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archive: The bahu's inheritance

The bahu's inheritance

Jaya Jaitly
The Indian Express
June 28, 1999


    Title: The bahu's inheritance 
    Author: Jaya Jaitly   
    Publication:  The Indian Express
    Date: June 28, 1999 
    
    For a woman who rejected an offer to head the Congress Party in 1991,
    Sonia Gandhi  has  come  a  long  way  in  revealing  her  true 
    colours.  In  Indian  politics,  when  a  political  leader  from  an 
    illustrious  family  or  a  popular  figure,  bureaucrat  or  police 
    officer  dies,  the  custom  is  to  cash  in  on  popular  sympathy 
    and  immediately  give  his  widow  or  daughter  a  ticket  to 
    fight  the  next  election  if  no  suitable  male  heirs  are 
    available.  Bahus  are  lower  in  the  order  of  priority.  The 
    woman  concerned  might  learn  to  be  a  good  parliamentarian  or 
    legislator  only  if  and  after  she  is  elected.  The 
    Italian-born  head  of  India's  oldest  political  party,  whose 
    USP  is  apparently  being  the  bahu  of  a  family  that  has 
    ``sacrificed''  for  the  country  is  now  taking  whatever  she 
    can  get  and  even  claiming  the  prime  ministership  before 
    having  been  required  to  contest  any  election.
    
    Photo-ops  and  family  connections  don't  make  much  of  a 
    bio-data  for  the  job  of  presiding  over  the  destiny  of  a 
    billion  people,  but  consider  the  number  ofcakes  Sonia  Gandhi 
    has  in  her  possession.  In  the  early  days  of  her  widowhood 
    Manmohan  Singh  as  finance  minister  gifted  away  Rs  100  crore 
    to  her  newly  set-up  Rajiv  Gandhi  Foundation.  An  NGO  has  to 
    show  three  years  of  work  before  the  government  grants  it 
    even  Rs  10,000.  Yet  Sonia  got  this  whopping  sum  without 
    having  to  ask,  and  had  to  enact  a  hasty  refusal  to  save 
    the  finance  minister  embarrassment  in  Parliament.  Since  then 
    the  RGF  has  received  facilities  and  vast  amounts  of  money 
    from  the  government.  This  includes  a  cheque  for  Rs  50  lakh 
    for  its  own  charitable  work,  which  the  concerned  ministry 
    was  then  shocked  to  see  being  presented  to  the  Spastics 
    Society  of  Calcutta,  headed  by  aunt-in-law  Sudha  Kaul.  Free 
    tickets  from  Air  India  for  participants  of  RGF  seminars  and 
    courtesy  visits  by  foreign  dignitaries  were  thoughtfully 
    facilitated  by  the  MEA.  On  its  governing  body  are 
    scam-tainted  people  on  bail.  Donors  had  their  contributions 
    frozen  when  their  scam  links  became  public.  Invitations  to 
    Rashtrapati  Bhavanand  functions  in  the  Central  Hall  of 
    Parliament  even  before  being  installed  as  head  of  the 
    largest  opposition  party  also  ensured  photo-ops.  A  widows' 
    home  in  Hardwar,  a  project  initiated  and  sponsored  by  the 
    Ministry  of  Welfare  this  year,  suddenly  found  Sonia  Gandhi 
    inaugurating  it.  A  photo-op  that  was  desperately  sought  by 
    K.  Karunakaran  and  V.  George  was  a  visit  to  Sonia  Gandhi 
    by  disabled  children  who  were  part  of  a  Ministry  of  Welfare 
    float  on  Republic  Day  this  year.  The  concerned  agencies 
    refused,  despite  repeated  calls,  including  one  from  the  bahu 
    herself.
    
    The  Indira  Gandhi  National  Centre  for  the  Arts  quietly 
    changed  its  constitution  to  make  Sonia  Gandhi  Chief  Trustee 
    for  life  and  removed  the  provision  stipulating  that  the 
    President  would  be  its  visitor  for  a  10-year  term,  even 
    though  it  is  a  fully  government-funded  institution.  This 
    convenient  sleight  of  hand  provides  her  with  an  extra 
    private  secretary  who  is  also  given  government  accommodation.
    
