by Javier Moro
“And what if I lose?”
“You leave the field open for Maneka and Sanjay’s followers, and that is very dangerous, do you see?”
“Maneka isn’t twenty-five yet. That’s the legal age for being an MP in Parliament.”
“But she will be by the next elections. There cannot be two different heirs of Sanjay Gandhi. That’s why there is a rush for you to accept. And it’s crucial for you to win Amethi.”
There was a silence. Rajiv’s face had aged. In almost a whisper, he added: “There is an air of inevitability about all this, isn’t there?”
“When your mother went to help your grandfather,” Kaul told him, “she was not part of the government either,” he paused, aware of the huge sacrifice this decision was demanding of the family. “What does Sonia say?”
“I would not have taken the decision without her. I’ll try to fit my career as a pilot in with politics, as long as I can. Then we’ll see what happens.”
“It’s a fair solution,” Kaul concluded.
After so much accumulated anguish, the decision was a kind of liberation, but without joy. As always in the family history of the Nehrus, what had always won was a sense of duty over and above all other considerations. Sonia shut herself up in her room and did not come out for four days. Her children were unable to console her. They said she spent the time weeping.
When she emerged from the depths of suffering, she was skin and bone and haggard. Over the following days she hardly ate a thing and stopped dressing as elegantly and stylishly as she had before.
29
Rajiv’s old dream finally came true and he passed the exams to obtain the certificate as pilot of the 737; but for him the pleasure of crossing the skies in jets was not going to last very long. The closing date for him to stand for the constituency of Amethi, which he was going to inherit from his brother, was coming inexorably closer. The law of incompatibilities prevented Rajiv from holding a public position (Indian Airlines was a State-owned company) and at the same time standing as MP. As it was clear that from here on he would not be able to combine his career with politics, he had no alternative but to make politics into his career. So, one hot day in May, 1981, he took the decision. He arrived home after spending the day in the air, took off his uniform tie, jacket and trousers and put on a white kurta, the “politicians’ uniform”. He went to the airline’s head offices to hand in his pilot’s pass and to say farewell to his colleagues and bosses. Sonia saw him leave with her heart bleeding. It was the final farewell to the life that he had chosen in England, when he was looking for a way to earn his living so that they could marry because he was crazy about her.
As was predictable, the couple’s life changed from that day. They could no longer be seen at night in the Casa Medici, the Italian restaurant in the posh Taj Hotel, or in the Orient Express, in the new Taj Palace Hotel. They changed everything, from their schedules to the way they dressed. Rajiv wore kurtas because it had been suggested that it would be a good idea for him to give a more “Indian” image, and not so European. So he said goodbye forever to the jeans he used to wear when he was not in uniform, he said farewell to the Italian shoes that Sonia bought for him when they were away on holiday, and he wore sandals, although he held on to his Ray-Ban sunglasses, oval-shaped and with metal frames, which were fashionable in those days. The reality was that Indian clothing was nicer to wear and was more appropriate for that merciless heat than Western clothes. The kurtas made of raw cotton were worn over pyjama-type trousers or chowridars, wide at the hips and narrowing in folds down to the ankles. He also wore the hat typical of members of the Congress Party, and Indira thought that with the age he was exactly like his father, Firoz.
Once Rajiv had taken the decision, he did not look back. If destiny was putting him in this situation, it was better to make the most of it and do it well, as best as he could. The old ideals that his grandfather had talked about at table when they were teenagers—the struggle against poverty, in favour of equality and a secular state, etc.—, those principles that his mother had inherited, he made his own too. He was not leaping into the ring in order to accumulate wealth or power, because they had never attracted him. He lacked any kind of personal ambition, but he had ideas for India. If now he could do his bit for the life of the nation, it was better to do so with as much information as possible.
But he found it hard to shake off his world, which was the world of technology, of proven facts, of concrete things that are ruled by known, provable laws. A plane flies because the air bears the weight of its wings. What maintains the success of a politician? There were many possible answers, many variables, but no certainty, except in his case: he had a last name that was a recognizable “trademark”. The intellectuals and Indira’s adversaries threw it in his face: “the only qualifications Rajiv has are his genes”. The wealthy classes were disconcerted by what they considered as another act of nepotism on Indira’s part. But the “great mass of Indian humanity” saw it in its own way, through the prism of tradition, according to which sons follow the vocations of their parents. For centuries, in the villages and cities of India, master artisans, musicians, scribes, cooks, grooms, healers, architects and politicians transmitted the secrets of their profession to their offspring. By getting Rajiv into the life of politics, Indira and her party colleagues did nothing more than follow a well-established tradition.
During his first campaign, Rajiv had to make a great effort to fight his own shyness. For someone so jealous of his privacy, being the centre of attention constantly and facing questions from the media was difficult to put up with. “Politics has never been my thing,” he declared one day to a reporter who had asked him why he was standing. “I’m standing because I have to help my mother somehow…” His openness made him into an object of scorn, and he soon learned to weigh his words, to always give clear answers that could not be misinterpreted or twisted.
