Panorama

Rajiv Gandhi - India's Pilot Prime Minister (1988x3)

: 18, 1988

As an airline pilot, Rajiv Gandhi would press a button, pull a lever and get results. Now, as Prime Minister of India, he's discovering that the world's largest democracy doesn't respond so readily. Ruefully he tells Panorama's Richard Lindley 'there's a bit of slack in the controls'. In New Delhi, Rajiv is attacked for being too dependent on foreign technology, almost a stranger in his own country. In the Punjab he's at daggers drawn with the Sikhs in the Golden Temple, and in Sri Lanka his bold initiative to send troops to protect the Tamils could still turn it into India's Vietnam. Flying with Rajiv Gandhi across the vast expanse of India, Panorama watches the pilot prime minister tug at the nation's controls, hoping that India will respond to him.