 |
 |
| <<Previous Page | Next Page>> |
|
Making of a Statesman
|
|
| Rajiv stood unaided for the
first time on August 15, 1945. A mother saw it and regaled then. He did the same 39 years later. This time, the mother was no more, but a nation saw and acknowledged it with the same pride. Not many may know this but the interregnum between his first faltering step as a baby in 1945 and his giant leap as a national leader of global stature in 1984, saw the shaping and honing of a man whose simple ways and common existence gave the Prime Minister's office its first-ever spring cleaning. As a child, Rajiv was a quiet boy with thinking eyes and introverted sensitivity. He would not speak much in class, but would be a bundle of laughter during cherished outings with his parents. He may have been merely above average in mathematics, but  surprised
his teachers with the imaginative lines he drew on his art book. In
his kindergarten, he was assessed sensitive and perceptive. Nevertheless,
he was shy, courteous and a lesser speaker. Aeroplanes, that were
to be an obsession with him throughout his young life, figured heavily
in his nursery drawings which were otherwise visited by birds, mountains,
the rising sun and green nooks of a nowhere world.It may surprise many but the first strong shades of secularism shined out of the boy's personality at a tender two. As Indira Gandhi wrote to Jawaharlal Nehru who was then in jail during the Independence Movement: ‚Rajiv is learning so fast that it is impossible to keep pace–. Two of the words that he has recently acquired are 'Sitaram and Allah.' Much later and on a bigger global canvas, |
Rajiv retained and propagated the need for peaceful
co-existence of these two words that he had learnt to utter and understand
quite inadvertently. 'It takes more guts to be non-violent,' he once
told a surprised audience. He condemned the perpetrators of the 1984-Sikh
riots triggered by his mother's assassination, saying, 'this must
stop forthwith.' In a more saner moment, he was to analyse what grips
the human mind in its weaker moments: 'Progress poses its own challenge
- to the mind and spirit, to morale and, perhaps, most to morality.
Some respond to material progress by becoming crass materialists.
Some others respond more dangerously. They give simple answers to
very complex problems, simple answers to be found through fanaticism,
fundamentalism and communalism.' He then proceeded to remind and revise
the collective mind of the nation: 'There is only one India and it
belongs to all of us.... Our ideology of nationalism, secularism,
democracy and socialism is the only relevant ideology of our great
nation.' As a world leader, this dictum found a window in a host of crucial bywords he propagated as handmaidens of viable international diplomacy - anti-racism, peaceful co-existence and non-interference. 'What has made India survive as a civilization is its extraordinary capacity to accept absorb and assimilate; to tolerate diversity and to take the whole view..... Our methodology is not confrontation but consensus, not domination but dialogue,' he told an attentive gathering at Paris. The catapulted presence of an otherwise boy next door on to a platform pulsating in the cusp of traditional values and fast- paced change was fodder for doubt and speculation, especially when Rajiv was not inclined to or seen to be the holder of his mother's political mantle. But he soon turned speculation into |
| <<Previous Page | Next Page>> |
