RAJIV GANDHI'S 60TH BIRTH ANNIVERSARY RESOLUTION

On 31st October 1984 in the wake of one of the most tragic events in Indian history, the assassination of Shrimati Indira Gandhi, her young 40-year old son, Shri Rajiv Gandhi, was sworn in as her successor Prime Minister – and within weeks rescued India from the depths of despair, despondency and distress. A grateful nation rendered him the largest mandate ever accorded in the elections to the Lok Sabha held two months later. His five years as Prime Minister standout as among the most shining epochs in the evolution of independent India.

Shri Rajiv Gandhi set before the nation the goal of "restoring the India in the 21st century to her traditional place in the vanguard of the advancement of human civilization".

Each phrase of that goal needs emphasis. "Restoring India", he said, because he saw that, through the millennia, India had traditionally been in that vanguard. It was only colonial conquest that had pilfered from us the pride of pre-eminence. Half a century of Independence, believed Rajivji, had positioned us for the final leap forward to the fore. It was that leap forward which he envisaged as our national task in the 21st century, an Indian century that he foresaw more clearly than any of his contemporaries. More important still, Rajiv did not define the national goal in narrow political, military, technological or economic terms, but in terms of the deep and enduring values that go into the making of civilization. Thus, it was not in the Quest for Dominance, which he saw as the most dangerous menace to the common future of humankind but in advancing the best and most noble in the human heritage that he saw India, as the votary of one of the world’s greatest civilizations, coming back into her own in the 21st century. The expression "21st century" captured the imagination of our people, especially the young, and, as to a clarion call, the nation rose to the challenge he set before it.

India’s unique contribution to human civilization, he said, was its unbroken 5000-year record of combating antiquity with continuity and heterogeneity. There were, he noted, other civilizations that were older, but most had passed into history. And of those that had survived, most were based on absorption or assimilation into homogeneity. India was unique in synthesizing, over five millennia of interaction with the world, all that was best from outside with all that was best within. Hence the crucial importance to our civilization of the principle of ‘unity in diversity’, a principle which required the celebration of our composite culture and recognition of the contribution made to it by all our many religions and regions, by all our communities and cultures. Secular pluralism is thus woven into the wrap and the woof of India’s social fabric.

It was for this that in his very first address to the nation, Shri Rajiv Gandhi declared: "Secularism is the bedrock of our nationhood."

His matchless contribution to the safeguarding of our national ethos lay in his unflinching dedication to principled secularism and relentless opposition to all forms of communalism. On this sacred anniversary of his birth, we rededicate ourselves to remaining his Soldiers of Secularism – his Sadbhavana ke Sipahi.

In his determined endeavour to heal the bleeding wounds of the nation, in a remarkably short time he unraveled some of the knottiest problems that for years had defied solution: the accords on Punjab, Assam, Mizoram and the Darjeeling Hills rank among the most significant breakthrough agreements in the history of independent India. Each one of them was marked by his distinctive stamp of placing national interest above, partisan politics and steadfast principle over opportunistic advantage. He was remarkable in translating thought into action in the shortest possible time. In the troubled Valley of Kashmir, such normalcy was restored that the Valley enjoyed its largest influx of autumn tourists ever in October-November 1989, just before the storm broke immediately after he demitted office.

He carried abroad another key message of the Indian heritage – non-violence and peaceful co-existence. The Rajiv Gandhi Action Plan for a Nuclear Weapons Free and Non-violent World Order, which he presented to the United Nations in 1988, remains humankind’s last hope of forestalling a nuclear holocaust.

His sixtieth birth anniversary, which has seen the restoration of the Congress to office, is an apposite occasion for rededicating ourselves to the worldwide propagation of his Action Plan. In doing so, we should carry to the world his message:

"The new structure of international relations to sustain a world beyond nuclear weapons will have to be based on the principles of co-existence, the non-use of force, non-intervention in the internal affairs of other countries and the right of every State to pursue its own path of development. These principles are enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations. We must resurrect the original vision of the United Nations. We must bring the United Nations Organisation in line with the requirements of the new world order."

In Rajivji’s five short years, the economy was overhauled so radically that India attained the highest annual rate of growth it has ever attained – 10.87 percent – in the last full year of his Prime Ministership, 1988-89. Most significantly, agriculture growth attained its highest rate ever – 16 percent over the quinquennium. Neglected sectors of the economy were given special attention, the output of oilseeds, grown by our poorest kisans in the most barren of our drylands being doubled. High rates of growth were recorded in employment-intensive sectors such as handlooms and powerlooms, food processing and agro-industry, small and tiny industries, khadi and village industries. Drought-proofing and dedicated touring by the Prime Minister himself of severely drought-affected and flood-prone areas launched a whole new era of translating challenge into opportunity for the poorest and worst-affected Indians. Poverty alleviation programmes were revamped and rationalized. Technology missions were launched. Remarkable thrusts were made in rural telecommunication. The computer and the information technology revolution, much sneered at then by elements of the Opposition, have since emerged as the symbol of the new India. Across a wide spectrum of there was a series of new, innovative, imaginative policy initiatives – in education and culture; science and technology; water resources and environment; tribal development and scheduled caste welfare; women and the minorities; island development and special attention to other remote areas; and the new 21-point programme. It was the outstanding economic achievements of Shri Rajiv Gandhi’s government that set the stage for the economic reforms which in the first half of the Nineties, under the Congress, saw the economy surge forward, as it is set to do once again with the restoration of the Congress to office at the Centre.

It is to the disenfranchised and the deprived that Rajivji gave power to the people through his most enduring contribution to the nation: Constitutional sanction for Panchayati Raj. Rajivji lives where Panchayati Raj lives: in the hearts and minds of the crores upon crores of the poor he empowered. Rajivji flourishes where Panchayati Raj flourishes. That was the measure of Rajivji’s socialism – a socialism whose roots lay not in some imported philosophy but in Gandhiji’s worship of Daridranarayana – the Mahatama’s litmus test for determining the right course of action.

On this significant sixtieth anniversary of Rajivji’s birth, the Congress rededicates itself to the grand ideals for which he stood and sacrificed his life:

• An India, united strong and self-reliant in the service of all humankind

• Democracy, from the Gram Sabha to the Lok Sabha

• Empowerment of the disadvantaged and neglected sections of society, including the scheduled castes and scheduled tribes; youth, to whom the vote was given at the age of 18; and women, a million of whom are serving in elected local bodies

• Secularism, as the bedrock of our nationhood

• Socialism, in terms of the Gandhian litmus test of priority to the poorest

• Non-alignment, in terms of universal disarmament, sustained peace among all peoples, and an end to the futile Quest for Dominance, which all through history has brought so much death and destruction but little else.

Endorsed

Recalling the resolution adopted by the All India Congress Committee on the 10th anniversary for the passage of the Constitutional provisions relating to Panchayati Raj and the Congress Working Committee’s endorsement of the 10th Anniversary Plan of action adopted at 40 Congress conventions, covering all States and Union Territories between December 2002 and August 2003.

The AICC endorses the 10th Anniversary Plan of Action and urges the Congress-led Government at the Centre, Congress state governments all over the country and Pradesh / Territorial Congress Committees to ensure the implementation in letter and spirit of the provisions of the Action Plan within the stipulated time-frame.

And, to this end, the All India Congress Committee urges the closest possible institutional links between elected Congress representatives in the urban and rural local bodies and the Party organisation in the States / UTs and at the level of the AICC.