‘A warning to all’: What Rajiv Gandhi wrote in the guestbook of a WWII memorial in Belarus

As late as the 1980s, official foreign visits by heads of government lasted several days. This was especially the case with top-level visits between India and the Soviet Union. In March 1985, when Rajiv Gandhi went to Moscow for the funeral of Konstantin Chernenko, general secretary of the Communist Party of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, he met the leader’s successor Mikhail Gorbachev and agreed to return to the country on a state visit. This would be his first state visit as prime minister.

The trip, planned for the third week of May, when Delhi was relatively hot and Soviet republics experienced pleasant weather, included visits to the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic – now Belarus – as well as the Kirghiz Soviet Socialist Republic.

On this visit, Rajiv Gandhi was joined by his wife and children, all of whom seemed to attract the attention of the Soviet press and citizens alike.

As expected, the visit began in Moscow. “I am here to continue the traditions set for us by Jawaharlal Nehru and practised by successive governments in India of sharing assessments and perceptions so that our two countries can work together for a better world,” Gandhi said when he arrived in the Soviet capital.

“With a phalanx...

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