Doon Online - India: Gandhi, A Leader with a World of Vision

By Mahesh Uniyal

Had Rajiv Gandhi's political career not been suddenly snuffed out last night, he would have reclaimed India's pride of place in world diplomacy.

As world leaders today expressed shock at Gandhi's killing at an election meeting in the southern state of Tamil Nadu, they hailed his positive contribution to global politics.

While United States President George Bush said it was "a real tragedy . . .when you look at his contribution to international order", Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev said "we are filled with indignation over Mr. Gandhi's killing."

And Daniel Ortega, former president of Nicaragua expressed, "disgust and repugnance because there has been an assassination of a leader of the poor people in The Third World."

As a forceful prime minister from 1984-89, Gandhi had raised India's status as a leader of the Third World. Under him, India voiced the concerns of poor countries, pressing for fairer trade with rich nations and proposing an environment protection fund.

A professional pilot, Gandhi joined politics in 1980 after his younger brother's sudden death. Yet as India's youngest prime minister, Gandhi was measured and impressive on the world stage.

Addressing the ninth Non-Aligned Summit in Belgrade in September 1989, Gandhi had advocated a "mature sobriety" to replace the brinkmanship and nuclear bravado of the superpowers.

"What brought us together was our conviction that, in this nuclear age, the obsolete mind-set which had led humankind time and again to war, conquest and domination had to be discarded and destroyed," he told world leaders at the summit.

More recently in February, Gandhi was among a group of "eminent personalities" which included Ortega and former West German Chancellor Willy Brandt attempting to find a peaceful solution to the gulf crisis.

Gandhi was the elder son of former Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, assassinated in 1984 by Sikh bodyguards. His grandfather was India's first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru.

Forty six-year-old Gandhi was educated at the elite " Doon School" in Dehradun in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh.

He later studied mechanical engineering in the United Kingdom at Trinity College, Cambridge. Here he met Sonia Maino, an Italian, whom he married in 1968. The Gandhis have two children, daughter Priyanka and son Rahul.

Gandhi, India's seventh prime minister, swept into power on a sympathy wave in elections in December 1984 after his mother's assassination. 1991 Inter Press Service, May 22, 1991

Stepping confidently into the world arena, India teamed up with Greece, Tanzania, Mexico, Sweden and Argentina in 1985 to propose a ban on the nascent arms race in outer space.

Gandhi, together with the leaders of the other five countries was honored with the United Nations "Beyond War Award" for the New Delhi initiative, at a time when the United States was aggressively pursuing the "Star Wars" program.

Travelling extensively to the major world capitals, Gandhi struck instant rapport with leaders and people, helping enlarge their limited perception of the world's biggest democracy.

In 1986, Soviet President Gorbachev visited India to sign the New Delhi declaration. The declaration was a commitment by Moscow to a world without weapons of mass destruction.

The declaration was followed by the signing of the historic intermediate nuclear forces treaty by superpowers, Soviet Union and United States.

Pushing forward the non-aligned campaign to drive out colonialism from its last bastion in Namibia, Gandhi also urged Third World countries to fight against the new economic colonialism of an unequal world trade.

Hitting out at protectionism and discriminatory trade practices which deny poor countries markets in affluent nations, Gandhi called for a strong multilateral trading system for economic stability and equity.

At the Non-Aligned Summit in Belgrade, Gandhi also proposed a planet protection fund to make environment-friendly technologies available to the Third World.