Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
a leading role in enforcing Indira Gandhi's controversial State of Emergency (1975-77).
With a career as an Indian Airlines pilot, Rajiv Gandhi never wanted to enter politics,
and only did so reluctantly to help his mother after Sanjay was killed when a light plane
he was piloting over Delhi crashed in June 1980. I met Rajiv in January 1984 and asked
him whether he would one day succeed his mother. He was an MP and a Congress gen-
eral secretary at the time and had made a success of organising preparations for the 1982
happen to his mother, was he ready for the top post, I asked, echoing the question asked
of his mother 20 years earlier. 'That's a very difficult question because I've only been in
this game for a couple of years. Yes, I think I'm in it for life, but I do think I need more
experience,' he replied. In it for life indeed - and his widow after he was assassinated in
1991, and their children too.
Sonia Gandhi had no political ambitions for years after she entered the family, but even-
tually became active a few years after Rajiv's death when she was encouraged by a coterie
of eager courtiers to do her dynastic duty. She has said that she felt 'cowardly to just sit and
watch things deteriorate in the Congress for which my mother-in-law and the whole family
have suggested to me that she feared legal action over a 1987 Swedish Bofors gun contract
that had dogged her husband's later years, and needed to get into politics so that she would
have the power to defl ect official investigations and legal cases. Others say she wanted to
rebuild the power and influence of the family in various ways so as to secure them an elite,
stable future.
Basically, however, she felt she had to act as a bridge for the dynasty so that the suc-
cession would pass via her from Rajiv to their son Rahul (or, as a second option, if Rahul
failed, their daughter Priyanka). That has made her the family's most single-mindedly
dynasty-driven member, determined to secure the top slot in the Congress and thus access
to prime ministership. Perhaps her determination to ensure the succession stems partly from
the insecurity of being foreign-born and not a blood relation of the Gandhis, plus an Italian
mama's concern to ensure her family's station in life. Rahul and Priyanka, says their tutor,
were 'taught of sacrifices and patriotism from the cradle to adulthood'.
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Sonia cleverly sustained her ambitions when the Congress unexpectedly won a general
election in 2004 by making Manmohan Singh the prime minister, while she stayed in over-
all charge. She then pushed Rahul, who was reluctant to take on a major role. When he was
a teenager, Rahul once told his father that he wished they could go back to happier days
when Rajiv had been an Indian Airlines pilot with no political aspirations. 'I can't now,
because now I have a belief in my people. There is no going back,' was Rajiv's reply, ac-
