Is it just me or are there a few of you who are as shamed as I am at the thought of India having an Italian prime minister? Nine hundred million people, a civilisation as old as time, a country the size of a continent.Yet we appear so utterly bankrupt politically, intellectually and in our sense of identity as a nation that we turn to someone who has only been an Indian citizen for 13 years as our "saviour". There should be something shaming about this. But wandering lately along the campaign trail, let me tell you I have met a disturbing number of people both uneducated rural and educated urban who say they are not at all worried about the fact that Sonia Gandhi is Italian by birth.In Sriperumbudur, after the new Mrs Gandhi made her first election speech, there was unanimity among the people I interviewed that here was our next prime minister. In Chennai, I asked a Tamil intellectual whether he did not think it would demoralise us as a people to have a foreigner as prime minister. He said if the Constitution did not recognise her as a foreigner, she was Indian enough for him.Wait a minute. What if she comes to power and decides she wants a few more Italians in her cabinet? Would she be able to do so simply by making them Indian citizens? The intellectual replied it would be no worse than if Phoolan Devi became prime minister and appointed a cabinet of bandits and no worse than Bihar being handed over to a semi-literate chief minister's even less literate wife.A few days later I caught up with Atal Bihari Vajpayee's campaign in Chhindwara, Madhya Pradesh. I asked him whether it bothered him that his main opponent in this election was Italian. He said it did not and it would not be made an election issue. This, from a party whose economic policy makes it clear it will favour Indian companies over foreign ones.Vajpayee is, at least, restrained about applauding Sonia's advent. Our two Yadav giants, Mulayam and Laloo, have actually welcomed her as someone who can stop "communal forces"..preferred-source-banner{ margin-top: 10px; margin-bottom:10px;} Only one politician, N. Chandrababu Naidu, has pointed out that what the Congress is doing is mortgaging India's self-respect by begging at an Italian lady's door.I could not have put it better myself. Even if I represent only a small minority, I have to say that the prospect of a foreign prime minister definitely bothers me. But there are other equally important reasons why Sonia's rise as the biggest star of this election bothers me.Now that she has, at long last, spoken and we know what she thinks, her political and economic views bother me almost as much as her being a foreigner. Her basic message is she is here to restore her family's glory and fulfil Rajiv Gandhi's dream: "The family to which I belong has made several sacrifices for the country. There are many who would belittle its great contribution to the nation and sully its image. I have come before you to uphold the great tradition of the family." What is this "great tradition"? Jawaharlal Nehru, who is revered as the builder of modern India, is synonymous with the socialism we put our faith in for 50 years. This socialism amounted to a virtual economic dictatorship in which the state decided what would be produced, by whom and in what quantities. The state also arrogated to itself the role of being our only big industrialist. It produced everything from bread and milk to missiles and tanks. This involved so much business activity that the state had little time to ensure such things as literacy and healthcare. When Nehru died, we were about as poor a country as we had been when he took over. His daughter continued the economic dictatorship and added, even after the Emergency, a political one as well. Democratic institutions were emasculated and instead of a government in Delhi we saw the creation of a durbar. Courtiers, court jesters and sycophants were promoted to the highest offices in the land while dissenters, thinkers and men of honour and conviction were quickly shown the door. It is from her mother-in-law that Sonia appears to have learnt her politics. Within two weeks of her entry, we have seen the return of sycophancy as a political ideology. In Sriperumbudur, Tamil leaders compared her to Mother Teresa and, believe it or not, God. You are our God, they sang, we worship you. A more nauseating display of sycophancy is hard to remember, even from Indira Gandhi's days. So much for the glorious tradition Sonia wants to restore.Let us now come to Rajiv and his alleged dream. In Sonia's view, he was a paragon of secularism and would have stood in front of the Babri Masjid rather than let it be demolished. Would she like to tell us where he was in 1984 when 3,000 Sikhs were killed on the streets of Delhi at his party's behest? Would she also like to tell us why he opened the Babri Masjid to Hindus for worship when he could have prevented this despite what happened in the courts? Was it a secular gesture for him to begin his election campaign in 1989 from Ayodhya by facilitating the laying of the foundation stone of a Ram temple and promising Ram rajya?As for Rajiv's dream, what was it? As far as we know, he was an airline pilot who reluctantly entered politics at all, leave alone entered it with a dream. No wonder what Sonia is offering us, politically and economically (socialism), is almost as worrying as her being a foreigner.Published By: AtMigration Published On: Feb 2, 1998--- ENDS ---
