Waiting for Rahul - Implosion: India's Tryst with Reality - page 175

thought Priyanka, to the US, reportedly because her mother was ill there, though later it
was suspected that she was tested or treated for her own illness.)
It arguably borders on arrogance and disdain - and a lack of responsibility - for the lead-
er of a ruling coalition and its main party to go abroad without explanation. The reasons
have remained officially a secret, as have the nature of her illness and whether the suspec-
ted cancer has been successfully removed. She returned to Delhi after just over a month
away, and appeared to recover and stabilise from the operation in the following months
though she never looked completely well. She gradually returned to political work, but oc-
casionally cancelled appointments because of 'ill health' and made regular return visits to
the US for tests, and maybe treatment.
Tamed Media
The media's response to her disappearance was relatively limited after the BBC and AFP
broke the news internationally. There were prominent reports in India, but only two news-
papers - curiously, both business titles - ran critical editorials within a few days of the
announcement. 'Such lack of clarity on the well-being and whereabouts of someone who,
right now, is the most important political leader of the country is just not acceptable,' said
The Economic Times on 6 August . Normally pro-establishment, its headline was explicit:
' Sonia Gandhi a national leader and her health not just a private matter.' 9
The Business Standard (then edited by Sanjaya Baru, an economist and journalist, who
had been Manmohan Singh's trusted spokesperson and speech-writer from 2004 to 2009)
ran an editorial on 7 August under the headline 'Right to information - Ms Sonia Gandhi's
health is a matter of public concern'. 'In a democracy the people have a right to know de-
tailed information about the health of their leaders,' it said. 'This is neither a “private mat-
ter” nor can the family of the concerned public personality have the last word on the mat-
ter.' 10 There was a good television panel debate (including Baru) on some of these issues
a few days later, 11 but there was little more comment for several weeks. Congress party
spokespeople stated that only information the family wished to share would be publicized.
In another formulation, they said the government could only issue information that it re-
ceived - suggesting that the government itself did not know about its leader's health.
The only thorough reporting of the illness came much later in the India Today weekly
news magazine, which ran a cover story in its 16 October issue headlined 'How ill is Mrs
Gandhi?' 12 Challenging the family's insistence on secrecy, the story broke new (but not
necessarily accurate) ground on the illness by reporting an (anonymous) New York doc-
tor saying it probably wasn't cancer but 'was most likely an unusual disorder, pancreatic
tuberculosis' whose symptoms can be very similar to cancer.