By Kollengode S Venkataraman, Written in 1998)
“Sycophancy has no place in the [Congress] party. We must say what we mean. We must mean what we say,” declared the Italian-born Sonia Gandhi on April ’98 while addressing the Congress Party delegates after being ‘coronated’ as the president of the 113-year old party.
She is also the leader of the Congress Parliamentary Party without being a member of Indian parliament. Indira Gandhi was the only other person having this dubious distinction. This means, as the leader of the largest party in the opposition, she has the chance of being invited by the President to form government if Atal Behari Vajpayee’s government falls. And with Vajpayee hanging precariously with the vainglorious Corruption Queen Jaya as his coalition partner, there is good chance of the government falling before completing its term.
Therefore, it is natural if people in India expect the person who has the constitutional opportunity and the political odds of becoming the next prime minister to be Indian, at least in appearance and ethos. Indians can sigh in relief. Why? Because, finally, Sonia has become a true Indian.
How? In the very meeting where she castigated sycophancy, according to Indian papers, she accepted a laaarge flower garland from sycophants shouting Sonia Gandhi Zindabad and listened quietly as “majority of the senior and senile party leaders vied with one another to genuflect before her for her decision to take over the Congress party.” A quintessential product of sycophancy herself true to the Congress tradition, she surrounds herself with cronies. India subsumes everyone! But then, as political leaders all over the world are no different
In India — and in many other parts of the world — what one practices doesn’t have to have any semblance to what one preaches. It can be, and often is, even the opposite. Example:
Indians single-mindedly pursue wealth and power by fair and foul means as people do everywhere. But unlike others who go about their pursuits full blast without caring for anything else, many Indians routinely talk about nishkamya karmam (discharging one’s duties without desiring the fruits of action) and the evils of materialism. Keeping in line with this spirit of her compatriots, Sonia, if not in her Hindi, at least in her hypocrisy, has finally become an Indian. Welcome to the parivaar (family), Sonia!
Two inconvenient footnotes: 1) Sonia Gandhi, Rajiv’ vidhwa and Indira’s bahu, waited for more than a decade till her husband became the Prime Minister to take Indian citizenship. 2) She became the primary member of the Congress party only two years ago.
Several of you are naturalized citizens of this great land. Granted, for a variety of reasons, your aggression is confined to the politics in your temples or social groups. Even if you are politically active outside, how many of you, as naturalized citizens, can even think of getting elected to your local borough councils? END