    The  legacy  of  copyrights  is  stranger  still.The  government's 
    Publications  Division  holds  the  copyright  of  prime  ministerial 
    speeches,  including  those  of  Jawaharlal  Nehru.  But  in  the 
    case  of  Indira  Gandhi  and  Rajiv  Gandhi,  the  copyright  vests 
    with  the  family  and  its  heirs.  Similarly,  the  Nehru  Memorial 
    Fund  has  published  Letters  to  the  Chief  Ministers  among  the 
    selected  works  of  Jawaharlal  Nehru.  The  bulk  of  the  writings 
    are  from  government  files,  but  have  been  published  by  a 
    private  trust  headed  by  Sonia  Gandhi.  The  royalties  go  to 
    ``the  family.''
    
    Teen  Murti  House  is  a  wholly  government-owned  property,  yet 
    it  houses  the  Nehru  Memorial  Fund,  the  Nehru  Cambridge  Trust 
    and  the  head  office  of  the  Kamla  Nehru  Hospital  in 
    Allahabad,  all  of  which  are  private  trusts,  naturally  headed 
    by  Sonia  Gandhi.  The  Nehru  Planetarium  was  built  by  the 
    Nehru  Memorial  Fund  on  government  land  without  formal 
    permission.  Naturally,  the  bahu  is  also  the  President  of  the 
    Nehru  Memorial  Museum  and  Library,  although  these  are  also 
    wholly  government-funded  bodies.The  Congress  was  allocated 
    prime  land  by  the  government  to  build  its  headquarters  on 
    Akbar  Road  in  New  Delhi.  The  Rs  9  crore  building  was  never 
    occupied  by  the  party.  It  is  now  in  the  possession  of  the 
    RGF.
    
    Sonia  Gandhi  can  hardly  belabour  the  sacrifices  of  the 
    family  of  which  she  is  now  the  prime  beneficiary. 
    Unfortunately,  Indira  Gandhi's  sacrifice  was  a  result  of  her 
    disastrous  Punjab  policy.  Rajiv  Gandhi's  owed  to  the  Gandhi 
    family  legacy  of  first  training  the  LTTE  and  then  sending 
    in  the  IPKF  to  destroy  it.  Disastrous  policies  cannot  result 
    in  sacrifices,  no  matter  how  tragic  the  assassinations  were. 
    Neither  the  sacrifice  of  Mahatma  Gandhi  nor  those  of 
    thousands  who  died  in  the  freedom  struggle  have  encouraged 
    their  descendants  to  lay  claim  to  so  much.
    
    Apart  from  such  material  legacies,  Sonia  has  taken  over  the 
    Congress  presidentship  in  an  ugly  coup  and  obtained  the 
    leadership  of  the  Parliamentary  Party  through  a  hasty 
    amendment  in  the  party's  constitution.  And  in  April  she  told 
    Jyoti  Basu  that  shewanted  to  be  prime  minister.
    
    The  supporters  of  the  ``foreigners  have  been  accepted  in 
    India''  theory  constantly  harp  on  the  examples  of  Mother 
    Teresa  and  Annie  Besant,  as  if  Sonia  Gandhi  belongs  to  the 
    same  philanthropic  tradition.  Because  the  RGF  is  flush  with 
    government  and  private  funds,  photographs  regularly  appear  of 
    Sonia  Gandhi  giving  ambulances  to  the  sick  and  wheelchairs 
    to  the  handicapped.  However,  Mother  Teresa's  life  was  one  of 
    total  self  sacrifice.  She  did  not  play  party  politics  on 
    the  side  or  lay  claim  to  the  prime  ministership.  Annie 
    Besant's  remarkable  work  was  done  on  her  own  strength  and 
    commitment  without  any  country  paying  the  astronomical  costs 
    of  her  upkeep.  Sonia  Gandhi  claims  the  precedent  of  a 
    Besant,  the  service  of  a  Mother  Teresa  and  prime 
    ministership  besides.  Quite  a  claim  from  a  person  whose 
    public  interaction  consists  of  10-minute  speeches  consisting 
    of  trite  cliches  written  by  ghosts.  She  has  neither 
    demonstrated  the  intellectual  ability  of  the  khandaan's  Nehru 
    norgained  the  political  experience  of  the  saas,  Indira.  As 
    for  pati  Rajiv,  there  is  no  harm  in  remembering  that  as 
    prime  minister  in  his  only  stint  in  politics,  he  earned  his 
    party  a  defeat  in  the  general  elections  of  1989.  Just  being 
    married,  producing  heirs  and  being  widowed  is   indeed  the 
    role  of  most  Indian  bahus,  but  they  have  not  yet  become 
    the  criteria  for  any  of  them  to  claim  such  a  vast 
    inheritance,  including  the  prime  minister's  chair.
    
    The writer is General Secretary, Samata Party
    



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