Rajiv Gandhi Date of Birth

Former Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi was born in Bombay on 20 August 1944 to Indira and Feroze Gandhi.

Rajiv Gandhi Education

In 1951, Rajiv and Sanjay were admitted to Shiv Niketan school, where the teachers said Rajiv was shy and introverted.

His family admitted him to the Welham Boys’ School and Doon School in 1954, where Sanjay joined him two years later. Rajiv was sent to London in 1961 to study A-levels.

Rajiv Gandhi College

From 1962 to 1965 he studied engineering at Trinity College, Cambridge, but did not obtain a degree.

In 1966 he began a course in mechanical engineering at Imperial College London, but did not complete it. Gandhi really was not studious enough, as he went on to admit later.

Rajiv Gandhi Family

Rajiv Gandhi was born in Bombay on 20 August 1944 to Indira and Feroze Gandhi. Indira married Feroze Gandhi at the age of 25, in 1942.

Their marriage lasted 18 years, until Feroze died of a heart attack in 1960. They had two sons – Rajiv (b. 1944) and Sanjay (b. 1946).

Her younger son Sanjay had initially been her chosen heir; but after his death in a flying accident in June 1980, Gandhi persuaded her reluctant elder son Rajiv to quit his job as a pilot and enter politics in February 1981.

Rajiv Gandhi Wife

In 1968, after three years of courtship, he married Edvige Antonia Albina Màino, who changed her name to Sonia Gandhi and made India her home.

Their first child, a son, Rahul Gandhi was born in 1970. In 1972, the couple had a daughter, Priyanka Gandhi, who married Robert Vadra.

Rajiv Gandhi Son

Rahul was born in Delhi on 19 June 1970, as the first of the two children of Rajiv Gandhi, who later became the Prime Minister of India, and Italian-born Sonia Gandhi, and as the grandson of the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi.

Rahul took over as the president of the Congress in December 2017. He is also a trustee of Rajiv Gandhi Foundation and Rajiv Gandhi Charitable Trust.

Rajiv Gandhi Biography

He returned to India in 1966 and became a professional pilot for the state-owned Indian Airlines. In 1968 he married Sonia Gandhi; the couple settled in Delhi to a domestic life with their children Rahul Gandhi politics at the behest of Indira.

The following year he won his brother’s Parliamentary seat of Amethi and became a member of the Lok Sabha—the lower house of India’s Parliament.

As part of his political grooming, Indira made Rajiv a general secretary of the Congress party and given significant responsibility in organising the 1982 Asian Games.

On the morning of 31 October 1984, two of her bodyguards assassinated his mother; later that day, congress party appointed Gandhi as Prime Minister.

His leadership was tested over the next few days as organised mobs rioted against the Sikh community, resulting in riots in Delhi. That December, Congress party won the largest Lok Sabha majority to date, 411 seats out of 542.

Rajiv Gandhi’s period in office was mired in controversies; perhaps the greatest crises were the Bhopal disaster and the Shah Bano case.

In 1988 he reversed the coup in Maldives, antagonising militant Tamil groups such as PLOTE, intervening and then sending peacekeeping troops to Sri Lanka in 1987, leading to open conflict with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).

In mid-1987 the Bofors scandal damaged his corruption-free image and resulted in a major defeat for his party in the 1989 election.

Gandhi remained Congress President until the elections in 1991. While campaigning for the elections, a suicide bomber from the LTTE assassinated him.

His widow Sonia became the president of the Congress party in 1998 and led the party to victory in the 2004 and 2009 parliamentary elections.

His son Rahul Gandhi is a Member of Parliament and the current President of Indian National Congress.

In 1991 the Indian government posthumously awarded Gandhi the Bharat Ratna, the country’s highest civilian award.

At the India Leadership Conclave in 2009, the organised conferred Revolutionary Leader of Modern India award posthumously on Gandhi.

Rajiv Gandhi Death

Rajiv Gandhi’s last public meeting was on 21 May 1991, at Sriperumbudur, a village approximately 40 km (25 mi) from Chennai. Here terrorist assassinated him while he was campaigning for the Sriperumbudur Lok Sabha Congress candidate.

At 10:10 pm, a woman later identified as Thenmozhi Rajaratnam, approached Gandhi in public and greeted him. She then bent down to touch his feet and detonated a belt laden with 700 g (1.5 lb) of RDX explosives tucked under her dress.

The explosion killed Gandhi, Rajaratnam, and at least 25 other people. The 21-year-old local photographer captured the assassination, whose camera and film were found at the site.

The cameraman, named Haribabu, died in the blast but the camera remained intact. Army airlifted Gandhi’s mutilated body to the All India Institute of Medical Sciences in New Delhi for post-mortem, reconstruction and embalming.

The government held a state funeral for Gandhi on 24 May 1991. The funeral was telecast live and dignitaries from over 60 countries attended it.

Government cremated him at Veer Bhumi, on the banks of the river Yamuna near the shrines of his mother (Indira Gandhi), brother (Sanjay Gandhi), and grandfather Jawaharlal Nehru.

Rajiv Gandhi Quotes

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 and self-reliant and in the front rank of the nations of the world in the service of mankind.

The late Indira Gandhi always used to warn about the dangers that the country was facing. She used to keep saying that the country was going through a very dangerous time.

This danger is now many times more than what it was at that time. We should all be cautious now.

Every person should take a lesson from history. We should understand that wherever there have been internal fights and conflicts in the country, the country has been weakened.

Due to this, the danger from outside increases. The country has to pay a big price due to this type of weakness.