by Javier Moro
After the hopes aroused by Sonia, there comes a moment of massive disappointment. At the headquarters of the Congress Party, frowning and with her glasses on, Sonia reads the report on the elections in Gujarat from the secretary general of her party. The atmosphere is gloomy. “The Congress Party has not won a single seat within a radius of 100 kilometres around Godhra, where a train carriage was set on fire, killing some fifty people. The Congress Party has lost all seats in the areas close to the state of Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan…” The conclusion is that, now, just as at the time of the destruction of the temple in Ayodhya, the policy of communal confrontations is paying dividends. The Hindus, the largest majority, are bowing to fear and racism. How to avoid that model taking hold in other parts of India? No one has the answer.
Now that everything seemed to be smiling for Sonia, the result of the elections in Gujarat is a jug of cold water which sets a question mark over her future. On the other hand, encouraged by its victory in Gujarat, the government decides to bring forward the first general elections of the 21st century to May, 2004 in order to take advantage of the prevailing wind and ratify its mandate for another five years. Sonia’s critics within the party claim that if the forces aligned with the BJP continue gaining ground at this rate, she will not be able to do anything to neutralise them. She is not seen as being sufficiently solid. The fact that under her leadership fourteen states have changed their political colour is begun to be seen as something insignificant. Sonia is vulnerable again. They reproach her for not having managed to project herself as a politician along the same lines as Indira or Rajiv. Even those most optimistic in the Congress Party have doubts about her ability to lead the party to victory. “Did we make the right decision when we asked her to lead the party?” the same ones who pushed her to accept now wonder. Some of her followers, loyal until now, comment to their party comrades that Sonia is good, but not good enough. They all admit that she has improved a lot, but say that she is not up to it and never will be. And in the Congress Party they are in a hurry to get back into power. The party that has governed India longest has been seven years out of power. It is the longest period of time in its whole history, and it coincides with Sonia Gandhi’s presidency. Little by little another conspiracy is forged. The closeness of the general elections encourages personal ambitions. If Sonia comes out unscathed from the plot this time it is because the ringleader dies in a road accident. But discontent reigns in many sectors of the party.
While the debate about her abilities as a leader and her lack of experience continues, Sonia dares to present a motion of censure against the government, accusing it of a series of charges that go from anarchy to corruption. She attacks head on, mixing aggression with witty comments, speaking fluently and amusingly. Since they are a minority in Parliament, the motion is rejected, but Sonia manages to present the image of a leader who could be an alternative to the current government. Far behind now is that novice MP who had to search for words, who remained silent when asked a question, or who turned bright red when she was attacked. The elections are only round the corner, and there is no other leader capable of galvanising the grassroots. The die is cast. There is no going back, not for Sonia and not for the Congress Party.
47
New Delhi, May 10th, 2004. At the age of 57, Sonia is still a very pretty woman, just as she was when she was young. But it is a beauty that bears the marks of the tragedies that have struck her, and that is why her face has an expression that may seem harsh. As a young woman she laughed so much, but now she always seems grave, with a smile that does not quite convince because it emerges from the depths of her sadness. Not only has her face changed; her body language is different now too. Her vigorous step, the way she moves her shoulders under the cloth of her saris, everything about her is reminiscent of Indira. Sonia has become Indian even in her gestures.
When she is tired, a tenseness appears in her demeanour. And today, this Monday morning, as Sonia Gandhi puts her eye make-up on with fine brushstrokes of kohl using the mirror on her dressing table at home in New Delhi, she feels exhausted. She has spent several weeks on intense electoral campaigning, and she has travelled thousands of kilometres all over the Indian sub-continent, almost the same distance as a trip round the world, and putting up with the extreme heat at that time of year. Most of the travelling has been done by car, by helicopter and on foot, but she has also had to go ten kilometres by camel in order to get to a small community in Rajasthan. And she did it just to reach a village of barely two hundred inhabitants, where they were waiting for her with open arms because no candidate had ever deigned to go there before. During those days she has thought a lot about her mother-in-law, about her desire to get to the people’s hearts, to reach the remotest village, like the time when she had to cross a river at night on the back of an elephant in order to get to Belchi, a village of untouchables who were traumatised because they had been the victims of a massacre. Like her mother-in-law, Sonia has spared no effort to get her message through to the most remote places. And even if she does not win these elections, she will never be able to reproach herself for not trying her best. As usual, meeting the poor of India has been very gratifying for her. At moments of uncertainty, the words of Mahatma Gandhi that she read one day on the wall in a rural dispensary come into her head: “When you doubt or question yourself, try the following test: remember the face of the poorest and weakest man you have ever seen and ask yourself if the step you are about to take is going to be of any use to him. Will he gain anything from it? Will it give him some control over his life and his destiny?… Then you will about your doubts and yourself melting away.”
