V.P.SINGH

Vishwanath Pratap Singh (25 June 1931 – 27 November 2008) was the seventh Prime Minister of India and the 41st Raja Bahadur of Manda.

Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh

[edit]Early life

He was born in the Rajput Gaharwar (Rathore) Royal Family of Manda to Raja Bhagwati Prasad Singh of Daiya and was later adopted by Raja Bahadur Ram Gopal Singh of Manda in 1936, whom he succeeded in 1941. V. P. Singh studied at Colonel Brown Cambridge School,Dehradun for five years, and entered local politics in Allahabad during the Nehru era. He married Rani Sita Kumari, born 1936 in Deogarh, Udaipur, daughter of Rawat Sangram Singh II of Deogarh on 25 June 1955. 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.

[edit]

Cabinet Minister for Finance and Defence

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 Chief Minister, 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.

[edit]

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 theEnforcement 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 South 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.

[edit]In Opposition

[edit]Jan Morcha, Janata Dal, and National Front

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 Sunil 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 Daland 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, with V. P. Singh as convener, N. T. Rama Rao as President, and Leader of the Opposition, P. Upendra as a General Secretary.

[edit]General Elections of 1989

The National Front fought the elections in 1989 after coming to an electoral understanding with Bharatiya Janata Party and the CommunistLeft 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 Left Front (under E. M. S. Namboodiripad and Indrajit Gupta) and the BJP (under L. K. Advani) declined to serve in the government, preferring to support it from outside.

[edit]Election as Prime Minister

In a dramatic meeting in the Central Hall of Parliament on 1 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. This last part came as a clear surprise to Chandra Shekhar, the former head of the erstwhileJanata 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.

[edit]Prime minister

[edit]

Singh held office for slightly less than a year, from 2 December 1989 to 10 November 1990. During this time, Janata Dal came to power in 5 Indian states under Om Prakash Chautala (Banarsi Das Gupta, Hukam Singh), Chimanbhai Patel, Biju Patnaik, Laloo Prasad Yadav, andMulayam Singh Yadav, and the National Front constituents in three more under M. Karunanidhi, N. T. Rama Rao, and Prafulla Kumar Mahanta. The Janata Dal also shared power in Kerala under E. K. Nayanar and in Rajasthan under Bhairon Singh Shekhawat (supporting the BJP government from outside).

[edit]Punjab, Kashmir, and Pakistan

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. 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 forOperation 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 and thwarted the efforts of Pakistan under Benazir Bhuto to start a border war.

[edit]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 notuntouchable, had been socially and educationally backward). This decision led to widespread protests among the upper caster youth in urban areas in North India. OBC reservation (less creamy layer) was upheld by the Supreme Court in 2008.

[edit]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.

[edit]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, L. K. Advani, with Pramod Mahajan as aide, 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 at Samastipur on the charges of disturbing the peace and fomenting communal tension. The kār-seva (demolition of the mosque and construction of the temple) proposed by Advani on 30 October 1990 was prevented by stationing troops at the site. 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; only the portion of the National Front remaining loyal to him (see below) and the Left front supported him in the vote.

[edit]Chandra Shekhar

Chandra Shekhar immediately seized the moment and left the Janata Dal with several of his own supporters (including Devi Lal, Janeshwar Mishra, H. D. Deve Gowda, Maneka Gandhi, Ashoke Kumar Sen, Subodh Kant Sahay, Om Prakash Chautala, Hukam Singh, Chimanbhai Patel, Mulayam Singh Yadav, Yashwant Sinha, V. C. Shukla, and Sanjay Singh) to form the Samajwadi Janata Party / Janata Dal (Socialist). 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. 8 Janata Dal MPs who voted for this motion were disqualified by the speaker Rabi Ray. He lasted only a few months before Gandhi withdrew support and fresh elections were called. He tried his best to get support till the last minute but failed.

[edit]Aftermath

Singh contested the new elections but his party was relegated to the opposition. chiefly due to the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi during the election campaign, and he later 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.

[edit]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 2006 with Raj Babbar as President, and began the slow process of aggregation of smaller parties in the North with a view to contesting the 2007 Uttar Pradesh elections.

[edit]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 were 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.

[edit]Death

V. P. Singh died after a long struggle with multiple myeloma (bone marrow cancer) and renal failure at Apollo Hospital in Delhi on 27 November 2008. It is also noted that he died during the 26/11 attacks. He was cremated at Allahabad on the banks of the River Ganges on 29 November 2008, his son Ajeya Singh lighting the funeral pyre.

