Legendry leader who dreamed to lead us to 21st Century

Rajiv Gandhi would have been 66 years old  had he lived. He was only 46 years old when he was targeted by a human bomber and killed in the most gruesome manner in Sriperumbudur in Tamil Nadu at a meeting venue, which was not there on his original schedule.

But destiny had other things in store and India’s youngest Prime minister(he was only 40 when he became the PM) died with an unfinished agenda.

The man who brought India on the global cyber map and for whom the dream was to take his country to the 21-st century left much before he could complete his mission. On top of it he had to suffer the humiliation of being accused in the Bofors bribery case. The High Court finally exonerated him some years ago. His widow Sonia Gandhi and son, Rahul who are determined to complete the pending work, are now carrying on his legacy.

son of Indira Gandhi, was the seventh Prime Minister of India from his mother’s death on October 31, 1984 until his resignation on December 2, 1989 following general election defeat. Rajiv was chosen as prime minister by the party leadership within hours of his mother’s assassination. He served as the Prime Minister of India from 1984 to 1989.

Rajiv Gandhi was the one of the dynamic indian prime minster.

“I too have a dream. I dream of an India – strong, Independent, self reliant and in the front rank of the nations of the world in the service of mankind.”

Bharat Ratna Rajiv Gandhi India’s late Prime Minister 

said these words once and did everything he could in his short tenure to live up to them. 

Rajiv Gandhi entered politics only after the death of his brother, Sanjay Gandhi, in 1980. Rajiv Gandhi had not shown much interest in politics till then. He attended college at Cambridge, England; married an Italian, Sonia Gandhi; and worked as a pilot for the Indian Airlines.

Rajiv Gandhi won his first parliamentary elections to the Lok Sabha in 1981. At that time, Indira Gandhi was re-elected as the Prime Minister and Rajiv Gandhi became her unofficial political advisor. But in 1984, Indira Gandhi's bodyguards assassinated her and Rajiv Gandhi took over as the head of the Congress party and was sworn in as the Prime Minister.
His government encouraged foreign investment, and industry boomed with the loosening of business controls. He sought to increase Indian investments in modern technology. He removed many restrictions on imports and encouraged foreign investment. His critics claim that he was indecisive as he changed his cabinet members frequently. He fired his mother's aides and instead appointed his friends and technocrats. In 1987, he committed the Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF) to Sri Lanka in an endeavor to help the government there eradicate militants agitating for a separate Tamil homeland. Though one of the campaign promises of the Congress party was to eliminate corruption in politics, Rajiv Gandhi's tenure as Prime Minister was marred by allegations of corruption. He was accused of receiving "kick-backs" from a Swedish company manufacturing Bofors machine-guns.
In elections in November 1989 Gandhi won his seat, but the Congress Party lost its majority and he resigned as prime minister. He and his party's implications in corruption scandals decreased their credibility as a strong party.
Rajiv Gandhi began to campaign again in 1991. It was while he was campaigning in Tamil Nadu in south India that a Tamil sucide bomber took his life. They said that it was revenge for intervening in Sri Lanka's politics.
In 1998, 26 members of a separatist guerrilla group known as the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam were convicted of Gandhi's murder and sentenced to death.
And in 1999, Rajiv Gandhi was posthumously charged with participating in a kickback scheme in a Bofors arms deal.

Today in academic circles it is often wondered as to who really was the architect of modern India, Jawaharlal Nehru who was India’s first Prime Minister and who gave this nation an industrial backbone or Rajiv Gandhi his grandson, who foresaw the satellite revolution, the coming of the information age and the importance of IT much before his contemporaries – and showed the countries’ Industry how to stand and face competition. The wonders India has worked today in the IT sector would not have been possible without him. His modernization of the economy, his vision of the future and his innovations are hailed today by all and sundry. 
Rajiv brought to India a new light and created a new road for the country to follow.