Ravi Pande #VandeMatram to all #DimagiNaxals

If there is one thing ‘Belonging’ has made clear, it is that India’s oldest and most powerful political family - the one that produced three prime ministers - is badly out of touch with the country as it exists today. A memoir is, by definition, a person’s memories. We can accept that ‘Belonging’ is Sonia Gandhi’s memory of events, however selective or incomplete. The difficulty is that she is not an ordinary citizen. She is the matriarch of the Congress party’s first family. When she describes the Godhra incident as “disputed,” calls the abrogation of Article 370 the worst thing to happen to Kashmir, or suggests the RSS had a hand in the 1984 anti-Sikh riots, or completely omits the Bhopal gas tragedy, it has more to do with politics than her memories. Then. it becomes easier to understand why the party is where it is today. Her memory lapse on the Bhopal gas disaster of December 2, 1985, is unusual. Between 15,000 and 25,000 people have died since that day from the long-term effects of MIC gas. Even if Arjun Singh played the main role in letting Warren Anderson leave the country, Rajiv Gandhi was Prime Minister. And I am willing to accept that an inexperienced Rajiv was played by his more experienced partymen. But didn’t he discuss it with her even once? And even if he didn’t, didn’t she have an opinion? Memory lapse? And what about Bofors? Here too, we can accept that her late husband was cleared of receiving kickbacks. But somebody in her government or connected with the government did get the money. Surely, she knew. She forgot about Ottavio Quattrocchi? Blaming the RSS and the BJP for every problem the country has faced is also difficult to accept. Ironically, her political career, after Rajiv’s unfortunate demise, runs virtually parallel to the BJP's rise. Acknowledging that record would, of course, turn the spotlight back on her own family and how it has run the Congress party. Watching her children struggle in politics only reinforces the point: the apple does not fall far from the tree. Reading the book, it is clear that Sonia Gandhi’s view of events is essentially the same as theirs. So, if anyone bears responsibility for the present condition of the Congress and her children's political roles, it is she. The memoir has factual errors, and they’ve already been highlighted on various social media platforms, so there’s no need for me to repeat them here. Yes, the book does have some lovely vignettes of her life with Rajiv. How she met him, her love affair, her marriage, and her transition into Indira Gandhi’s daughter-in-law. The book also shows that Rajiv Gandhi was a basically decent guy who would have preferred a life away from his mother's profession but was drawn into it by circumstance. After that, Sonia Gandhi had a ringside view. So, she can choose what she wants to remember, but public memory does not work that way.