[edit]National Jan Morcha

After the party drew a blank in the 2007 UP elections, Raj Babbar joined the Congress, and Singh's elder son Ajeya Singh (Ajeya Pratap Singh) took over the reins of the party in anticipation of the 2009 General elections.In March 2009 Ajeya Singh announced that Jan Morcha was to be merged with the Lok Janshakti Party (LJP). Ajeya Singh and other members were inducted into the LJP and Ajeya was declared a Vice President of the party and its candidate from Fatehpur Lok Sabha constituency. However, later, Ram Vilas Paswan joined hands with the Samajwadi Party (SP) of Mulayam Singh Yadav and the RJD of Laloo Prasad Yadav, to form a Fourth front, and Mulayam Singh declared that the LJP would not contest any seats in UP. Ajeya Singh then contested as Jan Morcha candidate from Fatehpur, but lost to Rakesh Sachan of the SP.

The Jan Morcha was renamed as the National Jan Morcha in June 2009 and dedicated to farmer's causes and to forging a third alternative in national politics. A month later, the Jan Morcha merged with the Indian National Congress.

RAJEEV GANDHI

Rajiv Ratna Gandhi ( 20 August 1944 – 21 May 1991) was the sixthPrime Minister of India (1984–1989). He took office after his mother's assassination on 31 October 1984; he himself was assassinated on 21 May 1991. He became the youngest Prime Minister of India when he took office at the age of 40.

Rajiv Gandhi was the eldest son of Indira and Feroze Gandhi. He went to study at Trinity College,Cambridge, and later at Imperial College London, but did not complete a degree at either. At Cambridge he met the Italian-born Antonia Albina Maino, then a waitress in a restaurant, whom he later married. After dropping out of university, he became a professional pilot for Indian Airlines. He remained aloof from politics, despite his family's political prominence. Following the death of his younger brother Sanjay Gandhi in 1980 Rajiv entered politics. Following theassassination of his mother in 1984 after Operation Blue Star, the Indian National Congress party leaders nominated him to be Prime Minister.

Rajiv Gandhi led the Congress to a major election victory in 1984 soon after, amassing the largest majority ever seen in the Indian Parliament, the Congress party winning 411 seats out of 542. He began dismantling the License Raj – government quotas, tariffs and permit regulations on economic activity – modernised the telecommunications industry, the education system, expanded science and technology initiatives and improved relations with the United States.

In 1988, Gandhi reversed the coup in Maldives antagonising the militant Tamil outfits such asPLOTE.^[2] He was also responsible for first intervening and then sending Indian troops (Indian Peace Keeping Force or IPKF) for peace efforts in Sri Lanka in 1987, which soon ended in open conflict with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam. 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 the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam. His widow Sonia Gandhi became the leader of the Congress party in 1998, and led the party to victory in the 2004 elections. His sonRahul Gandhi is a Member of Parliament and the General Secretary of All India Congress Committee.

Rajiv Gandhi was posthumously awarded the Highest National Award of India, Bharat Ratna(1991), joining a list of 40 luminaries, including Indira Gandhi.

Rajiv Gandhi was an active amateur radio operator, and used the callsign VU2RG.He also founded INTACH in 1984 that seeks to preserve India's art and cultural heritage.

Rajiv Gandhi was born into India's most famous political family. His grandfather was the Indian independence leader Jawaharlal Nehru, who was India's first Prime Minister after independence. Rajiv Gandhi was not related to Mahatma Gandhi, although they share the same surname. His father, 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 (Zoroastrianism).

[edit]Early life and career

Rajiv was born in 1944 in Mumbai, 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). The marriage was faltering 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. In 1952, Indira helped Feroze manage his campaign for elections to the firstParliament 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. Relations were strained further when Feroze challenged corruption within the Congress leadership over the Haridas Mundhrascandal. Jawaharlal suggested that the matter be resolved in private, but Feroze insisted on taking the case directly to parliament:

"The 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, 16 December 1957.

The scandal, and its investigation by justice M C Chagla, lead to the resignation of one of Nehru's key allies, finance minister T.T. Krishnamachari, further alienating Feroze from Jawaharlal.

