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Talking
to Sonia Gandhi
By
Jonathan
Power
April 28th, 2004
LONDON - Two weeks before the count
we already can be pretty sure of the outcome of the
Indian election. Mrs. Sonia Gandhi, head of the Congress
party, the fifty-seven year old widow of the slain prime
minister, Rajiv Gandhi, will not be the next leader of
India.
There is a very slight chance that
this is wrong- Indian opinion polling sometimes goes
awry. Mrs. Gandhi is the underestimated candidate. She
has everything against her- her origins (Italian), her
religion (nominally Catholic), her education (modest)
and, not least, that this excruciatingly shy woman pales
into a shadow compared with her murdered mother in law,
Indira Gandhi, the master politician. Even some of her
staff are dismissive, calling her Kungi Kureya- Hindi for
a mute doll. In fact she comes across as a woman who is
not at all fazed at the prospect of moving from housewife
to be the ruler of 500 million males. Moreover, many
apolitical Indians cannot stand the religious
fundamentalism of the incumbent government and may decide
at the last moment to vote for her.
It is rare a journalist arriving
for an interview with a politician doesn't get a
handshake, especially so when they are totally alone. But
that is how it was with Sonia Gandhi. I felt left with no
alternative but to ask my last question first. I would
break the ice or be broken by it. "May I ask you a very
personal question?" Quietly but quickly the answer came
back, "Yes". "Isn't it difficult to go into the centre of
the maelstrom of Indian politics knowing all you do of
its dangers and the terrible toll it has taken with two
assassinations in your family? Are you really at peace
with that?" "I am at peace. I have thought it
through."
"Why did the pull of politics
overcome your inhibitions? You had long said you would
never go into politics." "At the time of the 1998
election Congress was in serious difficulties. We were
badly divided and factions were fighting each other.
Senior members of the party who had tried to persuade me
before came to me again. My children were then grown up.
I agreed".
"Moreover, I feel very strongly
about India being a secular state. By secular state I
mean one that will encompass all religions. The present
government doesn't stand for that. It is important that
Congress is in power."
She looks surprised when I ask her
about her own religious convictions. "I'm not religious.
My family never was. My father never went to church; my
mother did but not every week. I got sent away to
boarding school so I suppose that had its effect
too."
"So on what principles do you draw
on when you make moral decisions, in family life or in
politics?" "I suppose these Catholic values are at the
back of my mind", she replies without needing to pause to
weigh what she is saying. "And how would that affect a
decision whether or not in a crisis to use nuclear
weapons? Could you press the button?" She grimaces but
doesn't answer. The rolled eyes tell it
all.
I break the silence recounting how
when Zbigniew Brzezinski was President Jimmy Carter's
National Security Advisor I asked him this question. She
asked me what his answer was- brutal in a word- and then
told me she had just been given his latest book. "But
Robert McNamara has a very different view on the value of
nuclear weapons." I opine. "I like that man. He's been
here a couple of time for seminars we've organized here.
I have learnt a lot from him."
The mood has changed. Her lips are
no longer pressed. The tension has dissipated. For the
first time she is looking me in the eye. I can see she
wants to talk about the dilemma of nuclear weapons.
She asks me not to write in detail about this part of the
conversation but I am left with the feeling of a moral
soul who will not take a step towards war with the
equanimity that characterized her mother in
law.
We end up talking at length about
Mrs. Gandhi senior and the amusing political stories she
used to regale me with.
She raises her hands ever so
slightly. My time is up. Then as I stand to leave I am
moved to tell this obviously solitary and even
disconsolate woman what I've never in 40 years of
reporting the world told another politician: "I know you
are a good person. I can see that. I think India will be
in good hands with you and Manmohan at the helm.
(Manmohan Singh, her economic advisor and originator of
the Indian economic miracle.) Can we keep talking?" She
nods and holds out her hand.
I can be reached by phone +44
7785 351172 and e-mail: JonatPower@aol.com
Copyright © 2004 By
JONATHAN POWER
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