Indian Polity (1947 - 2000)
India's
first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru was considered the architect of modern
India. He consolidated the Indian Independence by forging national unity,
nurturing democratic institutions, promoting science and technology, planning
for economic development and by following independent foreign policy. He was
truly a nation builder. He died in 1964.
Lal
Bahadur Sastri succeeded Nehru as the next Prime Minister of India. He remained
a role model for honesty in public life. He ended the Indo-Pak war of 1965 by
concluding the Tashkent Agreement in
January 1966. His untimely death was a great loss to the nation.
Indira
Gandhi, daughter of Nehru became Prime Minister in 1966 and bravely faced the
domestic challenges such as scarcity of food and foreign pressures during the
1971 Bangladesh crisis. When opposition to her rule gathered momentum in 1975,
she brought emergency rule, a black mark in the democratic tradition of India.
However, she restored democratic rule by announcing general elections in 1977
in which she was defeated. Later in 1980 she was able to regain power by
democratic means. In 1983 she undertook 'Blue Star Operation' in the Golden
Temple at Amritsar - Punjab. As a result, unfortunately, she was shot dead by
her own bodyguards in 1984 as a vengeance to her policy towards Punjab
militancy.
The Janata
Party rule for brief period between 1977 and 1980 brought Morarji Desai as
Prime Minister of India. For the first time a non-Congress ministry was formed
after independence. The lack of unity among the Janata leaders had resulted in
the fall of the Janata Government.
Rajiv
Gandhi became the Prime Minister of India in 1984 after her mother Indira
Gandhi's assassination. He introduced New Education Policy and encouraged
foreign investment. In 1987 he sent the Indian Peace Keeping Force to Sri Lanka
with a view to put an end to the ethnic violence. He continued as Prime
Minister till the next elections held in 1989. Later in May 1991, he was
assassinated (by the Sri Lankan Tamil extremists).
V.P. Singh was the Prime Minister between 1989 and 1991. He was leading an
anti-Congress coalition called the Janata Dal. During his tenure he decided to
implement the Mandal Commission Report which provided reservation for
other backward classes. His
government was marked by factionalism, and he was forced to resign in 1990.
V.P. SINGH The next Prime Minister Chandrasekhar held the office from November
1990 to March 1991.
In June
1991 P. V. Narasimha Rao became
Prime Minister. He moved decisively toward new economic reforms, reducing the
government's economic role, instituting austerity measures, and encouraging
foreign investment. The finance minister Dr. Manmohan Singh's role in this
sphere is worth noting. As a result, India started moving towards
liberalization, privatization and globalization.
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