset. By Desai's orders in 1960, a demonstration by the Samyukta Maharashtra Samiti was fired upon by the police resulting in the deaths of 105 demonstrators. 105 demonstrators were killed in the incident leading to public outrage that shook the central government. The incident led to the formation of the present State of Maharashtra.
As Home Minister, Desai outlawed any portrayals of indecency (which included "kissing" scenes) in films and theatrical productions. Although a staunch Gandhian, Desai was socially conservative, pro-business, and in favour of free enterprise reforms, as opposed to Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru's socialistic policies.
Rising in Congress leadership, Desai was at odds with Prime Minister Nehru and his allies, and with Nehru's age and health failing, he was considered as a possible contender for the position of Prime Minister. Outflanked in the leadership contest after Nehru's death in 1964 by the Nehruvian Lal Bahadur Shastri, Desai remained content to build support within the ranks.
After Shastri's death in 1966, he contested for Prime Minister and fought a closely-contested election with Indira Gandhi. Desai obtained 169 votes but lost to Indira Gandhi who garnered 351.
Split of 1969
Initially Desai stayed out of the Cabinet, biding his time. As the young Indira Gandhi s government became embroiled in controversy following a poor harvest, currency devaluation, and rising disenchantment in the country, Desai's influence grew in strength and he returned to the Cabinet in 1967. He demanded the powerful position as the Minister for Home Affairs, but he settled for the Ministry for Finance, with the added title of Deputy Prime Minister. Relations between Desai and the young Prime Minister were strained at best.
When Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was convicted in June 1975 of wrongfully using government machinery for election work and corruption, Desai joined Jaya Prakash Narayan in organising mass protests throughout the country calling for her resignation. In a show of intolerance towards any sort of opposition, Indira Gandhi declared Emergency and had all the opposition leaders including Desai arrested.
When Indira called for elections in January 1977, many opposition groups, including the Congress (O), joined with longtime rivals, regional parties and blocs of rival ideologies to form the Janata Party. It won 356 seats, close to 2/3 majority, and for the first time since independence, the dominance of the ruling Congress Party was broken. Morarji Desai finally came into office as the Prime Minister when Jaiprakash Narayan picked him as the man most likely to keep the coalition united.
At the time, he was 81 years old but still healthy and vigorous, without any particular ailments.
Prime Minister
Desai led a fractious coalition government, and thus failed to achieve much owing to continuous in-wrangling and much controversy. With no party in leadership of the coalition, rival groups vied to unseat Desai. Controversial trials of prominent Congress leaders, including Indira Gandhi over Emergency-era abuses worsened the fortunes of his administration. Desai worked to improve relations with neighbour and arch-rival Pakistan and restored normal relations with China, for the first time since the 1962 war. He communicated with Zia-ul-Haq and established friendly relations and diplomatic relations were also re-established with China. His government undid many amendments made to the constitution during emergency and made it difficult for any future government to impose national emergency.
Since India's first nuclear test in 1974, Desai kept India's nuclear reactors stating "they will never be used for atomic bombs, and I will see to it if I can help it".[1] In 1977, the Carter administration sold India, heavy water and uranium for its nuclear reactors but required American on-site inspection of nuclear materials. Desai declined, seeing the American stance as contradictory, in light of its own nuclear arsenal. [2]
Retirement and death
In 1979, Charan Singh pulled out of the Janata Party, forcing Desai to resign from office and retire from politics at the age of 83. Desai campaigned for Janata Party in 1980 General Election as a senior politician but did not contest the election himself.
In retirement, he lived in Bombay, and died at the age of 99. He had been honoured much in his last years a freedom-fighter of his generation.
Morarji Desai was a strict follower of Mahatma Gandhi's principles and a moralist.
Feud with RAW
Morarji Desai had described the RAW as the praetorian guard of Indira Gandhi and had promised to stop all activities of the RAW after becoming prime minister. B. Raman, the former head of the Counter-Terrorism Division of India's external intelligence agency, the Research and Analysis Wing (R&AW),reveals that, in an unguarded moment, Indian prime minister Morarji Desai indiscreetly told Pakistani President Zia ul-Haq that he was aware of Islamabad's nuclear schemes.