Speaking in public without notes was not easy either, because it was necessary to find a way to say not only what he wanted to say, but also to connect with those who had come to listen to him. The rallies took place in town squares and the organizers did not always have the means to put up an awning to shade him from the sun. Most often, Rajiv would find himself facing a crowd of about a thousand people in the blazing sun. Many would be sitting on mats on the ground, most would be standing at the back, and they would all have come to have darshan with a man who was already part of the long list of personalities in Indian mythology. There were many poor peasants, because Amethi was a very backward area in the state of Uttar Pradesh. But there were also shopkeepers, labourers, village notables, Sikh businessmen whose turbans stood out among the crowd, many unemployed young men, swarms of children, some with their worn uniforms based on the uniforms of English schools, Moslem women with their faces covered, Hindu peasant women with multicoloured saris… They were all packed together in spite of the temperature of forty degrees. It smelt of sweat, flowers, dust and smoke from bidis, those cigarettes made of cut tobacco known as the “cigarettes of the poor”. Before speaking, Rajiv took off the garlands of orange carnations that had faded against the whiteness of his kurta and placed them on a table or handed them to an assistant. His style was very different from his brother’s. He was not grandiloquent and he did not harangue the masses. Quite the opposite, his humility and his curiosity led him to ask many questions. On his constant trips, stuck in the control cabin of the plane, Rajiv had dreamed of a fairer country, more prosperous, more modern and more humane. Now, at ground level, the reality could be seen differently: the backwardness was tremendous, the lack of resources, desperate, and the poverty, extreme. How was it possible? Where was the system failing? During moments of rest, he took out of a black bag a silver invention that aroused admiration:
“It’s a revolutionary invention,” Rajiv said. “One day it will be as popular as a calculator or a type-writer, you’ll see.”
“What’s it for?” asked a young party member.
“For
many things. I want to use it to have a database and to follow up the improvements we are going to set in motion here in Amethi.”
It was a laptop computer, one of the first to be seen in India. Rajiv’s method consisted of identifying the failings so that he could then know where to intervene in order to rectify them. Some problems were obvious, such as the lack of roads, which forced the little electoral convoy to drive, sometimes for an hour or more, down narrow dirt tracks between fields ploughed by gaunt oxen, in order to gain access to the little villages. Most of the dwellings were adobe huts which the peasants had to rebuild after each rainy season. Those villages had no kind of communication at all with the outside world. “If at least they could be given a phone connected by satellite!” Rajiv told himself. Yet, there was a ray of hope: when the poorest people were asked what they most needed, they never asked for food or money, or even a hut to live in, or that there might be a well with drinking water in the village—all urgent necessities -. The poorest of the poor wanted schools for their children above all. In the first place, education, and, immediately afterwards, medical dispensaries.
As was to be expected, Rajiv won by an ample margin. Sonia was the first to congratulate him. They hugged each other tight. That victory gave her husband some very necessary support, and Sonia could see that in the look on his face, suddenly more relaxed and confident. It was the justification for many months of torment. Sonia felt that Rajiv was beginning to like the experience, although she missed the past. “Before, our world was recognizable and intimate,” Sonia would say. “There were days of concentrated activity and then long periods of leisure. Now it was the opposite. Our lives filled with people, hundreds of them every day, politicians, party workers, all putting on the pressure with their demands and their urgent problems. Time stopped being flexible and every hour that Rajiv spent with us became more and more valuable.”
What Rajiv still could not get used to was the nuisance the media were. He responded with hesitations and interruptions. “You reporters hurl yourselves at politicians like tigers,” he once said, overwhelmed. But at the same time he felt that he was beginning to be appreciated by a growing number of people. The contrast with his brother’s personality was so refreshing that it helped him win followers. If Sanjay had left behind the memory of an abrasive, pitiless character, vulgar in the ostentation of power, Rajiv was quite the opposite: a gentle man with impeccable manners, a born peace-maker who used common sense to settle conflicts, and above all a man without any strange contacts or suspicious associates. “I want to attract a new type of people into politics,” he declared to the Sunday Times, “intelligent, young, Westernized and without feudal ideas, who want India to prosper rather than themselves.” He always showed his true face, that of an honest man, kind and with a good heart. Soon they would call him Mr Clean. And if that were not enough, he had a nice photogenic family, although Sonia was much more reluctant than he was to be photographed and even less to give interviews. Her fear and hatred of the Press and the media had become a constant in her life.
Rajiv was sworn in as an MP three days before his 37th birthday. He declared himself openly in favour of modernization, of freedom of enterprise and of opening the country up to foreign investment. He poured with sweat under the same dome that had returned the echo of his grandfather’s and his mother’s speeches. Nehru would probably have felt perplexed to see his grandson in that enormous hall as another representative of the people. But happy too to see that, like he, Rajiv believed that the solution to many of the ills of India lay in science and technology when they were properly applied.
