The making of Sonia Gandhi
Tuesday, 8 September 2009
Rasheed Kidwai
SONIA tried to learn how to speak in Hindi before taking the plunge into politics. She had begun learning Hindi at home soon after her marriage. Indira had arranged for a tutor from the Hindi Institute at Green Park in New Delhi to teach her to read and write in the Devanagari script. And slowly Sonia developed a liking for the language. Her teacher found her a good learner who seldom missed her homework.
'I had no choice so I learnt it', Sonia said, pointing at the tradition of speaking only in Hindi at the dinner table since the time of Motilal Nehru. No one, including the head of the family, was permitted to break the tradition. It is one custom that is still practised at 10 Janpath, her official residence in Delhi. In the first few months whenever Sonia spoke Hindi, Sanjay Gandhi would laugh at her mistakes. But, Indira and Rajiv Gandhi would quickly reprimand Sanjay and help Sonia. Sonia took Sanjay's remarks sportingly. In 1980, a few days before his death, she managed to correct 'his' Hindi. Everyone present had a good laugh. Sonia also made it a point to try to speak to all her Indian friends in Hindi. Now she initiates a conversation in Hindi with people from the Hindi heartland. But she remembers to speak in English to those who come from South India.
Once she was elected to parliament, the process of educating Sonia gained momentum with partymen vying to take up the assignment. The party's former chief whip in Lok Sabha, the lower house, Professor P.J. Kurian, who had lost the election, took it upon himself to acquaint Sonia with parliamentary conventions and practices. Also assisting her were Madhavrao Scindia, Shivraj Patil, M.L. Fotedar, Margaret Alva, Prithviraj Chavan, Salman Khurshid, Arjun Singh, P.M. Sayeed, Mani Shankar Aiyar, Girja Vyas and Pawan Bansal.
Sources close to Sonia said that her first few months in parliament were most testing. There were five hundred pairs of eyes watching her every movement. The press gallery, special gallery, visitors gallery, diplomatic gallery were all packed. There were at least a dozen eager beavers among the Congress benches itching to give unsolicited advice. Worse, trusted hands like Vincent George and Pulak Chatterjee, a bright 1974 IAS officer from the Uttar Pradesh cadre, could not be of any help once she was inside the Lok Sabha. As a Sonia aide said, 'Madam is a reticent person and she hated the intense public glare. She did not want to give the impression that Congress leaders were helping her. There used to be intense relief each time Parliament got adjourned.'
Sonia was aware of the prevailing tension in the Congress Parliamentary Party (CPP), but saw little reason to panic. She told her associates that she needed time, recalling how Rajiv could not make a speech in his first year in parliament (1981-82).
Slowly, she began learning the ropes. She made her first speech as an MP on October 29, 1999, though she had spoken there on five occasions before to felicitate the Speaker and the Deputy Speaker, second the motions of their election and announce her resignation form the Bellary parliamentary elected from both Amethi and Bellary, according to the law, she could keep just one seat. Bellary, an industrial town in Karnataka, gave Sonia a mandate in spite of spirited efforts by BJP's Sushma Swaraj who had taken pains to learn Kannada, the language of the southern Indian province of Karnataka.
There was constant media speculation that Sushma would defeat Sonia. But a day before campaigning ended, Priyanka arrived, and the entire township was out to see and hear her. Sushma did not wait for the verdict. She knew she had lost.
For her speech, Sonia came prepared with reams of paper, printed in bold 30-point type with just a couple of sentences written on each sheet. Sonia began speaking amid catcalls, but Speaker G.M.C Balayogi was extremely considerate. At the back of his mind was his own experience as he too had faced a communication problem when he was appointed Lok Sabha Speaker in 1998. He was from Andhra Pradesh and not very fluent in Hindi.
With this presentation, Sonia passed the litmus test.
