Rajiv Gandhi

Rajiv Ratna Gandhi was India’s prime minister from 1984 to 1989. He was appointed prime minister the same day the previous prime minister, his mother Indira Gandhi, was assassinated on October 31, 1984. Both were part of the powerful Nehru-Gandhi family. In 1991, he was assassinated by a suicide bomber from the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) militant group while he was campaigning for elections in Tamil Nadu. Later that year, the Indian government posthumously awarded him with the Bharat Ratna, the country's highest civilian award.

Rajiv Gandhi reluctantly began his political life after his brother Sanjay was killed in a plane crash in 1980. At that time, his mother was Prime Minister and pulled him into politics from his domestic life and career as a pilot. In June 1981, he was elected to the Lok Sabha (lower chamber of the national parliament) and became a member of the national executive of the Indian Youth Congress (the youth wing of the National Congress party).

Former Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, pictured on May 5, 1991.

In 1984, at age forty, Rajiv Gandhi became the youngest Prime Minister of India and the leader of the Congress Party after the assassination of his mother, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. During his tenure, he signed peace accords with insurgent groups in states where religious tensions were high and helped develop India’s science and technology sectors, earning the title “Father of Information and Technology.”

His tenure was filled with issues, including the Shah Bano case and the Bhopal disaster, and his support to reverse the coup in the Maldives in 1988 infuriated the Tamil militants, PLOTE, and LTTE. He lost his bid for reelection in 1989 due to these issues and following a financial corruption scandal in his party.

Gandhi continued his role as leader of the Congress Party until his assassination in 1991.

Rajiv Gandhi was born in Bombay (now Mumbai) in 1944 to Indira Gandhi and Feroze Gandhi. Rajiv Gandhi married Edvige Antonia Albina Maino in 1968 in New Dehli. His wife later changed her name to Sonia Gandhi, and the couple had two children, Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi.

Rajiv Gandhi briefly went to school at Welham Prep in Dehra Dun but soon moved to the residential Doon School in the Himalayan foothills. In 1961, Rajiv Gandhi went to London to study engineering at Trinity College, and in 1966, he transferred to Imperial College London to study mechanical engineering. When he returned to India, he joined the Delhi Flying Club, became a pilot, and went to work for Air India in 1970.