London-based journalist Rani Singh discusses her book with Veenu Sandhu.
What are Sonia Gandhi's personality traits, as a politician and as an individual?
Sonia Gandhi understands the importance of restoration and heritage. She listens to different opinions before coming to a decision. In the past she has demonstrated an ability to build bridges with political allies and looks to past Nehru-Gandhis to help in her decision-making. She has mastered the art of silence.
Getting access to the Nehru-Gandhi family is not easy. So how difficult was it researching your book?
I had to work hard. In any event, I had to conduct extensive research and I interviewed over a hundred people; this included family friends, members of government, past and present, party colleagues, political foes, and an extended member of the Nehru family. I now have a very strong understanding of her character and personality, both private and professional.
The Nehru-Gandhi family is known to furiously protect its image. Did you at any point have concerns about your book?
Not at all. This was a brand new project completely unrelated to anything else, devised by a reputable publisher for an international audience. Our concerns were more of an editorial nature. I collected so much fresh and interesting material, that we had to take tough decisions on what to leave out and what to leave in.
What do you feel was the toughest decision that Sonia Gandhi has had to take in her life?
According to her own writings, there have been several. One was to agree to Rajiv becoming a full-time politician after Sanjay Gandhi’s death in 1980; another was to accept that he become prime minister after Indira Gandhi’s assassination in 1984, and yet another was her own decision to formally enter politics in 1997.
Sonia Gandhi wanted her husband to be completely out of politics. Now she is backing her son's political career. When and how did the transition take place?
Once Sonia Gandhi had entered politics and grown accustomed to being in that arena full-time, there was a gradual shift in her thinking, it would appear. From a time when she had been uncomfortable with politics, she appeared to settle into her new career rather well. It was just before the 2004 general elections that Rahul, together with his family, decided that he would enter politics and contest Amethi.
Of Sonia Gandhi’s children, Priyanka is often compared to Indira and Rahul is said to be a lot like his father. But which one of the two is more like Sonia and in what way?
Priyanka told NDTV in an interview in 2009 that Rahul and Sonia are much more reserved than she is about “personal stuff”. She also said that it would be “very hard for me to be convinced that, for example, the party needed me, or something like that”. Whereas, she said, Sonia Gandhi entered politics full time “because she felt that this was her duty”.
BOOK EXCERPT
'A fiery Italian temper'
Besides Karma, Ruth, and Sonia, the tenants of 55 Tenison Road were mostly language students, and others were at Cambridge University. At different periods, they included a South Asian mathematician, a young Cambridge-area girl named Christine, a German fellow called Thilo Dilthey, and Hans Loeser, a German at the university who stayed for three months one summer. Loeser did not socialize with Sonia and Rajiv outside the house but he did observe that Sonia was quite active: “Very often she was out of the house, she was not very sedentary…all of us were young and going out in the evenings.”
He remembers that various guests of different tenants, including young language teachers would visit at Tenison Road, too. There was always something going on; Thilo Dilthey recalls going to Silverstone with Sonia and Rajiv to watch some car racing. In Cambridge, just as in Giaveno, Sonia was not remembered as being at all retiring; that was a side to her character that would emerge later on in India. “I wouldn’t describe her as being shy. Definitely not! She was very open-minded!” Loeser declares.
She also sometimes displayed a certain fiery Italian temper. One night Loeser and another young man (possibly one of the language teachers) were in the communal kitchen. He remembers the incident because he saw a revealing aspect of Sonia’s personality. She “was cooking spaghetti…she had done everything (to get it ready).” Behind her back, the young man added to the dish “some white powder used in cooking as a taste intensifier, sodium glutamate; if you take too much of it, it doesn’t taste very well. He must have put in quite a dose. We — the young man and I — had been drinking, and we were giggling. Sonia must have noticed that he had prepared something to tease her, and she turned around quite suddenly, astonished, and without saying anything, put the hot spaghetti on his head. He was shouting, and finally laughing; it was really quite funny.” Sonia clearly knew how to make a point in a memorable way.
According to Loeser, Sonia did not suffer any financial problems; she “obviously had enough money even by the end of the month” when he and his friends “sometimes ran out of pocket money”. He believes the relationship between Sonia and her family was good because they were “in close contact,” and Cherry Yorke describes Sonia then as “quite comfortably off.” Another Cambridge friend of Rajiv’s, Tahir Jahangir, remembers Sonia as always being “well dressed, well turned out.”
At the time, the Cambridge male-to-female ratio was 12 to 1, so naturally, with her long dark hair and slim figure, Sonia was one of the most beautiful women in town. Loeser and his friend Thilo Dilthey felt that she was aware of her striking good looks. He recalls Dilthey remarking to him once, “She’s very pretty, but unfortunately, somebody must have told her.” From being a playful child in Giaveno, Sonia had grown into a self-assured young woman. Rajiv was a keen photographer, and as the couple grew close, Sonia became his favourite subject.
(Excerpted with permission from Pan Macmillan India)
SONIA GANDHI
An Extraordinary life, An Indian destiny
Author: Rani Singh
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
Pages: xiv+268
Price: 499
