The Rajiv Gandhi Government (1984-1989) was one of the governments that made a lot of changes to the socio-political scenario in India. Rajiv Gandhi, the son of Indira Gandhi and the grandson of Jawaharlal Nehru, was India's sixth and youngest Prime Minister, having assumed office at the age of 40. He is well known as the Prime Minister who laid the groundwork for India's telecoms and information technology industries. Here we will discuss the Rajiv Gandhi Government, which is important for UPSC Indian Polity preparation.

Rajiv Gandhi Government (1984 - 1989)

• Rajiv Gandhi entered politics in 1981, addressing a national farmer’s rally in Delhi, and became a Member of Parliament the same year.
• The assassination of Indira Gandhi by her Sikh bodyguards on 31st October 1984, triggered violent riots against the Sikh community.
• The then President Zail Singh appointed Rajiv Gandhi as the Prime Minister by ignoring the precedent of appointing a caretaker Prime Minister.
• Rajiv Gandhi requested that President Zail Singh dissolve Parliament and call new elections since the Lok Sabha's five-year tenure had come to an end.
• He earned a landslide win and became India's youngest Prime Minister when he assumed office on December 31, 1984, at the age of 40.
• Rajiv Gandhi's initiatives and changes as Prime Minister enlarged the current economic paradigm, which was based on the Soviet Union's 'Protectionist government' principles.
• He enacted measures that decreased taxes on the technology sector and changed import rules in the telecommunications, defence, and commercial aircraft industries. His programs intended to modernize sectors in order to attract more foreign capital into the economy.
• He was opposed to traditional socialism and wanted to strengthen bilateral ties with the United States of America by developing economic and scientific collaboration. The emphasis on economic liberalization and information technology in his resurrected foreign policy drew India closer to the west.

Here Are Some Of Rajiv Gandhi's Accomplishments As India's Prime Minister.

Information Technology & Telecommunications in India

• Rajiv Gandhi is typically credited with introducing telecommunications to India, but a strategy implemented by Indira Gandhi weeks before her death gave India a head start in software exports.
• The policy allowing for exports via satellite links was agreed by Indira Gandhi's cabinet in 1984, but it was publicized by Rajiv Gandhi's administration on November 18, 1984.
• Rajiv Gandhi, together with Sam Pitroda, India's Public Information Infrastructure & Innovations Advisor, is in charge of the country's international and domestic telecommunications strategies.
• Pitroda led six technological missions for Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi in 1987, including telecommunications, water, literacy, vaccination, dairy, and oilseeds.
• Software professionals were not recognized as entrepreneurs prior to the 1984 IT policy, and software was not considered a company. This rendered workers in this industry ineligible for bank loans, leaving them without the necessary funds to establish a business.
• Pitroda started the Centre for Development of Telematics (C-DOT), which is a government-owned telecommunications technology development center, in 1984.
• The government of India established the Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited (MTNL) in 1986 to handle the telephone services of Delhi and Mumbai.and the Videsh Sanchar Network Limited (VSNL) was founded in the same year to cater to international communication services.

Anti - Defection Laws (52nd Amendment)

• In 1985, India's government, led by Rajiv Gandhi, proposed the 52nd Amendment to the Constitution, which included the Anti-Defection Law, which is found in the Tenth Schedule of the Constitution.
• Indira Gandhi submitted a bill to modify the constitution to prevent defection in May 1973, but it was overtaken by the emergency and buried.
• When the amended bill was passed, the opposition walked out of Parliament. It advocated putting a stop to India's 35-year-long parliamentary anarchism by making floor-crossing nearly difficult.
• Members of either the House of Commons or the state legislature would lose their membership if they resigned from the party from which they were chosen, abstained from voting or voted against their own party, or were ejected from the party by the party itself.
• The decision was prompted by internal dissension within the Congress party, which saw party members openly mutiny against the leadership.

Expansion of National Policy for Education (NPE)

• The National Policy for Education (NPE) is a government of India policy aimed at promoting education among Indian citizens.
• The strategy aims to provide education in both rural and urban India, from elementary school through university and college levels.
• Indira Gandhi's administration presented the First NPE in 1968, calling for "radical reorganization" of the education system, as well as equalization of educational possibilities, in order to achieve national cohesion and increased cultural and economic growth.
• The Rajiv Gandhi government announced a new NPE in May 1986. Special focus will be placed on eliminating inequities and equalizing educational opportunities, particularly for women, Scheduled Castes (SCs), and Scheduled Tribes (STs) populations, under this strategy.

1. Operation Blackboard- It is a government-sponsored programme that began in 1987, following the introduction of the revised NPE of 1986 by the Rajiv Gandhi government. The objective of the scheme is to provide primary level students with the necessary institutional equipment and instructional material to facilitate their education. There is a provision to provide a salary for an additional teacher to primary schools that have an enrolment of more than a hundred students.
2. Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU)- It is a national government-designated university in New Delhi's Maidan Garhi neighborhood. The University was founded in 1985 by the Indian government under Rajiv Gandhi, with a budget of Rs. 20 lakhs. The Indira Gandhi National Open University Act of 1985 was enacted by the Indian Parliament, and the university was established.