After Feroze Gandhi had a heart attack in 1958, the family was reconciled briefly when they holidayed in Kashmir. Feroze died soon afterwards from a second heart attack in 1960.

[edit]Education

At the time of his father's death, Rajiv was away at a private boarding school for boys: initially at the Welham Boys' School and later The Doon School, both located in Dehradun, Uttarakhand. He was sent to London in 1961 to study his A-levels. In 1962, he was offered a place atTrinity College, Cambridge, to study engineering. Rajiv stayed at Cambridge until 1965. In 1966, he was offered and took up a place atImperial College London, but after a year left that course also without a degree.

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 gave birth to their first child Rahul Gandhi, and in 1972, to Priyanka Gandhi, their second. Even as Rajiv remained aloof from politics, his younger brother Sanjay became a close advisor to their mother.

[edit]Entry into politics

Following his younger brother's death in 1980, Gandhi was pressured by Indian National Congress party politicians and his mother to enter politics. He and his wife were both opposed to the idea, and he even publicly stated that he would not contest for his brother's seat. Nevertheless, he eventually announced his candidacy for Parliament. His entry was criticised by many in the press, public and opposition political parties. He fought his first election from Amethi Loksabha seat. In this by-election, he defeated Lokdal leader Sharad Yadav by more than 200,000 votes.

Elected to Sanjay's Lok Sabha (parliamentary) constituency of Amethi in Uttar Pradesh state in February 1981, Gandhi 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 he soon became the president of the Youth Congress – the Congress party's youth wing.

[edit]Premiership

Rajiv Gandhi was in West Bengal when his mother, Indira Gandhi was assassinated on 31 October 1984 by two of her Sikh bodyguards,Satwant Singh and Beant Singh, to avenge the military attack on the Harmandir Sahib (Sikhism's holiest shrine, also called "The Golden Temple") during Operation Blue Star. 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. a statement for which he was widely criticised. Many Congress politicians were accused of orchestrating the violence.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. The Congress party won a landslide victory – with the largest majority in history of Indian Parliament— giving Gandhi absolute control of government. He also benefited from his youth and a general perception of being free of a background in corrupt politics.^[13]

[edit]Economic policy

Foreign policy

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 theLicense Raj, allowing businesses and individuals to purchase capital, consumer goods and import without bureaucratic restrictions. In 1986, he announced a National Policy on Education to modernise and expand higher education programs across India. He founded the Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalaya System in 1986 which is a Central government based institution that concentrates on the upliftment of the rural section of the society providing them free residential education from 6th till 12 grade. His efforts created MTNL in 1986, and his public call offices, better known as PCOs, helped spread telephones in rural areas.^[15]

[edit]

Rajiv Gandhi began leading in a direction significantly different from his mother's socialism. He improved bilateral relations with the United States – long strained owing to Indira's socialism and friendship with the USSR — and expanded economic and scientific cooperation.During his state visit to the Soviet Union he met with Premier Nikolai Tikhonov, Andrey Gromyko of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Mikhail Gorbachev.

[edit]Security policy

With his speech while addressing the Joint Session of the US Congress and India, he said, "India is an old country, but a young nation; and like the young everywhere, we are impatient. I am young and I too have a dream. I dream of an India, strong, independent, self reliant and in the forefront of the front ranks of the nations of the world in the service of mankind.

Rajiv authorised 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. 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 on the head with a rifle butt by a young Sinhalese naval cadet named Vijayamunige Rohana de Silva, while receiving the honour guard. The intended assault on the back of Rajiv Gandhi's head glanced off his shoulder and it was captured in news crew photographs and video.

[edit]Controversies

[edit]Anti-Sikh riots

This refers to the statement of Rajiv Gandhi as Prime Minister at a Boat Club rally 19-days after the assassination of Indira Gandhi, which read as “Some riots took place in the country following the murder of Indiraji. We know the people were very angry and for a few days it seemed that India had been shaken. But, when a mighty tree falls, it is only natural that the earth around it does shake a little.

This statement sent a wrong signal to the authorities, who adopted a callous approach of not allowing the truth to come out despite the government setting up probe panels one after the other, including two full fledged judicial commissions, the first headed by retired Chief Justice of India Ranganath Misra and the second by a former apex court judge G.T. Nanavati. According to the authors of the book titled – “When a Tree Shook Delhi” written by senior advocate H.S. Phoolka and co-author, journalist Manoj Mitta (who have based the details of the book mainly on evidence produced before the nine panels and trial courts and high courts in the form of sworn affidavits by hundreds of witnesses). Based on eyewitness accounts the book said that instead of targeting the aggressors the police cracked down on the Sikh victims, who had been defending their properties when they were attacked by hooligans led by local Congress leaders.