Social Service
9)P. V. Narasimha Rao
Pamulaparthi Venkata Narasimha Rao (Telugu: పాములపర్తి వెంకట నరసింహారావు) (28 June 1921 – 23 December 2004) was the 12th Prime Minister of the Republic of India.[1] He led one of the most important administrations in India's modern history, overseeing a major economic transformation and several incidents affecting national security.[2] Rao accelerated the dismantling of the license raj, work that originally initiated under the government of Rajiv Gandhi. Rao, also called the "Father of Indian Economic Reforms,"[3] is best remembered for launching India's free market reforms that rescued the almost bankrupt nation from economic collapse.[4] He was also commonly referred to as the Chanakya of modern India for his ability to steer tough economic and political legislation through the parliament at a time when he headed a minority government.[5][6]
Rao's term as Prime Minister was an eventful one in India's history. Besides marking a paradigm shift from the socialist-based style of economy propagated by Nehru to a market driven one, his years as Prime Minister also saw the emergence of the Bharatiya Janata Party, a major right-wing party, as an alternative to the Indian National Congress which had been governing India for most of its post-independence history. Rao's term also saw the destruction of the Babri Mosque in Ayodhya which triggered one of the worst Hindu-Muslim riots in the country since its independence.[7]
Rao's later life was marked by political isolation due to his association with corruption charges. It was an apathy and indifference that Indian National Congress didn't stand by their long term associate who had been a Prime Minister of India. Rao was acquitted on all charges prior to his death in 2004 of a heart attack in New Delhi. He was cremated in Hyderabad.[8]
Early life
PV's father was P. V. Ranga Rao. He belonged to a wealthy Telugu Niyogi Brahmin family from a village called Vangara (pedda),Bheema Devara pally mandal in the Karimnagar district of Andhra Pradesh, India.[9]
Narasimha Rao was popularly known as PV. PV studied at Fergusson College and at the Universities of Mumbai and Nagpur where he obtained Bachelor's and Master's degrees in law.[9][10] He was a polyglot and could speak 13 languages including Urdu, Marathi, Kannada, Hindi, Telugu and English with a fluency akin to a native speaker.[11] His mother tongue was Telugu. In addition to seven Indian languages, he spoke English, French, Arabic, Spanish and Persian.[12] Along with his cousin Pamulaparthi Sadasiva Rao, PV edited a Telugu weekly magazine called Kakatiya Patrika from 1948 to 1955.
Narasimha Rao has three sons and five daughters.His eldest son P.V Rangarao was as an education minister in Kotla Vijaya Bhaskar Reddy cabinet and M.L.A from HanmaKonda Assembly Constituency for two terms.His second son P.V.Rajeshwar Rao was a Member of Parliament from Secunderabad Lok Sabha Constituency.
Political career
Early career
Narasimha Rao was an active freedom fighter during the Indian Independence movement[9] and joined full time politics after independence as a member of the Indian National Congress. Narasimha Rao served brief stints in the Andhra Pradesh cabinet (1962–1971) and as Chief minister of the state of Andhra Pradesh (1971–1973).[10]
Path to Prime Ministership
When the Indian National Congress split in 1969 Rao stayed on the side of then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi and remained loyal to her during the Emergency period (1975 - 77).[12] He rose to national prominence in 1972 for handling several diverse portfolios, most significantly Home, Defence and Foreign Affairs (1980-1984), in the cabinets of both Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi.[10] In fact it is speculated that he was in the running for the post of India's President along with Zail Singh in 1982.[13]
Rao very nearly retired from politics in 1991. It was the assassination of the Congress President Rajiv Gandhi that made him make a comeback.[14] As the Congress had won the largest number of seats in the 1991 elections, he got the opportunity to head the minority government as Prime Minister. He was the first person outside the Nehru-Gandhi family to serve as Prime Minister for five continuous years, the first to hail from South India and also the first from the state of Andhra Pradesh.[15][2] Since Rao had not contested the general elections, he then participated in a by-election in Nandyal to join the parliament. N.T.Rama Rao (then leader of the Chief Opposition party of Telugu Desam) did not want to put a contestant against Rao, because he was the First Prime Minister of India from Andhra Pradesh, and NTR did not want to create an obstacle on his path. By that, Rao won from Nandyal with a victory margin of a record 5 lakh (500,000) votes and his win was recorded in the Guinness Book Of World Records.[16][17] His cabinet included Sharad Pawar, himself a strong contender for the Prime Minister's post, as defence minister. He also broke convention by appointing a non-political economist, Manmohan Singh as his finance minister.
