HVK Archives: Voices of Sonia - What she says depends on the ghost writer at hand
Voices of Sonia - What she says depends on the ghost writer at hand - India Today
Swapan Dasgupta
()
November 23, 1998
Title: Voices of Sonia - What she says depends on the ghost writer at hand
Author: Swapan Dasgupta
Publication: India Today
Date: November 23, 1998
Among the more uncharitable things said about Rajiv Gandhi was
the accusation that he was prone to believing the person he
spoke to last. No such charge has been levelled against the
current head of the Congress. A possible reason could be that no
one really has the remotest idea what Sonia Gandhi actually
stands for or believes. So successfully has the lady of 10
janpath perfected the medieval art of purdah politics that it
has become impossible to identify which is the real gospel and
which is the gospel twice removed. Sonia, every Congress
loyalist concedes, is a fantastic listener. That is a wonderful
attribute, lacking in many politicians. Unfortunately that's
where it stops. No Congressman, not even those whose claim to
fame lies in their ability to walk into Vincent George's office
without an appointment, has resolved this mystery. Some 11
months after she launched her political career, Sonia has not
given a single interview, spoken to a TV chat show or intervened
spontaneously in a debate. Rajiv at least spoke about "jitenge
ya lose-enge". The real Sonia Gandhi has said nothing. She has
been ghost-written from A to Z.
It would be surreal, if it wasn't real. India is confronted with
a novel situation where the unquestioned leader of the largest
opposition party and a possible claimant to the top political
job is a complete prisoner of her speechwriters. Without them
she epitomises a complete void. Worse, she is a willing captive
in the hands of wordsmiths who take a ghoulish delight in
getting her to repeat their media columns. No wonder consistency
is not the hallmark of this Congress president. If the Pokhran
tests were a scientific achievement one day, they become a
national disgrace the second. If religious tolerance is declared
a sacred duty in one speech, Saraswati Vandana becomes a
reprehensible ritual in the subsequent letter. It's not a
complex question of timing; it's a simple matter of who wrote
the speech of the day.
Blessed with sensitive antennae, Congressmen have not been slow
to grasp the meaning of speechwriter raj. Last Tuesday, the
party spokesman in Delhi described Mamata Banerjee's Trinamool
Congress as the "third youth club in West Bengal after Mohun
Bagan and Mohammedan Sporting". The next day, perhaps mindful of
the hurt caused to East Bengal club, West Bengal Congress
Working President P.R. Dasmunshi invited Mamata to rejoin the
parent party. Sonia spoke in Mizoram of Christian "priests and
nuns ... subjected to unspeakable atrocities" under BJP rule.
She didn't know that the man who gave shelter to the rapists in
Jhabua is now the Congress candidate. She appealed last
Wednesday to Sikhs to rise above the scars of 1984. Two hours
later, as if to rub salt into their wounds, a beaming Sajjan
Kumar was on hand to release the party's Delhi manifesto. It's
not that Sonia doesn't know. It's just that Congressmen are
convinced she is incapable of going beyond the script. Hence the
uncontrolled explosion of personal agendas.
Sonia has been praised for her maturity, for steering a
pathologically promiscuous party toward brahmacharya. If the
Congress wins the assembly elections, the enforced celibacy will
end. Jyoti Basu may declare her Nehru's worthy successor and
help reinstate her in a Race Course Road house vacated nine
years ago. On paper Sonia will reign, but who will rule? The
wordsmiths are drooling at the idea. It will be dynasty of
course, but it will also be regency. Till she effects her
elusive discovery of India.
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