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The Rediff Special/Virendra Kapoor

Tell us 'madam', what stuff are you made of?

They don't know the stuff I am made of.' Truer words are yet to cross the lips of Sonia Gandhi. Not only the BJP, at whom, obviously, the challenge was directed, but the entire country would like to know the stuff she is made of. The Supreme Leader of the Congress Party who preens herself as the prime minister- designate needs to level with the Indians. And without any further delay. That is the least she owes to the country she very reluctantly chose to call her own and which she now seeks to rule. The compact between the electors and the elected in democracies the world over subsists best when it does so on trust. Trust requires transparency on both sides. There is none forthcoming from Sonia Gandhi to allow for a genuine trust in her ability to steer the destiny of this one-billion strong nation. High time, therefore, she revealed the stuff she was made of.

There is such paucity of background information on the leader of the country's oldest political party that the Internet site posted by her admirers looks bare. In sharp contrast, the Vajpayee site on the World Wide Web is teeming with all manner of details, ranging from his birth, early childhood, school and university education, his brush with the freedom movement, association with the RSS, and finally transition from a long-time opposition leader to the treasury benches and ultimately his elevation as the country's prime minister. Sonia's life, it would seem, began with her fortuitous marriage into the Gandhi family. But for that accident of fate, Sonia Maino would have been a faceless face in the backwaters of Italy. So pray tell us the stuff you are made of, Signorina Sonia!

While at it you might begin at the beginning and throw some light on your early origins, family, parents, brothers, sisters et al. It might be of interest to the country you embraced rather reluctantly for the sake of your late husband's political career, if you confided in it about your educational qualifications, if any. True, a college degree need not necessarily make one a better politician, but given excessive ignorance in the polity it will be a soothing thought if one is told that the Congress Party's prime ministerial candidate possesses a formal degree from a reputable institution. Admittedly, the family you married into, albeit by sheer chance, does not have a glowing record of academic achievement. (It is Maneka Gandhi's boast that the only one to graduate in the Nehru-Gandhi family after Jawaharlal was her son, Feroze).

There is enough material on record to suggest that your father was a great admirer of Mussolini. According to published reports, a picture of the fascist dictator adorned the wall of the modest Maino living room in the blue collar quarters in Turin. Did his fascist beliefs in anyway, consciously or unconsciously, shape your inchoate political philosophy? The manner in which you have sought to control the Congress Party -- the Family Firm being a more appropriate term -- would suggest the presence of a strong totalitarian streak in your mental make-up. The way the conscientious objectors to your candidacy as India's prime ministership were hounded out of the party will bear out the charge that you too have come to believe that 'Sonia is Congress, Congress is Sonia.'

Well, if the sycophantic flock which passes for present-day Congressmen throws itself at your feet and mortgages its self-respect for the sake of illusory power and pelf it is its own business. But the rest of the country has the right to know as to why it took you fifteen long years to acquire Indian citizenship. No convincing explanation for this inexcusable lapse has been forthcoming from your end. The inference that you became an Indian citizen only when it became certain that Rajiv would become prime minister cannot be denied. That selfish motivation lays bare your claim of undying love for India and lends further weight to the objections of Pawar, Sangma and Co to your prime ministerial credentials.

There are other vignettes from your life as the bahu of the Nehru-Gandhi family which bring into question your suitability to lead the Congress Party and the country. In the 1971 Bangladesh war you were said to have persuaded your husband to take long leave from the Indian Airlines while every IA pilot was compulsorily on stand-by duty just in case their services were required by the Defence Ministry. Again, following the emergence of the first non-Congress government at the Centre in 1977, you and Rajiv distanced yourselves from the Indira-Sanjay Gandhi duo. And when Charan Singh and the Shah Commission turned their combined heat on the Gandhis, you shifted base to the South Delhi bungalow of your compatriot, Ottavio Quattrochhi, and threatened to leave India for good with your husband and kids.

Now, you may have plausible reasons for doing all of the above deeds, including working as an LIC agent and a director of Sanjay's Maruti Company without being an Indian citizen, but since you now bid to rule this country it would be only just and proper that you explained them at some length, if for nothing else than to remove the nagging doubts about your character and readiness to take the rough with the smooth. The Western materialistic trait might have increasingly crept into the modern Indian psyche in recent years, but, mercifully, its influence is tempered by the stoic and unselfish legacy of our forefathers who were inspired by heroic tales of sacrifice and selflessness.

While on Quattrocchi, we did not think that you would skirt the question of your relationship with him. If you were really made of the stuff you are obviously at some pains to convey to the country you are made of, you should have seized the question flung at you at your maiden 'press conference' the other day and admitted upfront your close ties with that Italian wheeler-dealer who is now holed up in Malaysia. The fugitive from Indian law, who was a law unto himself for so long as he was located in New Delhi and who had enjoyed free access to the prime minister's house and office thanks to his proximity to you, is suspected to be the main bribe-taker in the Bofors deal. You knew that fact before it became a fact. But you affect a show of innocence, nay, anger at the mere mention of the word 'Bofors'.

Come on, your act does not fool anyone. If you are really keen to get at the root of the Bofors scam and do want to put it behind you once for all, get your family friend to travel to India and submit himself for questioning to the CBI. Otherwise, your 'I-dare-them-to-show-me-the-Bofors-papers' act would remain a cheap ploy to divert public attention from the bribe-takers like Quattrocchi.

Leaving all else aside, since you have now plunged head-long into the prime ministerial race, wouldn't it be in your own interest to give your CV, as it were, to the electors? The country knows all there is to know about the man you so valiantly seek to challenge. Vajpayaee has grown with the Indian Republic. Every step forward in his career has taken place in full public view. But we know precious little about you apart from the fact that you were married here and widowed here. These milestones in your personal life can work on the tear ducts of Congressmen, but, one is afraid, they hardly constitute valid criterion for elevating you to the status of prime minister. For that you need experience. And you are zilch in that crucial department.

Now, don't tell us that your husband had no experience to begin with when he found himself occupying one gory day the prime ministerial gaddi. That is precisely why he was such a failure, Signorina Sonia. So, pray, do tell us, what is the stuff you are made of!

The Rediff Specials

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