Achievements
Economic reforms
Rao's major achievement generally considered to be the liberalization of the Indian economy. The reforms were adopted to avert impending international default in 1991.[18] The reforms progressed furthest in the areas of opening up to foreign investment, reforming capital markets, deregulating domestic business, and reforming the trade regime. Rao's government's goals were reducing the fiscal deficit, Privatization of the public sector, and increasing investment in infrastructure. Trade reforms and changes in the regulation of foreign direct investment were introduced to open India to foreign trade while stabilizing external loans. Rao's finance minister, Manmohan Singh, an acclaimed economist, played a central role in implementing these reforms.
- Abolishing in 1992 the Controller of Capital Issues which decided the prices and number of shares that firms could issue.[19][18]
- Introducing the SEBI Act of 1992 and the Security Laws (Amendment) which gave SEBI the legal authority to register and regulate all security market intermediaries.[20][18]
- Opening up in 1992 of India's equity markets to investment by foreign institutional investors and permitting Indian firms to raise capital on international markets by issuing Global Depository Receipts (GDRs).[21]
- Starting in 1994 of the National Stock Exchange as a computer-based trading system which served as an instrument to leverage reforms of India's other stock exchanges. The NSE emerged as India's largest exchange by 1996.[22]
- Reducing tariffs from an average of 85 percent to 25 percent, and rolling back quantitative controls. (The rupee was made convertible on trade account.)[23]
- Encouraging foreign direct investment by increasing the maximum limit on share of foreign capital in joint ventures from 40 to 51 percent with 100 percent foreign equity permitted in priority sectors.[24]
- Streamlining procedures for FDI approvals, and in at least 35 industries, automatically approving projects within the limits for foreign participation.[25][18]
Rao began industrial policy reforms with the manufacturing sector. He slashed industrial licensing, leaving only 18 industries subject to licensing. Industrial regulation was rationalized.
National security, foreign policy and crisis management
Rao energized the national nuclear security and ballistic missiles program, which ultimately resulted in the 1998 Pokhran nuclear tests. It is speculated that the tests were actually planned in 1995, during Rao's term in office,[26] and that they were dropped under American pressure when the US intelligence got the whiff of it.[citation needed] He increased military spending, and set the Indian Army on course to fight the emerging threat of terrorism and insurgencies, as well as Pakistan and China's nuclear potentials. It was during his term that terrorism in the Indian state of Punjab was finally defeated.[27] Also scenarios of plane hijackings, which occurred during Rao's time ended without the government conceding the terrorists' demands.[28] He also directed negotiations to secure the release of Doraiswamy, an Indian Oil executive, from Kashmiri terrorists who kidnapped him,[29] and Liviu Radu, a Romanian diplomat posted in New Delhi in October 1991, who was kidnapped by Sikh terrorists.[30] Rao also handled the Indian response to the occupation of the Hazratbal holy shrine in Jammu and Kashmir by Pakistan-sponsored[citation needed][31] He brought the occupation to an end without damage to the shrine. Similarly, he dealt with the kidnapping of some foreign tourists by a terrorist group called Al Faran in Kashmir in 1995 effectively. Although he could not secure the release of the hostages, his policies ensured that the terrorists demands were not conceded to, and that the action of the terrorists was condemned internationally, including by Pakistan.[32] terrorists in October 1993.
Rao also made diplomatic overtures to Western Europe, the United States, and China.[33] He decided in 1992 to bring into the open India's relations with Israel, which had been kept covertly active since they were first established by Indira Gandhi in 1969[citation needed], and permitted Israel to open an embassy in New Delhi.[34] He ordered the intelligence community in 1992 to start a systematic drive to draw the international community's attention to alleged Pakistan's sponsorship of terrorism against India and not to be discouraged by US efforts to undermine the exercise.[35][36] Rao launched the Look East foreign policy, which brought India closer to ASEAN.[37] He decided to maintain a distance from the Dalai Lama in order to avoid aggravating Beijing's suspicions and concerns, and made successful overtures to Teheran. The 'cultivate Iran' policy was pushed through vigorously by him.[38] These policies paid rich dividends for India in March 1994, when Benazir Bhutto's efforts to have a resolution passed by the UN Human Rights Commission in Geneva on the human rights situation in Jammu and Kashmir failed, with opposition by China and Iran.
