19 March 2013, 05:39 PM IST
Everyone knows that Sonia Gandhi is the most powerful individual in India now. But how little one knows about her. Ms Gandhi, despite being the fountainhead of two successive UPA governments and president of the Congress party, remains an enigma wrapped in a riddle to many. Congressmen fear her, revere her. And there are many who loath her and consider her a foreigner, after all these years.
Journalist Tavleen Singh's memoir, Durbar (published by Hachette India), finds relevance in the run-up to 2014 Lok Sabha elections, thanks to her subtle portrayal of Ms Gandhi. She comes across as a loyal, caring friend but one who does not forgive easily.
As expected in a memoir, Durbar is full of Tavleen Singh. The book comes without any footnotes, and she mostly relies on her memory to reproduce conversations verbatim. There are many "I was there" moments. Although she reported some of the tumultuous events in post-Nehru era, including emergency, Operation Bluestar, Indira Gandhi's assassination, the defining moment of her memoir is when she realizes that she has been dropped by Sonia from her inner circle, a vantage point that helped her advise Rajiv Gandhi during his early days as a politician. The moment of truth came after a less-than-flattering profile of Sonia was published by India Today in December 1986. It is important to recall those lines from the profile. "Though impeccably attired and carefully groomed, her face, framed by her luxuriant chestnut hair, is an immobile mask. Perhaps deliberately, her public personality has given her the image of a mere ceremonial appendage to the Prime Minister."
We realize that between 1986 when she was the First Lady in the country with Rajiv being the prime minister and 2004, when the Congress party was ready to choose Sonia as prime minister, there has been an astonishing transformation. Sonia, in her own right, emerged as the most skillful politician in India, that too without the traditional skill sets of an Indian neta—no Hindi, no religious card. Yes, of course, the Gandhi name helped. But then think of Maneka Gandhi, and how she blew it.
Tavleen glosses over what Sonia achieved for her party and her family, without Rajiv around. In fact she is very much aware of what Sonia has achieved without her sage counsel and hence the lingering hurt.
Early on in Durbar, Tavleen makes this startling, sycophantic assertion: "The princes ruled 40% of India in the days of the British Raj and it was in this 40% that Indian culture was kept alive. The maharajas created schools of music and painting, built museums and kept Indian languages alive through their promotion of Indian literature and poetry." It makes me wonder how many were illiterate in the country when India won freedom in 1947.
Tavleen writes: "This did not stop Doordarshan programmes and Bollywood films from routinely depicting maharajas as venal and duplicitous and our new socialist rulers as paragons of virtue. Doordarshan programming was entirely controlled by the government and Bollywood was controlled by writers of leftist persuasion who liked to depict princes and rich businessmen as enemies of the people."
And for someone who cavils against Nehru and Indira Gandhi-era socialism and bats for the "real maharajas" her opposition to flourishing political dynasties in contemporary India is interesting. She certainly misses out on Mayawati, Mamata Banerjee, J Jayalalithaa, Naveen Patnaik, Narendra Modi and Prakash Karat, all of them who are unlikely to leave behind dynasties. She also unfortunately missed out on Rahul Gandhi's latest promise to stay as a bachelor boy.
Tavleen's naivete is shocking. She writes: "With a handful of rare exceptions, most Indian politicians enter politics today not for reasons of ideology or public service but because they believe their own interests and the interests of their own family are best served this way. All of this has happened because of the example set by the dynasty in Delhi." Politics is not charity. Politicians too need to safeguard their interests but not at the cost of public weal.
But for all that, Durbar is an interesting read although Tavleen relies on her memory too much. The book is worth a read just for the account of her brief interview with Morarji Desai, when he was prime minister during the Janata experiment in 1977. She quotes Desai: "We are ordinary people trying to do a very difficult job after a very difficult time. Did you people fight censorship? No. None of you fought. When she (Indira Gandhi) asked you to bend, you crawled, and you think you can just come along afterwards and attack us for everything."
And I thought it was L K Advani who made this famous statement about journalists during the emergency!
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