An electoral campaign on a national level is tough for someone who has never hidden her aversion for power. Living with that contradiction intensifies her feeling of brutal exhaustion, which prevents her even from changing her sari this morning to go and vote. She decides to leave what she has on. After all, it is white, the colour of widows in India, and today, election day, wearing that sari will be a way of keeping Rajiv’s memory alive. Which is like helping herself to stay alive. Because everything she does, she still does to keep his memory, since physically she cannot touch him. And for her children, Rahul and Priyanka, who have supported her so much in the campaign, in life. There is nothing like the pain at the loss of loved ones for bringing people together.
She detests attracting attention and being the protagonist; she has only given two interviews in her whole life, and yet she has suddenly found herself galvanizing crowds of up to a hundred thousand people about six times a day in different places. She has spoken fluently in Hindi, with a slight accent, and she has given speeches in the style of Indira, trying hard to convince six hundred million voters to vote for the Congress Party. Sometimes she finds it hard to believe that she is at the head of the largest democratic political organization in the world. If a fortune-teller had predicted that for her in her youth, when she still lived in Italy, she would have called him a charlatan.
What did she say to those millions of voters who listened to her, entranced? She spoke to them about her in-laws, a family that has governed India for more than four decades, but which has been out of power for seven years. She spoke to them about the values the Nehru-Gandhis have always represented: freedom, tolerance, laicism secularism and unity. She insisted that these are no ordinary elections, but a historic confrontation between different values, between diametrically opposed ideologies. A struggle between light and obscurantism; between an India where there is room for everyone and for all religions, and another mediaeval, exclusive India. What is at stake, she repeated, is co-existence between the countless cultures, ethnic groups, castes and religions that make up India. In short, the very existence of the country as a nation.
The cities are plastered with electoral posters. The BJP is very satisfied with its slogan: “India shines”, which refers to the good state of the economy. With a country that is growing at a rate of 9%, two seasons of abundant monsoon rains and
, finally, a relaxed relationship with the old enemy, Pakistan, they are confident and not at all worried. They think that their rival, the Congress Party, is finished, unable to rise again from its ashes, crushed under the weight of its own bureaucracy. They are convinced that Sonia is a leader not skilled or experienced enough to bring it back to life, and even less to win enough seats in these legislative elections. First of all because she is a foreigner and, secondly, because they think she has neither the charisma of her mother-in-law nor the charm of her husband. They say she has never expressed an original opinion about international events or the direction in which India is heading in the field of the economy. Thirdly, because they believe they have managed to have her considered by public opinion as a mere gungi gudiya, a mute doll, manipulated unscrupulously by the old dinosaurs of the Congress Party. And did they not say the same about Indira Gandhi when she stood for election for the first time?
But if her adversaries had followed close behind her over these weeks of campaigning, perhaps they would not be so arrogant. They would have witnessed the tremendous welcome that hordes of women and men gave Sonia and her children, covering them with roses and carnations, chanting their names in a kind of frenzy. “This is not political, it’s emotional,” a European journalist commented one day to Rahul, now aged 33, who is standing for the first time as a candidate for the constituency of Amethi, that was once his father’s. If Sonia loses, her son is already at the starting line. No one can escape the destiny of their surname.
“Who does India shine for?” Sonia asked in her speeches. “For the peasants who commit suicide by drinking rat poison because they cannot pay off their debts?” The crowd received her words with roars of approval.
The slogan “India shines”, aimed especially at an urban middle class made up of some 300 million voters, has been contrasted by Sonia with another less glossy one that is aimed at those 700 millions that still have not tasted the fruits of the economic prosperity: “Choose a government that works for you,” she repeats. It is one of Indira’s slogans, which she used in several campaigns. The modern method of campaigning of the party in power, which has sent a voice message from the Prime Minister to 110 million fixed and mobile phones all over the country (reaching 355 million voters under the age of 25, a real technological achievement), has been contrasted by Sonia with the traditional style of travelling round India shaking hands, hugging people, connecting with them, immersing herself in the sentimental adoration of the masses.
Very often, the Tata Safari in which they were travelling had to stop as many as ten times in an hour when it was completely surrounded by peasants whose gaunt faces and skinny bodies were stuck up against the windows. Sonia had to push hard to open the front door of the car and stand up without getting out of the car, while the crowd crushed even closer, giving cries of jubilation and waving their arms in the hope of touching her.
On this campaign it has been noticed that her children arouse the same passions, especially Priyanka, who is now in her thirties. It was a revelation to see to what an extent she can captivate the crowds, who have come en masse to hear her speak. And that is in spite of her not standing for any seat. She has just had a baby daughter, Miraya, who, together with the older child, Rehan, keeps her very busy. That is why she has only helped her mother and her brother sporadically. But it was enough for her to wave her arm for hundreds of hands to immediately return the greeting with cries of joy. Rahul has also aroused the passion of the masses: as soon as he opens the window, they fill the inside of the car with rose petals. One day, the engine stalled and the driver could not get it started again. The man got out and opened the bonnet, while Sonia repeated “What chaos, what chaos!” trying to look through the windscreen that was filthy with sweat and squashed petals to see if the driver was able to find the problem. “Mother, stay here in the car,” her son said, patting her on the shoulder, frightened that it might occur to his mother to get out at that moment, ignoring the security protocols. In the end the driver came back and managed to get the engine to rev up again.