Rao's crisis management after the Mumbai blasts of March 12, 1993 was highly praised. He personally visited Mumbai after the blasts and after seeing evidence of Pakistani involvement in the blasts, ordered the intelligence community to invite the intelligence agencies of the US, UK and other West European countries to send their counter-terrorism experts to Mumbai to examine the facts for themselves.[40]
Challenges faced in office
Economic crisis and initiation of liberalization
Rao decided that India, which in 1991 was on the brink of bankruptcy,[41] would benefit from liberalizing its economy. He appointed an economist, Dr. Manmohan Singh, a former governor of the Reserve Bank of India, as Finance Minister to accomplish his goals.[2] This liberalization was criticized by many socialist nationalists at that time.[42]
Currency crisis
Kashmiri militancy
The Himalayan state of Jammu and Kashmir witnessed a separatist insurgency during Rao's tenure. His government claimed that training camps in Pakistan-administered Kashmir for militant groups, previously directed at evicting the Soviet army from Afghanistan, were now producing the same fighters who were infiltrating Kashmir.[43] He directly charged Pakistan with sheltering, arming and supplying infiltrators. During this time Hindu pilgrims and Sikh settlers were attacked, and hundreds of thousands of Kashmiri Pandits were forced to leave their homes in the Kashmir valley.[44] Violence rocked and shut down parts of Kashmir, which was heavily dependent on tourism, and also struck major cities like Delhi and Mumbai.[45][46] Similar terrorism spread into the northeastern states of Assam,[47] Tripura[48] and Nagaland.[49]
Rao's government introduced the Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act (TADA),[50] India's first anti-terrorism legislation, and directed the Indian Army to eliminate the infiltrators.[51] Despite a heavy and largely successful Army campaign, the state descended into a security nightmare. Tourism and commerce were largely disrupted. Special police units were often accused of committing atrocities against prisoners, including torture and excessive detention.[52]
Religious strife and the Latur earthquake
Members of the VHP demolished the Babri Mosque in Ayodhya on 6 December 1992.[53] The site is believed by many to be the birthplace of Sri Rama, on which India's first Mughal emperor, Babar destroyed an existing Hindu temple in the early 16th century. The destruction of the disputed structure, which was widely reported in the international media, unleashed large scale communal violence, the most extensive since the Partition of India. Muslim and Hindu fundamentalists indulged in massive rioting across the country, and almost every major city including Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Ahmedabad, Hyderabad, Bhopal, and Chennai struggled to control rampaging mobs. It is widely believed that the 1993 Mumbai Bombings, which claimed hundreds of innocent lives and left thousands injured, was the Muslim underworld's retaliation for the demolition of the Babri Mosque.
A strong earthquake in Latur, Maharashtra, also killed 10,000 people and displaced hundreds of thousands in 1993.[54] Rao was applauded by many for using modern technology and resources to organize major relief operations to assuage the stricken people, and for schemes of economic reconstruction.
Corruption
JMM bribery scandal
In July 1993, Rao's government was facing a no-confidence motion, because the opposition felt that it did not have sufficient numbers to prove a majority. It was alleged that Rao, through a representative, offered millions of rupees to members of the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM), and possibly a breakaway faction of the Janata Dal, to vote for him during the confidence motion. Shailendra Mahato, one of those members who had accepted the bribe, turned approver. In 1996, after Rao's term in office had expired, investigations began in earnest in the case.
