How Sonia Gandhi got the better of the ‘system’

Indian social and political establishment loved to hate her. Her bid to power was always scuttled every time on some pretext by prop-ups like Mulayam Singh Yadav or Sharad Pawar. Yet the system could not chain her. Sonia Gandhi turned into the most powerful woman of India for one full decade between 2004-2014 despite the system’s intense dislike for her.

Indira Gandhi’s Italy-born ­bahu and Rajiv Gandhi’s widow Sonia Maino Gandhi defied every established norm of the system and reached the peak from where she presided over the destiny of over a billion Indians. The entire system taunted her for her ‘foreign origin’, scuttled her bid to power in 1999 through Mulayam Singh and the Left. When she was persuaded to take over the reins of a debilitated and dis-spirited Congress Party, her own party colleague Sharad Pawar revolted against her. But none could stop her from protecting the Congress from virtual extinction in the late 1990s and then lead an alliance of secular parties to halt the march of rabid communalisation of Indian politics for ten full years.

It was no joke for a lady of ‘foreign origin’ to cap her CV with achievements that Sonia Gandhi can now boast of. Sonia is known to have hated politics during her husband’s life; she even tried to restrain Rajiv Gandhi from stepping into his mother Indira’s shoes. She perhaps instinctively feared that her love of life Rajiv may go the way his mother did. Sonia’s worst fears came true on 21 May 1991 when Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated at Sriperumbudur.

Now Sonia had two tasks at her hand that destiny thrust upon her. First, she had to protect and nurture the political family of Nehru- Gandhis. Secondly, she had to steer and stop the Congress from becoming history. History will certainly record that a reluctant Sonia performed both the tasks well. Her son Rahul Gandhi is slowly but surely becoming the choice of liberal Indians to challenge Narendra Modi from transforming India into another Pakistan. Sonia also led two parliamentary elections in 2004 and 2009 when she successfully checked the rise of the BJP as the pan Indian party.

How could Sonia do so much in the 19 years of her political life? The first round to take the Congress presidency in 1998 was not so tough. The lacklustre Congress, then led by Sitaram Kesri who was not much of a public figure, was close to disintegration. The country was ready for the 1998 elections when Sonia Gandhi took over the reins of the party at a time when desertions had already begun in the ranks.

Late Rangarajan Kumaramangalam and Aslam Khan along with few others had already hitched onto the Vajpayee bandwagon, who was then the darling of the system at that time. The dispirited secular camp feared the collapse of the Congress which many suspected its own former Prime Minister Narasimha Rao had quietly encouraged.

Sonia Gandhi’s decision to lead the Congress at this crucial moment infused new energy within the party’s rank and file. The party of independence-struggle survived despite Sharad Pawar’s decision to break ranks with the Congress on Sonia’s foreign origin issue. Sonia led the Congress in 1998 polls but failed to win a majority as the secular camp was divided. Yet she managed to topple the Vajpayee government within months. Her own bid to stake her claim in 1999 was scuttled at the last moment by Mulayam Singh Yadav, again on the pretext of her ‘foreign origin’.

But Sonia Gandhi was now a seasoned enough politician. She realised that Congress had become too weak to take on the Vajpayee led-NDA on its own. She therefore cobbled up an alliance of secular parties to take on the BJP led camp in the 2004 elections. She had to first convince her own party to get used to accept coalition politics. It was quite a job for the Congress which was not used to sharing power with others. Senior Congressmen like Pranab Mukherjee were dead-opposed to the very idea of the Congress being in alliance with any group.

Sonia now led her flock to the Simla huddle from where she returned after having convinced the Party to go for an alliance for the 2004 elections. She now had another task at hand to cobble up a secular alliance. It was no mean task to convince regional satraps like Yadavs and Paswans to come under the Congress umbrella. These leaders were used to anti-Congress politics in their entire political career. Late Joyti Basu and V P Singh helped her from behind the scenes to firm up the United Progressive Alliance to take on Vajpayee led-NDA in 2004.

Seemingly a political novice, Sonia Gandhi stunned the Indian system with her first electoral victory against veteran Vajpayee. But as soon as the news spread that she had been elected the Congress Parliamentary Party leader, the system gathered its wits and hyped up its ‘foreign origin’ campaign against Sonia. She again surprised the system by making Manmohan Singh the Prime Minister of the Congress led UPA. Whatever Natwar Singh might have written in his memoir about Sonia declining the office of the Prime Minister, the fact remains no one could have stopped Sonia constitutionally to take oath as the Prime Minister at that point of time. History will record it as Sonia’s sacrifice whatever her critics may say now.

Now Sonia’s challenge was to deliver to the people. She had no confusion about the path to be led by her for governing India. It was the same old path that her mother-in-law Indira Gandhi had chosen: the path of pro-poor politics onto a middle path for India. Nehru had laid the foundation of a middle roader India and Indira was the darling of the masses for taking care of the poor.

But how to do it in an environment of globalisation and market economy in which markets mattered more than the poor? Sonia found a path through NAC which she packed with pro-poor activists like Aruna Roy and economists like Jean Dreze, who came up with the brilliant model of MANREGA--- 100 days of guaranteed employment for the people living below the poverty line. Market forces opposed it tooth and nail. But Sonia pushed the agenda despite resistance within her own government.

Sonia’s pet scheme MGNREGA did magic both for the poor as well as the UPA. The World Bank in its report admitted that 10 percent Indian population came out of the below poverty line tag, courtesy MGNREGA. Sonia’s pro-poor economic model led to a boom in Indian rural economy which the country had never witnessed since independence. It gave wings to the UPA to soar to another victory in 2009, thanks to Sonia and not courtesy Manmohan Singh, whose crony capitalism model led to the doom of the UPA in 2014. Had her own party allowed her to implement the Food Security Scheme two years before the 2014 elections, history of Indian politics would have been perhaps different with the third consecutive victory of the UPA in 2014.

The system that kept her at bay for 19 long years from becoming Indian Prime Minister finally got her with a massive support to Narendra Modi in 20014. But Sonia was in poor health by then. She had already retreated leaving her son Rahul to lead the party in the election, which a young and then politically less mature Rahul failed to manage.

Sonia Gandhi on her 71st birthday is ready to retire. But she successfully completed the twos tasks she had set for herself when she entered politics in 1998. She managed to infuse life into the defeated Congress for a decade and a half. She has also succeeded in passing on the Congress baton to the Gandhi family scion Rahul Gandhi who is all set to lead the party in a week’s time from now.

It is for history now to judge Sonia’s political career. But she brought back India to her middle path for some more time and uplifted millions from dire poverty, certainly no mean achievements for a reluctant politician, a woman in a patriarchal society, who outwitted the Indian power brokers till she decided to call it a day.

Good bye Sonia Gandhi.