[edit]Bofors scandal

Rajiv Gandhi's finance minister, V. P. 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 Italian businessman and Gandhi family associate Ottavio Quattrocchi, in return for Indian contracts. Upon the uncovering of the scandal, Singh was dismissed from office, and later from Congress membership. Rajiv Gandhi himself was later personally implicated in the scandal when the investigation was continued byNarasimhan Ram and Chitra Subramaniam of The Hindu newspaper. This shattered his image as an honest politician; he was posthumously cleared over this allegation in 2004.

Opposition parties united under Singh to form the Janata Dal coalition. In the 1989 election, the Congress suffered a major setback. With the support of Indian communists and the Bharatiya Janata Party, 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. They withdrew their support in 1991, and fresh elections were announced.

[edit]Sri Lanka policy

Then Sri Lankan Prime Minister Ranasinghe Premadasa opposed the Indo-Sri Lanka Peace Accord, but accepted it due to pressure from then President Junius Richard Jayewardene. In 1987, When he was inspecting guard of honour in Sri Lanka, he was attacked by a Srilankan soldier.Vijitha Rohana de Silva of Naval rating.His own agility and Indian Special Protection Group saved Rajiv from that brutal attack. In January 1989 Premadasa was elected President and on a platform that promised that the Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF) leave within three months. In the 1989 elections, both the Sri Lanka Freedom Party and United National Party wanted the IPKF to withdraw, and they got 95 percent of the vote.

The police action was unpopular in India as well, especially in Tamil Nadu, as India was fighting the Tamil separatists. Rajiv Gandhi refused to withdraw the IPKF, believing that the only way to end the civil war was to politically force Premadasa and militarily force the LTTE to accept the accord. Gandhi had concluded a visit to Sri Lanka; this was just after the Indian Peace Keeping Force (a contingent of India armed forces sent to Sri Lanka to help with their battle against Tamil insurgents) had been recalled and there was a good deal of resentment that Indian troops had been deployed there.

In December 1989, Singh was elected Prime Minister and completed the pullout. The IPKF operation killed over 1100 Indian soldiers, 5000Tamil civilians and cost over 10000 crores.

[edit]Shah Bano case

In 1985, the Supreme Court of India ruled in favour of Muslim divorcee Shah Bano, declaring that her husband should give her alimony. Muslim fundamentalists in India treated it as an encroachment in Muslim Personal Law and protested against it. Gandhi agreed to their demands.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. This was viewed by many in India, including the Bharatiya Janata Party as appeasement of Muslims.

[edit]Allegations of black money

In November 1991, the Schweizer Illustrierte (Swiss Illustrated) magazine published an article on black money held in secret accounts byImelda Marcos and 14 other rulers of Third World countries. Citing McKinsey as a source, the article stated that Rajiv Gandhi held 2.5 billionSwiss francs in secret Indian accounts in Switzerland.Several leaders of opposition parties in India have raised the issue citing the Schweizer Illustrierte article. In December 1991, Amal Datta raised the issue in the Indian Parliament – the then speaker of the Lok Sabha,Shivraj Patil, expunged Rajiv Gandhi's name from the proceedings. In December 2011, Subramanian Swamy wrote a letter to the director of the Central Bureau of Investigation which cited the article, asking him to take action on black money accounts of the Nehru-Gandhi family.On 29 December 2011, Ram Jethmalani made an indirect reference to the issue in the Rajya Sabha, calling it a shame that one of India's former Prime Ministers was named by a Swiss magazine. This was met by uproar and a demand for withdrawal of the remark by the ruling Congress party members.