In 2000, after years of legal proceedings, a special court convicted Rao and his colleague, Buta Singh (who is alleged to have escorted the MPs to the Prime Minister).[55] Rao appealed to a higher court and remained free on bail. The decision was overturned mainly due to the doubt in credibility of Mahato's statements (which were extremely inconsistent) and both Rao and Buta Singh were cleared of the charges in 2002.[56]
St. Kitts forgery scandal
Rao, along with fellow minister K.K. Tewary, Chandraswami and K.N. Aggarwal were accused of forging documents showing that Ajeya Singh had opened a bank account in the First Trust Corporation Bank in St. Kitts and deposited $21 million in it, making his father V.P. Singh its beneficiary. The alleged intent was to tarnish V.P. Singh's image. This supposedly happened in 1989. However only after Rao's term as PM had expired in 1996, was he formally charged by the CBI for the crime. Less than a year later the court acquitted him due to lack of evidence linking him with the case.[57] All other accused, Chandraswami being the last, were also eventually acquitted.
Lakhubhai Pathak cheating scandal
Lakhubhai Pathak, an Indian businessman living in England alleged that Chandraswami and K.N. Aggarwal alias Mamaji, along with Mr. Rao, cheated him out of $100,000.00. The amount was given for an express promise for allowing supplies of paper pulp in India, and Pathak alleged that he spent an additional $30,000.00 entertaining Chandraswami and his secretary. Rao and Chandraswami were acquitted of the charges in 2003,[58] due to lack of evidence. Despite this, it remained a large black mark on Rao's administration.
Stock Market Scandal
Later life
In the 1996 general elections Rao's Congress Party was badly defeated and he had to step down as Prime Minister. He retained the leadership of the Congress party until late 1996 after which he was replaced by Sitaram Kesri. According to Congress insiders who spoke with the media, Rao had kept an authoritarian stance on both the party and his government, which led to the departure of numerous prominent and ambitious Congress leaders during his reign. Some of them were: Narayan Dutt Tiwari, Arjun Singh, Madhavrao Scindia, Mamata Banerjee, G.K. Moopanar and P.Chidambaram.
Rao rarely spoke of his personal views and opinions during his 5-year tenure. After his retirement from national politics Rao published a novel called The Insider (ISBN 0-670-87850-2). The controversial book, which follows a man’s rise through the ranks of Indian politics, resembled events from Rao’s own life. (See Gonzo journalism.) Rao, however denied any connection.
Rao suffered a heart attack on 9 December 2004, and was taken to the All India Institute of Medical Sciences where he died 14 days later at the age of 83.
He was cremated with full state honors. His body was kept in state at the Jubilee Hall in Hyderabad. His funeral was attended by the incumbent Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, former Prime Minister H. D. Deve Gowda, the incumbent BJP president L.K. Advani, the Defence Minister Pranab Mukherjee, the Finance Minister P. Chidambaram and many other dignitaries.
Legacy
- Rao picked conservative BJP leader Atal Behari Vajpayee to represent India in a debate on disarmament at the United Nations.[60] Although they were political opponents, Vajpayee's pro-nuclear stance was in accordance with Rao's own views. Vajpayee later became the Prime Minister.
- The Express Highway between Sarojini Devi Eye Hospital and Aramgarh on NH 7 to the International Airport in Hyderabad is named after Rao.
10)Vishwanath Pratap Singh
 | |
| | |
|---|---|
| In office 2 December 1989 – 10 November 1990 | |
| Preceded by | Rajiv Gandhi |
| Succeeded by | Chandra Shekhar |
| | |
| Born | 25 June 1931 Allahabad, United Provinces, British India |
| Political party | Janata Dal |
Vishwanath Pratap Singh (Hindi: विश्वनाथ प्रताप सिंह, born 25 June 1931) was the 10th Prime Minister of the Republic of India.
Early career
V. P. Singh entered local politics in Allahabad during the Nehru era. He soon made a name for himself in the state Congress Party for his unfailing rectitude, a reputation that he would carry with him throughout his career.
Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh
He was appointed by Indira Gandhi as the Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh in 1980, when the Congress came back to power after the Janata Party interregnum. As CM, he cracked down hard on the dacoity, or banditry, problem, that was particularly severe in the rural districts of the south-west. He received much favourable national publicity when he offered to resign following a self-professed failure to stamp out the problem, and again when he personally oversaw the surrender of some of the most feared dacoits of the area in 1983.
