Do you know what? If Rahul Gandhi were a teenager, I think I might understand this mad quest to discover India. I remember reading great grand-daddy’s Discovery of India when I was an impressionable young schoolgirl, cocooned in a privileged boarding school in the foothills of the Himalayas. I remember being mesmerised by Panditji’s prose and his tribute to this broken-down country of ours that seemed so romantic when seen through the prism of my cocoon. It was years later, when I read the book again, that I puzzled over why an Indian should need to discover India at all. Isn’t that what foreigners do? Is the Congress Party’s heir apparent foreign to India? To its cruel realities and evil ways? Is he not old enough at nearly 40 to understand the dangers of wandering about Naxalite-infested villages in the middle of the night?
In an honest attempt to understand why Rahul risked his life to tour villages in the heart of Orissan darkness I made inquiries in Delhi’s political circles and discovered to my amazement that the escapade was devised by an event management company. So the man who pays their bills was sent off to a remote village with only his SPG bodyguards for protection. I hear from impeccable sources that suspicious villagers mistook them for bandits and it was only when they were assured that it was Rahul Gandhi they had in tow that a degree of bonhomie was restored. Cruel people in Delhi’s heartless corridors of power now make sneering comments about why he did not just read his great-grandfather’s book and discover India ensconced in the safety of 10 Janpath.
Speaking of which, Sonia Gandhi completed 10 years as president of our oldest political party last week making her the longest-serving person in this job ever. As someone who has used this column to passionately oppose an Italian prime minister of India, I feel the need to make a small diversion from analysing Rahul’s political travels to discuss Mummy for a moment. What has Sonia Gandhi achieved in ten years? She saved the Congress from certain disintegration, she proved that the tallest of our opposition leaders was no match for an apolitical housewife, and most importantly, she taught us how it is possible to control the levers of power in India without being prime minister. Not minor achievements for a woman who could not even speak a...