(Extracted from 'Sonia a Biography'; by Rasheed Kidwai; published by Penguin Viking; Pp: 216; Price: Rs 425)
NewsNetwork/WFS
SONIA tried to learn how to speak in Hindi before taking the plunge into politics. She had begun learning Hindi at home soon after her marriage. Indira had arranged for a tutor from the Hindi Institute at Green Park in New Delhi to teach her to read and write in the Devanagari script. And slowly Sonia developed a liking for the language. Her teacher found her a good learner who seldom missed her homework.
'I had no choice so I learnt it', Sonia said, pointing at the tradition of speaking only in Hindi at the dinner table since the time of Motilal Nehru. No one, including the head of the family, was permitted to break the tradition. It is one custom that is still practised at 10 Janpath, her official residence in Delhi. In the first few months whenever Sonia spoke Hindi, Sanjay Gandhi would laugh at her mistakes. But, Indira and Rajiv Gandhi would quickly reprimand Sanjay and help Sonia. Sonia took Sanjay's remarks sportingly. In 1980, a few days before his death, she managed to correct 'his' Hindi. Everyone present had a good laugh. Sonia also made it a point to try to speak to all her Indian friends in Hindi. Now she initiates a conversation in Hindi with people from the Hindi heartland. But she remembers to speak in English to those who come from South India.
Once she was elected to parliament, the process of educating Sonia gained momentum with partymen vying to take up the assignment. The party's former chief whip in Lok Sabha, the lower house, Professor P.J. Kurian, who had lost the election, took it upon himself to acquaint Sonia with parliamentary conventions and practices. Also assisting her were Madhavrao Scindia, Shivraj Patil, M.L. Fotedar, Margaret Alva, Prithviraj Chavan, Salman Khurshid, Arjun Singh, P.M. Sayeed, Mani Shankar Aiyar, Girja Vyas and Pawan Bansal.
Sources close to Sonia said that her first few months in parliament were most testing. There were five hundred pairs of eyes watching her every movement. The press gallery, special gallery, visitors gallery, diplomatic gallery were all packed. There were at least a dozen eager beavers among the Congress benches itching to give unsolicited advice. Worse, trusted hands like Vincent George and Pulak Chatterjee, a bright 1974 IAS officer from the Uttar Pradesh cadre, could not be of any help once she was inside the Lok Sabha. As a Sonia aide said, 'Madam is a reticent person and she hated the intense public glare. She did not want to give the impression that Congress leaders were helping her. There used to be intense relief each time Parliament got adjourned.'
Sonia was aware of the prevailing tension in the Congress Parliamentary Party (CPP), but saw little reason to panic. She told her associates that she needed time, recalling how Rajiv could not make a speech in his first year in parliament (1981-82).
Slowly, she began learning the ropes. She made her first speech as an MP on October 29, 1999, though she had spoken there on five occasions before to felicitate the Speaker and the Deputy Speaker, second the motions of their election and announce her resignation form the Bellary parliamentary elected from both Amethi and Bellary, according to the law, she could keep just one seat. Bellary, an industrial town in Karnataka, gave Sonia a mandate in spite of spirited efforts by BJP's Sushma Swaraj who had taken pains to learn Kannada, the language of the southern Indian province of Karnataka.
There was constant media speculation that Sushma would defeat Sonia. But a day before campaigning ended, Priyanka arrived, and the entire township was out to see and hear her. Sushma did not wait for the verdict. She knew she had lost.
For her speech, Sonia came prepared with reams of paper, printed in bold 30-point type with just a couple of sentences written on each sheet. Sonia began speaking amid catcalls, but Speaker G.M.C Balayogi was extremely considerate. At the back of his mind was his own experience as he too had faced a communication problem when he was appointed Lok Sabha Speaker in 1998. He was from Andhra Pradesh and not very fluent in Hindi.
With this presentation, Sonia passed the litmus test.
(Extracted from 'Sonia a Biography'; by Rasheed Kidwai; published by Penguin Viking; Pp: 216; Price: Rs 425)
NewsNetwork/WFS