Cabinet Minister for Finance and Defence
Called to the Centre following Rajiv Gandhi's massive mandate in the 1984 General elections, he was appointed to the pivotal post of Finance Minister, where he oversaw the gradual relaxation of the license Raj as Rajiv had in mind. During his term as Finance Minister, he oversaw the reduction of gold smuggling by reducing gold taxes and the excellent tactic of giving the police a portion of the smuggled gold that they found. He also gave extraordinary powers to the Enforcement Directorate of the Finance Ministry, the wing of the ministry charged with tracking down tax evaders, then headed by Bhure Lal. Following a number of high-profile raids on suspected evaders - including Dhirubhai Ambani [1] and Amitabh Bachchan - Rajiv was forced to sack him as Finance Minister, possibly because many of the raids were conducted on industrialists who had supported the Congress financially in the past. However, Singh's popularity was at such a pitch that only a sideways move seemed to have been possible, to the Defence Ministry.
Once ensconced in North Block, Singh began to investigate the notoriously murky world of defence procurement. After a while, word began to spread that Singh possessed information about the Bofors defence deal that could damage the Prime Minister's reputation. Before he could act on it, he was dismissed from the Cabinet and, in response, resigned his memberships in the Congress Party and the Lok Sabha.
In Opposition
Janata Dal
Together with associates Arun Nehru and Arif Mohammad Khan, Singh floated an opposition party named the Jan Morcha. He was re-elected to Lok Sabha in a tightly contested by-election from Allahabad, defeating Anil Shastri. On 11 October 1988, the birthday of the original Janata coalition's spiritual leader Jayaprakash Narayan, the Janata Dal was formed by merger of Jan Morcha, Janata Party, Lok Dal and Congress (S), in order to bring together all the centrist parties opposed to the Rajiv Gandhi government, and V. P. Singh was elected the President of the Janata Dal. A federation of the Janata Dal with various regional parties including the DMK, TDP, and AGP, came into being, called the National Front (India), with V. P. Singh as convener and N. T. Rama Rao as President.
General Elections of 1989
The National Front fought the elections in 1989 after coming to an electoral understanding with the right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party and the Communist Left Front that served to unify the anti-Congress vote. The National Front, with its allies, earned a simple majority in the Lok Sabha and decided to form a government. The Communists and the BJP declined to serve in the government, preferring to support it from outside.
Election as Prime Minister
In a dramatic meeting in the Central Hall of Parliament on the 1st of December, V. P. Singh proposed the name of Devi Lal as Prime Minister, in spite of the fact that he himself had been clearly projected by the anti-Congress forces as the 'clean' alternative to Rajiv and their Prime Ministerial candidate. Devi Lal, a Jat leader from Haryana stood up and refused the nomination, and said that he would prefer to be an 'elder uncle' to the Government, and that Singh should be PM [2]. This last part came as a clear surprise to Chandra Shekhar, the former head of the erstwhile Janata Party, and Singh's greatest rival within the Janata Dal. Shekhar, who had clearly expected that an agreement had been forged with Lal as the consensus candidate, stormed out of the meeting and refused to serve in the Cabinet.
Prime Minister
Singh held office for slightly less than a year, from December 2, 1989 - November 10, 1990.
Punjab and Kashmir
He faced his first crisis within few days of taking office: terrorists kidnapped the daughter of his Home Minister, Mufti Mohammad Sayeed (Former Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir). His government agreed to the demand for releasing militants in exchange; partly to end the storm of criticism that followed, he shortly thereafter appointed Jagmohan, a controversial former bureaucrat, as Governor of Jammu and Kashmir, on the insistence of the BJP who were concerned that an insufficiently hard line was being taken with the separatist elements in the state. Jagmohan subsequently inflamed opinion in the Valley when he ordered troops to fire on the funeral procession of the unofficial head of Kashmiri Islam, the Mirwaiz, and shortly thereafter the Kashmir insurgency began in earnest. In contrast, in Punjab, Singh replaced the hardline Siddhartha Shankar Ray as Governor with another former bureaucrat, Nirmal Kumar Mukarji, who moved forward on a timetable for fresh elections. Singh himself made a much-publicised visit to the Golden Temple to ask forgiveness for Operation Bluestar and the combination of events caused the long rebellion in Punjab to die down markedly in a few months. V. P. Singh also withdrew the IPKF from Sri Lanka.