[edit]Allegations of funding from KGB

In 1992, two Indian newspapers, the Times of India and The Hindu, published reports alleging that Rajiv Gandhi had received funds from theKGB. The Russian government confirmed this disclosure and defended the payments as necessary for the Soviet ideological interest. In their 1994 book The State Within a State, the journalists Yevgenia Albats and Catherine Fitzpatrick quoted a letter signed byViktor Chebrikov in the 1980s, the then-head of the KGB. The letter says that the KGB maintained contact with Rajiv Gandhi, who expressed his gratitude to the KGB for benefits accruing to his family from commercial dealings of a controlled firm, and a considerable portion of funds obtained from this channel were used to support his party. Albats later revealed that in December 1985, Chebrikov had asked for authorisation from the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union to make payments to family members of Rajiv Gandhi including Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi. The payments were authorised by a resolution and endorsed by the USSR Council of Ministers, and had been coming since 1971. In December 2001, Subramanian Swamy filed a writ petition in the Delhi High Court, acting on which the court ordered CBI to ascertain the truth of the allegations in May 2002. After two years, the CBI told the Court that Russia would not entertain such queries without a registered FIR.^[38]

[edit]Assassination

Rajiv Gandhi's last public meeting was at Sriperumbudur on 21 May 1991, in a village approximately 30 miles from Chennai, Tamil Nadu, where he was assassinated while campaigning for theSriperumbudur Lok Sabha Congress candidate. The assassination was carried out by theLiberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam.

At 10:21 pm, a woman (later identified as Thenmozhi Rajaratnam) approached Rajiv Gandhi in a public meeting and greeted him. She then bent down to touch his feet (an expression of respect amongIndians) and detonated a belt laden with 700 grams of RDX explosives tucked under her dress.The explosion killed Rajiv Gandhi, his assassin and at least 14 other people. 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 died in the blast but the camera remained intact. Rajiv Gandhi's mutilated body was airlifted to the All India Institute of Medical Sciences in New Delhi for post-mortem, reconstruction and embalming.

A state funeral was held for Rajiv Gandhi on 24 May 1991. His funeral was telecast live nationally and internationally, and was attended by dignitaries from over 60 countries. He was cremated on the banks of the river Yamuna, near the samadhis of his mother, brother, grandfather and Mahatma Gandhi. Today, the site where he was cremated is known as Vir Bhumi.

[edit]Aftermath

The Rajiv Gandhi Memorial was built at the site recently and is one of the major tourist attractions of the small industrial town.

The judgment further cites the death of Thileepan in a hunger strike and the suicide by 12 LTTE cadres in a vessel in Oct 1987.

The Supreme Court judgement, by Judge Thomas, confirmed that the killing was carried out due to personal animosity of the 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. The Rajiv Gandhi administration had already antagonised other Tamil militant organisations like PLOTE for reversing the military coup in Maldives back in 1988.

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. The 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 in Delhi. In 1992, the Rajiv Gandhi National Sadbhavana Award was instituted by All India Congress Committee (AICC) of the Indian National Congress Party (INC).

The International Airport constructed at Hyderabad has been named Rajiv Gandhi International Airport and was inaugurated by UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi. Rajeev Gandhi Memorial Boarding School in Sheopur is named after him.

CHARAN SINGH

Chaudhary Charan Singh( 23 December 1902 – 29 May 1987) was thefifth Prime Minister of the Republic of India, serving from 28 July 1979 until 14 January 1980.

Born into a Jat family in 1902, Charan Singh entered politics as part of the Independence Movement. After independence he became particularly notable in the 1950s for opposing and winning a battle against Nehru's socialistic and collectivist land use policies, for the sake of the Indian Farmer, which endeared him to the agrarian communities throughout the nation, particularly in his native Uttar Pradesh.

The leader of the Bharatiya Lok Dal, a major constituent of the Janata coalition, he was disappointed in his ambition to become Prime Minister in 1977 by Jayaprakash Narayan's choice of Morarji Desai. He settled at the time for the largely honorary post of Deputy Prime Minister of India.During 1977 Lok Sabha Elections, there was not a single party, hence it was problem, which symbol has to be adopted (many parties joined the front to contest the elections after emergency was over). Hence, a request was made to Chaudhary Charan Singh (Lok Dal) and he agreed to release his party-Lok Dal's symbol "HALDHAR'. This symbol was locked in that elections, but a promise was made to Chaudhary Charan Singh that he would be Prime Minister if the front won that election, but this promise was never kept by other party leaders, hence,Chaudhary Charan Singh had a knot in his heart, resulting in a revolt; when the time came he became Prime Minister. However, the internal stresses of the coalition's government caused him to leave the government with the former Lok Dal, after being promised by Indira Gandhi the support of the Congress Party on the floor of the House in any efforts to form a government. He was sworn in as Prime Minister with the support of just 64 MPs.