Improving ties with the USA

• Rajiv Gandhi was inclined towards developing military ties with the USA and showed that he could move India’s foreign policy in new and innovative directions.

Maldives Coup D’Etat

• Several coup attempts were organized against Maumoon Abdul Gayoom's administration in the Republic of Maldives throughout the 1980s.
• The first two attempts, in 1980 and 1983, were dismissed as ineffective. In 1988, Abdulla Luthufi attempted a third attempt to topple Gayoom's administration, including armed mercenaries from the People's Liberation of Tamil Eelam (PLOTE), a Tamil separatist organization from Sri Lanka.
• Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi ordered 1,600 paratroopers to Male right away to restore order.
• The operation began on the night of November 3, 1988, when components of the 50th Independent Parachute Brigade were airlifted by the Indian Air Force's Illyushin II-76 aircraft.
• After securing the airstrip and crossing to Male on seized boats, President Gayoom was rescued by the Indian Army. Within hours, President Gayoom's administration was restored to order.
• The coup d'etat attempt in the Island country was foiled thanks to quick military action and excellent intelligence information.

Intervention in Sri Lankan Civil War

• Following the 1971 Indo-Pakistan War, there was a rise of organized Tamil opposition in Sri Lanka. In 1976, the Liberation Tamil Tigers of Eelam (LTTE) rose to prominence and, among other things, became the major fighting faction.
• The situation in Sri Lanka worsened as their control over the tigers waned and the government of Sri Lanka essentially imposed an embargo on Tamil-dominated areas.\
• This resulted in a dearth of food and supplies, to the point that Rajiv Gandhi caved into domestic Tamil pressure and supplied relief to the Tamils in Sri Lanka.
• On Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi's orders, food and supplies were dropped in certain areas. Rajiv Gandhi and then Sri Lankan President Jayawardene signed the Indo-SL Accord, which came as a shock to everyone.
• It included an agreement to send in a peacekeeping force to Sri Lanka to help control the situation and protect the peace.
• Rajiv Gandhi then dispatched the Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF) to ostensibly disarm the Tigers, but they refused due to a variety of political factors.
• LTTE retaliated on Indian para-commandos, thereby murdering them. This spurred India to use force to disarm the Tigers. Many human rights crimes against the Peace Keeping Force occurred as a result of major engagements and back-and-forth exchanges between the IPKF and the LTTE. India soon withdrew from the island country as a result of it.
• The events of this civil war culminated in Rajiv Gandhi's death on May 21, 1991, while campaigning for the Lok Sabha Congress candidate in Sriperumbudur, Tamil Nadu.

Drawbacks And Issues During The Rajiv Gandhi Government

• The most serious flaw is his disrespect for the Indian people. It's all due to his foolish faith in the political wisdom of individuals on his staff who he regarded to be seasoned politicians.
  • The tactic of appeasing Muslim extremists first and subsequently Hindu fundamentalists in this order displayed callous disrespect for the people and their intelligence.
  • With the Shah Bano amendment, he appeased Muslim extremists by denying divorced Muslim women the same right to maintenance as any other divorced Indian women.
  • He appeased Hindu zealots by allowing the foundation stone for a Ram temple to be laid outside the barred gates of Ayodhya.
• His inclination to perceive individuals as objects of progress rather than subjects, the driving force, was a related failing. As a result, Rajiv Gandhi has put his faith in technological missions to achieve well defined development objectives. The reliance on technocrats has a major flaw as a corollary: the political party's incapacity to act as a change agent.
• Pocket Veto by President: President Zail Singh instituted "pocket veto" in India when he sat on the contentious Postal Bill in 1986. Even though the Rajiv Gandhi government made every effort to get the bill implemented, opposition leaders urged Zail Singh to refuse to sign it.
• Bofors Scandal- The Bofors scandal was a major weapons-contract political scandal that occurred between India and Sweden during the 1980s and 1990s, initiated by Indian National Congress politicians and implicating the Indian prime minister, Rajiv Gandhi, and several other members of the Indian and Swedish governments who were accused of receiving kickbacks from Bofors AB, an arms manufacturer principally financed by the Wallenberg family's Skandinaviska Enskilda Banken, for winning a bid to supply to India their 155 mm field howitzer.

Conclusion

• Rajiv Gandhi was India's youngest Prime Minister, and while his administration brought the country into the digital era, it was marked by controversies. Many people questioned the Congress government's intentions and motives after events like the Bhopal disaster and the Shah Bano Case. Perhaps the largest incident that damaged Rajiv Gandhi's clean and free image was the Bofors scandal.
• Rajiv Gandhi, on the other hand, is credited with fortifying India's connections with the United States at a time when the latter was sceptical of Indira Gandhi's socialist policies in India. He was also in charge of building the groundwork for India's telecommunications and information technology infrastructure.