Reservation for Backward Classes
Singh himself wished to move forward nationally on social justice-related issues, which would in addition consolidate the caste coalition that supported the Janata Dal in North India, and accordingly decided to implement the recommendations of the Mandal Commission which suggested that a fixed quota of all jobs in the public sector be reserved for members of the historically disadvantaged so-called Other Backward Classes. (Generally abbreviated OBCs, these were Hindu castes, and certain non-Hindu caste-like communities, which, though not untouchable, had been socially and educationally backward). This decision led to widespread protests among the youth in urban areas in North India.
Tussle with Dhirubhai Ambani
In 1990, the government-owned financial institutions like the Life Insurance Corporation of India and the General Insurance Corporation stonewalled attempts by the Reliance group to acquire managerial control over Larsen & Toubro. Sensing defeat, the Ambanis resigned from the board of the company. Dhirubhai, who had become L&T's chairman in April 1989, had to quit his post to make way for D. N. Ghosh, former chairman of the State Bank of India.
Babri Masjid
Meanwhile the BJP was moving its own agenda forward: in particular, the Ram Janmabhoomi agitation, which served as a rallying cry for several radical Hindu organisations, took on new life. The party president, Lal Krishna Advani, toured the northern states on a rath - a bus converted to look like a mythical chariot - with the intention of drumming up support. Before he could complete the tour by reaching the disputed site in Ayodhya, he was arrested on Singh's orders on the charges of disturbing the peace and fomenting communal tension. This led to the BJP's suspension of support to the National Front government. V. P. Singh faced the vote of confidence saying that he occupied the high moral ground, as he stood for secularism, had saved the Babri Masjid at the cost of power and had upheld the fundamental principles which were challenged during the crises; `What kind of India do you want?', he asked of his opponents of various shades in Parliament before losing the vote 142-346[3]; only the portion of the National Front remaining loyal to him (see below) and the Left front supported him in the vote.
Chandra Shekhar
Chandra Shekhar immediately seized the moment and left the Janata Dal with several of his own supporters to form the Samajwadi Janata Party or the Socialist People's Party. Although he had a mere 64 MPs, Rajiv Gandhi, the leader of the Opposition, agreed to support him on the floor of the House; so he won a confidence motion and was sworn in as Prime Minister. He lasted only a few months before Gandhi withdrew support and fresh elections were called. He tried his level best to get support till last minute but failed.
Aftermath
Singh decided against contesting the new elections and retired from active politics. He spent the next few years touring the country speaking about matters related to issues of social justice and his artistic pursuits, chiefly painting. In the H. D. Deve Gowda and I. K. Gujral governments of the late 1990s, Singh acted as a sort of elder statesman and adviser for the successors to the National Front coalition. In 1992, Singh was the first to propose the name of the future President K. R. Narayanan as a (eventually successful) candidate for Vice President. Later the same year in December, he led his followers to Ayodhya to oppose the Kar seva proposed by L. K. Advani, and was arrested before he could reach the site; the Masjid was demolished by the kar sevaks a few days later. He was diagnosed with cancer in 1998 and ceased his public appearances.
Jan Morcha relaunch
When his cancer went into remission in 2003, he once again became a visible figure, especially in the many groupings that had inherited the space once occupied by his Janata Dal. Ironically, his caste-based social justice policies had caused the rise of parties like the Bahujan Samaj Party that were formed around caste identities; his own notion of populist socialism was thus squeezed out of the electoral marketplace. To remedy this, he relaunched the Jan Morcha in 2005 with Raj Babbar as President, and began the slow process of aggregation of smaller parties in the North with a view to contesting the Uttar Pradesh elections.
Agitation at Dadri
Singh was placed under arrest in Ghaziabad as he and his supporters were proceeding towards a hauling where prohibitory orders under Section 144 had been imposed to join the farmers agitating against the acquisition of land at Dadri by the Anil Ambani-owned Reliance Industries and demanding adequate compensation. Later, Singh and CPI General Secretary A. B. Bardhan again arrested on the U. P. border when they were proceeding to Dadri. However, Singh and Babbar were later able to evade the police, reaching Dadri on 18 August 2006, and ploughing the land in solidarity with the farmers .