Charan Singh holds the record of the sole Prime Minister of India who did not face the Loksabha even for a single day during his short tenure of just a month. The day before the Lok Sabha was due to meet for the first time the Indian National Congress withdrew their support from his Bharatiya Lok Dal Government. Choudhary Charan Singh resigned and fresh elections were held six months later.

He continued to lead the Lok Dal in opposition till his death in 1987, when he was succeeded as party president by his son Ajit Singh. His association with the causes dear to farming communities in the North caused his memorial in New Delhi to be named Kisan Ghat. (In Hindi, Kisan is the word for farmer.)

The Amausi Airport in Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh is also called as Chaudhary Charan Singh International Airport after him. The university of Meerut city in Uttar Pradesh, India, is also named after him (Chaudhary Charan Singh University).

[edit]Early Years - Pre Independence India

Charan Singh was born on 23 December 1902 in the village of Noorpur, Hapur, Uttar Pradesh. He was a good student, and received a Masters of Arts degree in 1925 and Law degree in 1926 from Agra University. He started practice as a Civil Lawyer at Ghaziabad in 1928.

Charan Singh's ancestor was the prominent leader of the Indian Rebellion of 1857, Raja Nahar Singh of Ballabhgarh (in present day Haryana). Maharaja Nahar Singh was sent to the gallows inChandni Chowk, Delhi. In order to escape the oppression from the British Government following their defeat, the Maharaja's followers, including Charan Singh's grandfather moved eastward to district Bulandshaher in Uttar Pradesh.

In February 1937 he was elected Chhaprouli (Baghpat) to the Legislative Assembly of Uttar Pradesh (United Provinces) at the age of 34. In 1938 he introduced an Agricultural Produce Market Bill in the Assembly which was published in the issues of The Hindustan Times of Delhi dated 31 March 1938. The Bill was intended to safeguard the interests of the farmers against the rapacity of the traders. The Bill was adopted by most of the States in India, Punjab being the first state to do so in 1940.

Charan Singh followed Mahatma Gandhi in non-violent struggle for independence from the British Government, and was imprisoned several times. In 1930 he was sent to jail for 6 months by the British for contravention of the salt laws. He was jailed again for one year in November 1940 for individual Satyagraha Movement. In August 1942 he was jailed again by the British under DIR and released in November 1943.

[edit]Independent India

In 1952, he became the Revenue Minister of state of Uttar Pradesh, the most populous state in independent India. He was dedicated to enforcing and implementing the provisions of theZamindari Abolition and Land Reform Act of which he was the major architect. It has been argued by leading political scientists that success of Indian Democracy lies in successful implementation of this reform. Pakistan on the other hand did not have similar reforms, and the power is concentrated amongst the few powerful landlords or Zamindar who run their lands as their private fiefdom, and use their influence to further their wealth.

Charan Singh opposed Nehru on his Soviet Style Economic reform. Charan Singh was of the opinion that cooperative farms would not succeed in India. Being a son of a farmer, Charan Singh opined that the right of ownership was important to the farmer in remaining a cultivator. Charan Singh's political career suffered due to his open criticism of Nehru's economic policy.

Charan Singh left the Congress party in 1967, and formed his own political party. With the help and support of Raj Narain and Ram Manohar Lohia, he became Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh in 1967, and later in 1970. In 1975, he was jailed again, but this time by then Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, daughter of his former rival Nehru. She had declared the state of 'Indian Emergency (1975-1977)' and jailed all her political opponents. The Indian populace voted her out, and the opposition party, of which Chaudhary Charan Singh was a senior leader came into power. He served as Deputy prime minister and home minister in Janata government headed by Morarji Desai.

Chaudhary Charan Singh became Prime Minister in 1979 after Morarji Desai. His speech to the nation on India's Independence Day (15 August 1979) was very prophetic in which he identified Pakistan's nuclear ambition as a major threat to India. He also mentioned that Indian labour laws had to be refined if India were to become competitive in world economy. He also opened high level diplomatic relations with Israel, which Indira Gandhi's government which took office following the 1980 elections curtailed.'

Charan Singh died on 29 May 1987. He was survived by his wife, Gayatri Devi and 5 children. His son Ajit Singh is currently the president of his political party Bharatiya Lok Dal. His grandson Jayant Chaudhary is recently elected to 15th Lok Sabha from Mathura.

Charan Singh has written several books. Some of them are: