In 1951, Rajiv and his younger brother Sanjay were admitted to Shiv Niketan school, where the teachers said Gandhi was shy and introverted, and "greatly enjoyed painting and drawing".

[14] During Gandhi's final year at Doon, his mother and Albert D'Rozario, the scientific attaché at the Indian High Commission in London, arranged his application to Cambridge University.

[14] Pryor arranged for Gandhi's conditional admission to Trinity, contingent on his passing the Mechanical Sciences Qualifying (MSQ) Examination with acceptable marks.

[14] After studying for his A-Levels at the sixth form college of Davies, Laing & Dick in London, Gandhi sat the MSQ Examination in March 1962 but was unsuccessful.

[20] As per Agarwal, in the week following Sanjay's death, Shankaracharya Swami Shri Swaroopanand, a saint from Badrinath, visited the family's house to offer his condolences.

[28] He was one of 33 members of the Indian parliament who were part of the Games' organising committee; sports historian Boria Majumdar writes that being "son of the prime minister he had a moral and unofficial authority" over the others.

Commenting on the anti-Sikh riots in Delhi, Rajiv Gandhi said, "When a giant tree falls, the earth below shakes";[34] a statement for which he was widely criticised.

Soon after assuming office, Gandhi asked President Singh to dissolve Parliament and hold fresh elections, as the Lok Sabha had completed its five-year term.

[38] Historian Meena Agarwal writes that even after taking the Prime Ministerial oath, he was a relatively unknown figure, "novice in politics" as he assumed the post after being an MP for three years.

[43] His inner circle was labelled a "Doon Cabinet"[44] or "Dosco Mafia",[45] and Washington Post reported, "The catch phrase around Delhi these days is that the 'Doon School runs India,' but that is too simple an analysis for a complex, chaotic country with so many competing spheres of influence.

"[46][47] Gandhi's reliance on Doon alumni for political advice later led Prime Minister Morarji Desai to remark, "If I had anything to do with this place, I'd close it down".

Historian Manish Telikicherla Chary calls it a measure of curbing corruption and bribery of ministers by switching parties so they could gain majority.

[55] In 1986, the Parliament of India passed The Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Divorce) Act 1986, which nullified the Supreme Court's judgment in the Shah Bano case.

[64] He introduced measures to significantly reduce the Licence Raj after 1990, allowing businesses and individuals to purchase capital, consumer goods and import without bureaucratic restrictions.

[65] According to Rejaul Karim Laskar, a scholar of Indian foreign policy and an ideologue of Congress party, Rajiv Gandhi's vision for a new world order was premised on India's place in its front rank.

[66] According to Laskar, the "whole gamut" of Rajiv Gandhi's foreign policy was "geared towards" making India "strong, independent, self-reliant and in the front rank of the nations of the world.

The ambit of our concern must extend to all means of mass annihilation.This was based on his prior historic speech before the Japanese National Diet on 29 November 1985, in which he said: Let us remove the mental partitions which obstruct the ennobling vision of the human family linked together in peace and prosperity.

[75][76] In February 1987, the Pakistani president Zia-ul-Haq visited Delhi, where he met Gandhi to discuss "routine military exercises of the Indian army" on the borders of Rajasthan and Punjab.

Gandhi reciprocated, in December 1988, by visiting Islamabad and meeting the new prime minister of Pakistan, Benazir Bhutto, to reaffirm the 1972 Shimla agreement.

The accord "envisaged a devolution of power to the Tamil-majority areas", dissolved the LTTE, and designated Tamil as an official language of Sri Lanka.

[79] Gandhi said: The Government of India believe that, despite some problems and delays, many of which were foreseen but unavoidable in the resolution of an issue of this magnitude and complexity, this Agreement represents the only way of safeguarding legitimate Tamil interests and ensuring a durable peace in Sri Lanka.

Congress leader Anand Sharma said, "Operation Black Thunder effectively demonstrated the will of Rajiv Gandhi's government to take firm action to bring peace to Punjab".

[86] According to Pitroda, Gandhi's ability to resist pressure from multi-national companies to abandon his plan to spread telecommunication services has been an important factor in India's development.

According to news website Oneindia, "About 20 years ago telephones were considered to be a thing for the use of the rich, but credit goes to Rajiv Gandhi for taking them to the rural masses".

[88] Rajiv Gandhi's finance minister, V. P. Singh, uncovered compromising details about government and political corruption, to the consternation of Congress leaders.

Gandhi was later personally implicated in the scandal when the investigation was continued by Narasimhan Ram and Chitra Subramaniam of The Hindu newspaper, damaging his image as an honest politician.

[115][116][117] On 18 February 2014, the Supreme Court of India commuted the death sentences of Murugan, Santhan and Perarivalan to life imprisonment, holding that the 11-year-long delay in deciding their mercy petition had a dehumanising effect on them.

[121] The report of the Jain Commission created controversy when it accused the Tamil Nadu chief minister Karunanidhi of a role in the assassination, leading to Congress withdrawing its support for the I. K. Gujral government and fresh elections in 1998.

India's Rajiv is a 1991 Indian documentary television series by Simi Garewal, released closely after Gandhi's assassination it covers his life up to that event.

[125] Indian films specifically focusing on the assassination plot include The Terrorist (1997) by Santosh Sivan,[126] Cyanide (2006) by A. M. R. Ramesh,[127] Kuttrapathirikai (2007) by R. K. Selvamani with Anupam Kher in the role of Gandhi,[128] Mission 90 Days (2007) by Major Ravi,[129] and Madras Cafe (2013) by Shoojit Sircar starring Sanjay Gurbaxani as the former prime minister.