Sonia Gandhi’s fragile but sustained claim to national leadership, underscored by her nervous induction of both children into the Congress party, makes it incumbent upon political analysts to spell out some of the contentious issues associated with nationality and the right to lead a nation. For modern Indians, particularly the proud and sensitive middle class, nationality is fundamentally linked with birth and is to that extent fairly cut and dried.
Having lost out on this score, Ms. Gandhi has compounded her problems by shrilly claiming Bharatiyata (Indian-ness), and thereby opened herself to scrutiny in an arena in which she is terribly wanting. For we are now entitled to ask what elements of Bharatiyata she has imbibed during her long sojourn in this land, and to what extent she may stake claim to Indian-ness. We may also extend the scope of our queries to the children she seeks to project as heirs – at least of the Congress party – if not the national polity.
Bharat (India) has been a distinct idea and an unbroken entity in the minds of its people from their primordial memories. The Vedic sages expressed a profound love of the land, but far more importantly, they inextricably linked the soil with pride in a unique culture, acceptance of which conferred membership of land and community alike. It was, as Sukumar Dutt argued (Problem of Indian Nationality, 1926), territorial assimilation by cultural conquest. Our Arya (noble, not a race) ancestors extended less by political conquest and more by integration with Arya culture. Thus they created and extended the mother country through spiritual and cultural affinities, thereby imparting a special uniqueness and unity to what would otherwise be merely a political or geographical entity.
As the idea developed over subsequent centuries, India’s spiritual unity embraced, with a rare lack of discrimination, even immigrant peoples, provided only they imbibed Arya culture. For, as Dutt avers, “here culture and not race or language was the passport for admission.” In this manner, foreign origins could be converted into genesis linked to the native culture, thereby endowing the immigrant community with a birthright (adhikar) to admission in the larger socio-spiritual-cultural polity.
It is pertinent to see if Ms. Sonia Gandhi and her offspring meet the standards of this extremely lenient yardstick. Obviously, foreign origins per se do not bar admission to the fraternity. Yet it would be difficult to concede that Ms. Gandhi has, by virtue of her marriage into an illustrious family, belated acquisition of Indian nationality, and subsequent public displays of obsequiousness before selected acharyas, become either a votary of Arya culture or truly imbibed its letter and spirit.
Simply put, she has failed to acquire adhikar because, far from integrating herself with the nation’s foundational ethos and its contemporary aspirations, she has aligned with forces that de-legitimise both. Ms. Gandhi is viewed as a Hindu-baiter who seeks to garner voters by dividing the Hindu community on caste lines while promoting minority interests at the cost of the majority community. The perception that she has deliberately opted out of the national cultural mainstream constantly validates concerns about her nativity, for she remains foreign in looks, accent, culture, behaviour, and aspirations.
This intuitive – though intellectually unarticulated – perception of adhikar led Mr. Pramod Mahajan to state that only persons of wholly Indian parentage should be eligible for high office. For the sad truth is that even though they were raised in the household of late Mrs. Indira Gandhi, who consciously strove to uphold the civilizational ethos in the public realm, both Rahul and Priyanka remain aloof and apathetic towards it.
An incident that readily comes to mind is Ms. Sonia Gandhi’s visit to Tirupati in January 1999, along with daughter Priyanka, who is married into a Christian family. Despite assurances to the temple managing committee, both ladies refused to admit their non-Hindu affiliations on grounds of political expediency and stormed in without even covering their heads. In all the years since Mr. Rajiv Gandhi’s death, if you discount compulsory visits to samadhis of family members, Priyanka’s public appearances have been restricted to the Page Three parties and fashion shows she regularly attends. A solitary attempt to project her as a social worker (she once folded a rug with a nun in a convent) mercifully died a natural death.
Mr. Rahul Gandhi spared us this subterfuge by living abroad. But like his mother, he believes he owes no concessions to Indian culture and sensibilities. In the winter of 2002, Rahul visited India with a girl whom media reports identified as a Columbian called Juanita. Since news about the Gandhi family is given only to friendly scribes (remember how the sonographic reports about the sex of both Priyanka’s children were leaked?), there was little reason to doubt the story.
Later, however, speculation began about the girl’s family, with one uncle purported to be a famous drug-lord. A year later, Rahul returned with a foreign girlfriend and, according to a ‘fact sheet’ by a friendly scribe, we were told she is a Venezuelan named Veronique, and that they are not marrying to protect Rahul’s chances at the polls.
We have no means of knowing if Juanita and Veronique are truly different characters, but we can see how the Gandhi family views everything through the prism of its personal interests. Ms. Sonia Gandhi should tell the nation if successive family holidays over successive years, with no marriage in sight, constitute her notion of Bharatiyata. And Rahul should tell us if his foreign wife-to-be is also a potential claimant to public office, like his mother?
The Congress cannot evade these issues as it prepares to foist a family steeped in a non-Hindu ethos upon the nation. We are within our rights to ask them to articulate their stand on critical issues agitating the nation today: one, whether a Rama temple should be built on the extant site at Ayodhya where the remains of an older temple have been conclusively found by the Archaeological Survey of India; and two, whether the family supports the growing Hindu resistance to religious conversions by force and fraud, or upholds minority intransigence on this issue?
Finally, I have a personal question. What is the calibre of persons who have to flaunt their chromosomes with every breath? Clearly they have no achievements of their own. Contrast Gandhi luxury with the Prime Minister’s family. On 26 January 2004, Mr. Vajpayee’s grand-nephew and a friend died after being thrown out of a running train for saving the honour of some young girls. As tragedy brought the bereaved family to the limelight, what stood out was their middle class status and simplicity despite such a close relationship with Atalji.
It is true that the Congress is shy of openly projecting Ms. Sonia Gandhi as prime ministerial candidate in the forthcoming elections. Hence the BJP president Venkaiah Naidu is correct to focus his campaign on Mr. Vajpayee and his achievements. But Congress is simultaneously trying to legitimise any future claims by a member of the family; hence issues of their nativity and cultural empathy remain relevant in the public realm. The BJP would do well to remember that Ms. Gandhi is relatively young; both she and her backers can afford to wait another day.
The Pioneer, 10 February 2004