“What was wrong?” asked Sonia.
“The flowers, Madam,” the man replied. “The daisies had blocked the ventilator belt!”
That does not seem like the image of a political dynasty that is heading straight for failure, as their adversaries predict, and even certain colleagues in the party. It is rather the image of a woman and a family who can tune in to the people, even though few people may want to admit that. The fact is that Sonia has won the respect and affection of her adopted country because she agreed to live the same life that killed her brother-in- law, her husband and her mother-in-law. The people, lulled for thousands of years by the great epics of the Ramayana and the Mahabharata where the deeds of men rival those of the gods, seem to be grateful to her for that sacrifice, and show it every time there is an occasion. And she does not miss an opportunity to return the signs of affection. During the campaign, after four long, hot days, she could be seen relaxed only on one occasion, in the middle of a dusty plain, when she ordered the electoral convoy to stop and walked off alone to where she had seen a group of nomad women under a shelter of sticks and black plastic bags. Those women had not the slightest idea of who she was. Sonia did not understand their dialect. The photographers had been left behind and no one was going to capture the scene on film. But there, far from the crowds, from the Press and from the party meetings, Sonia Gandhi enjoyed hugging the poorest of the poor of India.
She does not think she is going to win; hardly anyone thinks so in the party, and even less outside the party. The polls all agree: the Congress Party is not among the favourites. “She has no chance” says the Press. But they cannot stop people asking her if she will become the first Indian of foreign extraction to be Prime Minister. In theory, she can, if the Congress Party and its allies win the necessary majority of seats and then they designate her as Prime Minister. Legally too, because the Constitution does not stipulate that only persons born in India can aspire to the top jobs in the government. Aware that the world of India is wider than the nation of India itself, those who wrote the Constitution two years after Partition left the possibility open to everyone; and they did so because the tragedy of Partition had caused such a flow of refugees from Pakistan and Bangladesh that they preferred not to set any limits and not add anything that might incite even more division.
For the moment, with these elections, Sonia only wants to take the Hindu nationalists down a peg or two and help the Congress Party up, pulling it out of the stagnation into which it has fallen. She would feel satisfied with that. She would have done her duty to her family and to the ideals that the members of the family always defended, and which are today under so much threat. She would shake off a little of the weight of that immense legacy that she carries on her shoulders. And perhaps she could rest a little.
Also, even if she does not admit it, some good results would bring a nice touch of revenge on those who vilify her, who have humiliated her unceasingly since she decided to accept the presidency of the Party in 1998. As voting day has come closer, the attacks have got worse. Her detractors have struck her below the belt: they have brought to light that Sonia chose to take Indian nationality in 1983, that is to say one year before her husband became Prime Minister. “Why didn’t she do it before, if she had been married since 1968 and she says she feels so Indian?… She did it to help her husband win the elections,” they point out treacherously. “Her so-called ‘Indianness’ is nothing but thirst for power,” they add. It is a deceptive argument that seeks to tarnish her image by showing her as ambitious. In fact she did it to counteract the attacks from Maneka, who was the first to conjure up the spectre of her “Italianness”. Besides, perhaps in 1983 Sonia did not feel completely Indian, perhaps her process of Indianization has been slow and has grown in the shadow of the years and the family tragedies… but who cares about the truth? Her origins have become a hobbyhorse in the electoral battle.
The attacks are so low t
hat at the beginning of April the Supreme Court intervened with a bill to prohibit “slander” at election time. But it was already too late; feelings were running too high. Peace at the polls is still an unreachable dream. Two days ago, Sonia tried to settle the criticism over her origins once and for all. At an end of campaign mass meeting, she addressed her thousands of supporters in Sriperumbudur, the city where Rajiv was assassinated: “I am here, on this soil mixed with my husband’s blood. I can assure you that there is no greater honour for me than to share his fate for the good of India.” The people do not seem to doubt the sincerity of her words, knowing that in Sonia Gandhi politics and personal life are intricately interwoven. In the end, the restraint in her reactions and the immense dignity she has shown in the face of the dirtiest attacks make her seem even more Indian and more worthy of their trust.
Today she has no voice, and that is why she replies to the butler with a gesture and a smile when he lets her know they are ready to take her to vote. Smart and with her handbag dangling from her arm, Sonia remains transfixed in front of the television. The newsreel is giving out the world news: ten years ago today Mandela, the man she most admires and whom she knows personally, was taking power in South Africa, and in another electoral campaign, in the United States, President Bush is gaining ground over the Democrat candidate, John Kerry, in spite of popular support for the war in Iraq being at an all time low… Not only in India is politics full of contradictions and surprises.