Word: indira
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...mother's role for "a long, long while." He had added, "I am happy to stand in her shadow and help to get her re-elected to another term, and still another after that." Suddenly, however, all his reckonings had changed. That evening, less than twelve hours after Indira's death, the elders of the Congress (I) Party chose Rajiv Gandhi as their new leader. As under the British parliamentary system, he thereby automatically became India's seventh Prime Minister. He is the third member of the House of Nehru, which has run India for 33 of its 37 years...
...spending his life in the shadow of his grandfather, his mother and even his late brother, he is suddenly responsible for holding his tormented country together. He spoke with uncharacteristic force after he was sworn in, as he told the nation, "Nothing would hurt the soul of our beloved Indira Gandhi more than the occurrence of violence in any part of the country. It is of prime importance at this moment that every step we take be in the correct direction." But already he must have known that even as the storming of the Golden Temple had produced a wave...
...accounts, Rajiv was one member of the house of Nehru who never lusted for political power. Born in 1944, he was Indira's first son. After attending the well-known Doon School in the hills to the north of New Delhi, Rajiv studied mechanical engineering at Trinity College, Cambridge. Back in India, he became a commercial pilot and joined Indian Airlines, where he flew Boeing 737s and other aircraft for 14 years...
...beyond the prototype stage. He helped run the country during the 1975-77 state of emergency, which his mother had declared in order to control civil unrest and to strengthen her own political position, but was blamed for some of the emergency's worst excesses. Nevertheless, from about 1975 Indira was clearly grooming Sanjay as her successor. Neither mother nor son ever said explicitly that only a Nehru was capable of ruling India, but both obviously believed, with their Brahman sense of entitlement, that a Nehru could simply do it better...
...Rajiv can preserve the country's unity and prevent undue bloodshed over the next year, his future as Indira's successor will probably be assured. If he fails, and the union begins to crumble, the likeliest eventuality would be a military takeover. Since independence, India's generals have prided themselves on their respect for democracy in the British tradition, looking askance at their politicized counterparts in Pakistan. But if the alternative were to be the disintegration of the republic, they would probably not hesitate...