By: harini calamur

harini calamur — Fri, 22 May 2009 10:31:51 +0000

Rajiv Gandhi was my first crush i was all of 14 when he became PM !!
in a way, he was denied the opportunity that his son has had – which is to clean up the Party.
i remember horrible, horrible people like Kamplapathi Tripathi and his sheer stupidity.

in fact but for the Congress Party, and its power hungry satraps Rajiv would not have lost power – and he may still be alive. we may not have had to see the ugly 1990′s. Liberalisation would have happened earlier !

the one thing that he really messed up on – was the rights of Muslim women – he should have backed Arif Mohd. Khan . Had he done that maybe, the BJP would have never raised its head !

but, life is full of the but ifs…
no one inspired like he did. and when he came to power we got transformed from a 3rd world country – to India Shining

By: Vijay Shankar

Vijay Shankar — Fri, 22 May 2009 06:03:32 +0000

Well this is one of the pieces of writing, I really appreciate from your blog. It is sincere and reflective of fact all along. Rajiv Gandhi was perhaps the best politician that India had until the 1990s. He had the ability to carry everyone with him. Shah Bano was a serious error of judgment. It reflected poorly on our liberalism. So was the banning of the Satanaic Verses. But what I liked about Rajiv was his vision and pragmatic sense when he tried to solve the Ayodhya dispute. He was ironically the biggest hope of the karsevaks and he had almost reached the final stages in finding a solution to the vexed Ayodhya dispute. Unfortunately destiny didnt allow him to. I would blame both the VHP and the BMAC guys for not seizing this historic opportunity rather than let it fester on and take the ugly turn it did in 1992. Bravo Rajiv, may he still live on in the young indian politician.

Comments on: Rajiv Gandhi as Youth Icon

By: harini calamur

By: Vijay Shankar