Indira began to smile again. She felt that her son, who took on the role of personal advisor with surprising efficiency, was the ideal person to take on an ambitious project that the government had already embarked upon, aware of the need to improve the country’s image. It was a question of organizing the Asian Games, which were to take place in Delhi two years later. The project foresaw the construction of hotels, highways, several stadiums and a district to house the athletes. The initiative would be used too to extend the range of the colour television signal, which could only be received in the centre of the big cities. Successfully carrying out the project required a brain with a capacity for organization, an enterprising and imaginative mind. Indira felt that it was a good challenge for her son and, if it worked out well, it would improve his image and would serve to launch him into national politics. Suddenly Rajiv found himself coordinating architects, builders and financiers, and supervising an enormous budget.
Sonia had no ambition at all to make a place for herself in public life—what Maneka so longed for—whether it was as a volunteer in humanitarian causes or as a hostess for personalities. She was happy with her position in the shadow of her mother-in-law and she worked hard to ensure the Prime Minister’s home worked as efficiently as possible. In those days, Sonia came to be closer to Indira than ever before. “Knowing how deep her wounds were, Rajiv and I became even more protective towards her.” Her mother-in-law was deeply grateful to have them nearby. She spoke with great affection and gratitude of the way Rajiv “had offered to take over some of her responsibilities relating to the work in the party.” When the one-year period of mourning ended, during which time Indira had worn only white, black or cream coloured saris, Sonia chose for her a beautiful gold sari with Kashmir-style embroidery for the inauguration of an important conference of Asian countries.
“Look, this sari tones in with the decoration of the hall where the conference is going to be held… Do you like it?”
“I love it,” said Indira, “… it’s perfect for the people following the event on colour television.”
Seeing her dressed again in coloured saris, her friend Pupul said to her, “I’m glad you’re getting over it.”
Indira looked serious and did not answer her. But the next day she sent her a letter: “You said something to the effect that I might be getting over my grief. One can get over hatred, envy, greed and so many other negative and self-destructive emotions. But grief is something different. It cannot be forgotten or overcome. One has to learn to live with it, to integrate it into one’s very being and make it a part of one’s life.”
30
The note of discord was struck by Maneka, who saw with displeasure how her husband’s legacy was snatched away from her by his brother, although she knew perfectly well that she could not have stood for election as she did not have the required minimum age. She had always felt deep contempt for Rajiv, and now she began to make declarations to the Press, calling him her “indolent brother-in-law, incapable of getting out of bed before ten o’ clock”. The idea was implicit that she, the heir to the Gandhi name and the mother of Sanjay’s only child, was the most suitable person to one day succeed Indira at the peak of power. “How can Rajiv take on his brother’s mantle if he has never liked politics and is married to an Italian?” she said in public. Maneka was the first to use Sonia’s foreign origins against the family. Rajiv and Indira immediately smelt danger and asked Sonia to finalize the paperwork to acquire Indian nationality, to which she had a right through marriage. She should have done it long before but she had always put it off out of laziness. In her naivete, Sonia had always thought it was enough to feel Indian and to follow the customs and rites of society to be Indian. She had already relegated her skirts, her tight trousers, her jeans, her sleeveless blouses and her low-cut dresses to the darkness of the wardrobes. She only dressed in European clothes when she went to visit her family in Italy. In India she only wore saris or the Moslem version of Indian national costume, the salwar kamiz, wide cotton or silk trousers covered by a top with lots of buttons. But that was not enough: now she needed the official sanction, nationality, a passport. So one morning she went to the Home Office and spent several hours filling in papers and replying to questions from courteous civil servants. A few weeks later she received a letter: “The government of India hereby grants Sonia Gandhi, née Maino, a certificate of naturaliz
ation and declares that the aforesaid has the right to all the privileges, rights and responsibilities of an Indian citizen…” Next, among the papers that accompanied the passport, was the number and address of the electoral college where she would have to go to vote.
The only thing that Maneka achieved with her declarations was to annoy her mother-in-law even more. When the young woman showed her the first copy of the book she had designed about her deceased husband, Indira caused a fuss, claiming that part of the text and the captions of the photos were pernicious and distorted the truth. It could not be published like that.
“But it’s supposed to be presented in three days’ time!”
“You should have shown me the final draft earlier, not at the last minute. You’ll have to postpone the presentation for when the changes have been made.”
“I can’t, it’s all been organized already.”
“I will not allow the book to come out the way it is at the moment.”
Maneka left the room furious and slammed the door. “Maneka!!” shouted Indira. “Come here immediately!”
The young woman came back. This time she did not look like a frightened puppy. She had the defiant manner of a rebellious teenager. She held her mother-in-law’s gaze.
“Things cannot go on like this, Maneka. I cannot allow your nonsense with the Press to go on or for you to publish whatever you like about the family.”
Maneka hesitated between replying or putting up with the telling off. Indira bluffed, trying to make her daughter-in-law back down:
“If you want to leave this house, it’s up to you,” she told her firmly.
Maneka hesitated at the temptation of using the only weapon she could to strike Indira a lethal blow: taking her grandson away from her. Indira went on:
“If you carry on like this, our relationship in the future will be as if I had never met you. You choose: that, or go on being friends.”