Sonia Gandhi's memoir is out, and the publisher is making a fortune. It will soon be a bestseller in India. Loyalists, journalists and opponents are all buying it, and many commentators now have material for a year's worth of podcasts. They will either chant its contents as gospel truth or dismiss them as lies; there is no middle ground in today's discourse. Liberals will assume everything she wrote is correct without examining the other side, while Sangh supporters are determined to exploit its contradictions and a few inaccuracies in dates and years.
Political memoirs matter because they shed light on decisions and events that remain shrouded in mystery for years. The Gandhi family is India's "first family", even though no Gandhi has led the government since 1989 and the Congress governments that followed were headed by non-Gandhis, first P V Narasimha Rao and later Manmohan Singh. Whatever one's reservations, it is the mystery around the family that sharpens the public appetite for stories about them, and the media rush to fill the gap with reports from "sources". Sonia Gandhi's first-hand account is therefore a welcome step, and it illuminates much that stayed out of public view.
For the BJP and the Sangh Parivar, the most crucial parts are her account of the Emergency, Operation Blue Star and the dark days of early November 1984 after Indira Gandhi's assassination. There is also the Rajiv Gandhi years: his treatment of his finance minister V P Singh, the Shah Bano case, the defamation bill in Parliament, the raids on the Indian Express and his promise of Ram Rajya from Ayodhya.
The Congress's collapse in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar was not due to the Hindutva campaign alone. Its failure to protect the rights of the Backward communities, Rajiv Gandhi's open opposition in Parliament to their cause, and the Narasimha Rao government's failure to protect the Babri Masjid effectively finished the party in north India. Dalits, Backward communities and Muslims drifted away because the party lacked strong leadership and a categorical position.
A political memoir is never merely an academic exercise; it is also a calculated political strategy. Sonia Gandhi's book tries to clear up ambiguities, particularly on the ideological front, though it still misses many important points about the Rajiv Gandhi years. Blaming V P Singh and Chandra Shekhar for reducing Rajiv Gandhi's security, or for withdrawing SPG cover, is purely political. Government records suggest that Rajiv Gandhi himself shaped the SPG Act, which excluded the Leader of the Opposition from such protection.
The Congress leadership's Brahmanical affinities have also persisted. Sonia and other Congress leaders continue to express respect for Atal Bihari Vajpayee, but the same regard is not extended to Chandra Shekhar and V P Singh, both unfailingly courteous and democrats to the core. It would have been valuable had V P Singh written an autobiography explaining how Rajiv and the Congress treated him as an enemy and a backstabber after he left the party. Similarly, Arjun Singh, another warrior for secularism and social justice, helped Rajiv Gandhi during the crucial Punjab talks that led to the historic accord with Harchand Singh Longowal, yet the party never gave him his due. One of India's finest HRD ministers was dropped from the cabinet while leaders without a mass base, such as Pranab Mukherjee, remained at the helm. The Gandhis have always been wary of popular leaders who could challenge them, which also explains the sidelining of Digvijaya Singh.
It is a fact that the Emergency and its oppression were largely blamed on Sanjay Gandhi. It is also a fact that the RSS and the Hindutva fraternity admired him; for years, its volunteers said India needed a leader like Sanjay Gandhi. His close associate Jagmohan later became a favourite of the Sangh Parivar. The forced sterilisations, which targeted Muslims and Dalits in particular, pleased the RSS, as did incidents like Turkman Gate in Delhi, where over 150,000 families were uprooted in the name of a "cleanliness drive" and slum "resettlement". Most of those families were Muslim or Dalit. The RSS also backed Rajiv Gandhi fully after Indira Gandhi's assassination, and the 1984 election that gave the Congress its biggest-ever mandate was a thoroughly communal one, built on anti-Sikh sentiment.
Some things should be beyond dispute. The Gandhi family is largely secular, liberal and democratic, but its record on social justice and the caste question remains questionable, partly because its propagandists have been the liberal Brahmanical elite.
The noise over Indira Gandhi's dining-room conversations is nothing but hatred, and it is aimed less at Indira Gandhi than at Sonia because of her Italian origin. The dining hall was simple, an ordinary room where the prime minister spent personal time with her grandchildren. What is wrong if she offered a few suggestions there? Long ago, after Rajiv Gandhi became prime minister with a huge mandate, Sonia gave an interview to Pupul Jayakar, published in Dharmyug, one of the finest Hindi weeklies of the Times group. It offered a glimpse of the family's table manners: everyone at the table was expected to speak only in Hindi. The dining room of a former prime minister reflected the modest life the family led. Visit the homes of bureaucrats, military officers, editors and academics, and you will find far more Anglicised manners.
Sonia Gandhi has every right to express her feelings, and the memoir offers plenty: her likes, her food habits, her years in Cambridge and her vivid description of life in Italy. The writing reflects a European scholarly background, rich in detail about things most of us are unfamiliar with. It also helps those who make sweeping generalisations about "Europe", "Goras" or "foreigners" and cannot tell nationalities, cuisines and cultures apart.
Attacking Sonia Gandhi for her birth and spinning new stories about her must stop. The Gandhis are revered by many, while their detractors spread rumours and hatred. India must move beyond this, because no society grows out of such cynicism. The book is her legitimate right, and it offers first-hand information from someone who was first the daughter-in-law of one prime minister and then the wife of another. During UPA-I and UPA-II she was the undisputed leader guiding its welfare schemes. The rights-based laws passed in that period were largely her contribution; otherwise Manmohan Singh, Montek Singh Ahluwalia and P Chidambaram might have left us to the "liberal" market.
Political memoirs are hard for those still in public life, because statements can be challenged and create awkwardness when one cannot know who will be needed as an ally. That is why most politicians stay silent during their lifetimes. Sonia Gandhi had a difficult balance to strike. She spoke about some matters and stayed silent on many others. It is good that she spoke about Pranab Mukherjee.
In the coming days, the media and social media will be full of debate. The party's workers have found new ideas to fight their battles, but India's ultimate political contest is on the ground, and the Congress has still not learnt from its historic mistake of opposing the Mandal Commission report in Parliament. It is trying to redefine itself under Rahul Gandhi, but the real question is how those ideas are carried out on the ground.
Meanwhile, Sonia Gandhi deserves congratulations for bringing hope to a struggling publishing industry. Perhaps more biographies and autobiographies will now fill the shelves. It is good news that readers are rushing to buy books.
---
*Human rights defender
Comments