As a dutiful daughter-in-law, Sonia Gandhi always remembers the late Mrs Gandhi on her death anniversary. She takes flowers to her samadhi, listens to religious hymns on nationwide television and makes a special effort to attend commemorative events. This is admirable and to be commended in a country where the ‘saas-bahu’ relationship is usually fraught and ugly. It is when she goes beyond the personal and tries to steer us back towards the policies of her late mother-in-law that conscientious columnists like me are forced to raise a small voice of protest.

Sonia Gandhi is the most powerful politician in India so what she says is taken seriously. Not just by the sycophants and flatterers in the Congress Party but by ordinary Indians as well. Especially those millions of young voters who have no idea how bad the times were when Indira Gandhi ruled. No idea at all of what a shabby, second-rate country India was then or that it got that way largely because of Mrs Gandhi’s policies. So when Soniaji invokes her mother-in-law’s name, as she did on her death anniversary last week, to hold her up as a role model for young Indians, she needs to be careful.

Let me give you some extracts from the article Soniaji wrote in praise of mama-in-law in her party magazine, Sandesh, last week. “Let us reflect on and recall the simple and austere manner of her living and conducting herself. Let us continue to be guided by her... Her contributions are numerous and continue to resonate. It was her bold political leadership that made India self-reliant in the production of wheat and rice that brought prosperity to lakhs and lakhs of farmers, transforming rural India.”

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