The Rajiv I Knew and Why he was India’s Most Misunderstood Prime Minister

Rajiv Gandhi’s prime ministership (198489) began in a flame of glory but was quickly dimmed by controversies. The Shah Bano case and the opening of the locks at Ayodhya, l’ affaire Bofors, the decision to send the IPKF to Sri Lanka and other issues dealt with in this book have had the cumulative consequence of making Rajiv Gandhi ‘the most misunderstood Indian prime minister’ and wiping out from public memory his many constructive achievements in nation building.

In this brilliantly argued and deeply researched book, Mani Shankar Aiyar, who served as joint secretary to the prime minister and later as special assistant to the Congress president, unravels the various controversies and takes a close look at the accords signed by Rajiv Gandhi with insurgents and other discontents to end violence and restore peace and tranquillity in disturbed regions. He places in perspective Rajiv Gandhi’s innovative foreign policy openings to China and Pakistan, and, in the domestic sphere, the Technology Missions and, above all, Panchayati Raj. His analysis is based on the judicial decisions of the Delhi High Court and Supreme Court, exchanges in Parliament and interviews given by the former prime minister when in Opposition, and fresh material that emerged in the public domain long after Rajiv Gandhi lost the 1989 elections and was assassinated eighteen months later in the runup to an election that might have seen him back in the driver’s seat. Aiyar ends his review of Rajiv Gandhi’s years as prime minister with a compelling new picture of the man founded on his personal perception of’The Man and His Office’.