On the morning of 22nd May, the tragic death of Rajiv Gandhi spread all over like wild fire. The heinous act of assassination by a suicide bomber shocked and angered the people. The crowds converged on 10, Janpath. There was danger of violence breaking out in Delhi. The people looked ready to explode in anger. The army units started flag marches.
In AIIMS the dismembered body of Rajiv Gandhi was put together and medicated before being taken home. At 1 p.m. the body was to be placed in Teen Murti Bhavan.
Sonia Gandhi clad in white saree requested to be left alone with the dead body for five minutes. R.K. Dhavan asked people to clear the hall for 5 minutes. When the room was cleared the curtains were downed. For five minutes Sonia Gandhi and Priyanka stayed by the side of departed one’s dead body in privacy. Rajiv meant everything to her in this world. The fate had played a cruel trick with them.
The body was taken to Teen Murti Bahvan to enable the people have the last glimplse of their popular leader. The dignitaries had to pay their tributes. Sonia Gandhi stayed by the side of the body of her late husband Rajiv for 3 days and 3 nights. The people kept coming in, saluting with folded hands or placing wreaths on the dead body. To Sonia it felt like a dumb charade. Every now and then Sonia Gandhi shuddered in grief, a muted cry would escape from her lips and her eyes kept welling up with tears.
Rahul was studying at Harward. The news of the death of his father came as a bolt from the blue. His friends, classmates and teachers consoled him. He rushed to India. At the sight of the dead body of his father Rahul wept. The family cried together. Rahul and Priyanka hugged each other, cried and tried to console each other. Then the two consoled their mother. It was a heart rending scene. The people there could not help shedding tears in sympathy. Every eye there was moist. The whole city of Delhi was in mourning. Thousands of people each day paid homage to the departed soul.
Delhi had grown the habit of mourning for Gandhis. First it was Mahatma Gandhi, then Sanjay Gandhi, Indira Gandhi and now Rajiv Gandhi. The leaders of all parties issued appeals to the people to maintain the peace and condemned the barbaric assassination. The flags remained half mast on all govt. buildings. One week national mourning was declared. Government offices, schools, colleges, bazaars and business centres remained shut. Everywhere people organised condolence meetings. In Delhi, Chennai and Hyderabad buses and trains did not operate fearing violence in the unsettled atmosphere.
All the leaders frankly admitted that Rajiv Gandhi was extremely civil, dignified and polite character. In the politics within a few years he had become world level political personality. It was not his political cunning that won him admiration from all but it was his character and civilised conduct.
The caretaker Prime Minister Chandrashekhar said in his address to the nation spoke—”At this moment the nation is passing through an hour of grave sorrow. A person from whom we have great expectations has suddenly departed. The way he went in a tragic way was what we had not even imagined. The people who want to push the country towards destruction and their conspiracies can be defeated only by patience and using courage in this hour of great sadness. Entire nation must unitedly move on in this sadness so that we conquer these evil forces. The people of India have fathomless power.”
The last rites and funeral of Rajiv Gandhi was decided to be conducted near ‘Shakti Sthal’ the memorial of Indira Gandhi. It was the choice of Rahul and his sister Priyanka who wanted their father’s funeral conducted near their grandmother’s memorial.
Although Rajiv was not PM when he was assassinated yet the funeral was attended by a large number of foreign leaders, representatives of international bodies, diplomats, dignitaries, politicians, prime ministers, deputy PMs, vice presidents and other personalities. It showed how Rajiv Gandhi had made India and himself important at the international stage.
Those who offered their condolences personally to Sonia Gandhi included U.S. Vice president, Pakistani P.M., Russian Vice president, Palestine leader Yasser Arafat, Chinese premier, Prince Charles of UK, Sri Lankan premier, Nepali premier, Bangladesh PM, opposition leader of Bangladesh Hasina Wazed, Pak opposition leader Benazir Bhutto, Bhutan king, Afghan President Nazibullah, British foreign minister, French vice premier, ex-PM of Japan, Iranian vice president, Deputy PM of Yeman, Sheikh Sultan Bijayeg of UAE, Jordanian prince N.B. Ali, Ahmad Makki of Oman, Mohammad of Tunisia, the wife of Australian PM, the Vice president of Vietnam, Italian Vice president, New Zealand deputy P.M.
On May 24, 1991 funeral procession of Rajiv Gandhi started from Teen Murti and it took 5 hours to reach Rajghat due to heavy crowd that poured out to pay tribute to departed leader. About 3, 50,000 people joined the funeral procession. Sonia Gandhi and her family followed the body of Rajiv in a car. The people raised slogans hailing the departed leader. The three chiefs of armed forces helped in taking the body to the funeral pyre. At 5.25 p.m. Rahul Gandhi lit up the pyre as mantras were chanted. The pyre made of 100 kgs of sandalwood, 50 kgs of funeral items and 20 kgs of ghee instantly turned into a mass of leaping flames in which burnt the mortal remains of late Rajiv Gandhi. He had become part of the five elements.
Two days later Rahul Gandhi went to Shakti Sthal to collect the ash and bones of his father as the tradition and custom demanded. In 37 urns the last remains were carried to Teen Murti Bhavan and kept under the Amaltas tree under which at earlier times the remains of Nehruji and Indiraji had been kept.
Nehruji’s death anniversary fell on 27th May. Each year Sonia Gandhi used go to the Shantivan, the memorial of Nehruji on that day in the company of Rajiv Gandhi. This time she had to go alone. While paying tributes with folded hands she could not help remembering Rajiv Gandhi. Her eyes became moist. No one knows what kind of emotions stormed through her mind and heart. She maintained her dignified posture for the benefit of her children and others.
Out of the 37 urns containing the last remains of Rajiv Gandhi 35 were given to congressmen for immersion into various rivers, confluences and for spraying over hills and mountains.
On the same day of the death anniversary of Nehruji at 9 a.m. Rahul placed the remaining two urns on a special military carrier to be transported to the New Delhi railway station. The urns were transferred to a special train bound for Allahabad. The ashes were to be assigned to waters at the holy Sangam. Beside the urns Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka sat in solemn mood of grief. The ladies were in white sarees and Rahul wore white kurta-pyjama.
On the route people converged to pay tributes at railway stations wherever the train stopped. At last at Allahabad the urns were kept for some time in Anand Bhavan, the ancestral house of Nehrus. Then finally, after a pooja ritual, Rahul Gandhi consigned the last remains of his father in the water of Sangam, the confluence of Ganga, Yamuna and fabled Saraswati.
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