Cenerentola” (Cinderella) from Orbassano was born on December 9, 1946. That was what Sonia’s parents Paola and Stephano Maino called their second daughter, who was born on December 9, 1946.
The nickname was not entirely inapt. Unlike her sisters, Nadia and Anushka, Sonia always wanted to be different. An ambitious girl, she was never comfortable in the dusty industrial town on the outskirts of Turin where she grew up. When Sonia lived in Orbassano, the town was a muddle of apartment blocks and houses that had come up in the early 1950s as a result of the post-war boom in northern Italy. It was too undemanding for a Cenerentola.
In school, Sonia was a good student but exceptional when it came to languages and could converse easily in Spanish and Russian. She would also develop fluency in French. Today, she is at ease with Hindi, too, and reads her speeches from texts written in the Devanagari script.
The credit for teaching her Russian goes to her father, Stephano, who had fought in Russia during the Second World War. Although Stephano, a loyal supporter of Mussolini, fought alongside Hitler’s army, Russia had left a deep impression on him. Little wonder then that he gave Russian names to his three daughters.
Stephano was hardworking and disciplined, a quality he passed on to his family, especially Sonia. As a self-made man who had been through some very tough times, he took pride in providing for his family. He had come to Orbassano from Asiago in the Veneto region as a poor mason and made good in a small construction business through his dedication and fair dealing. Stephano brought up his daughters in the traditional Catholic way and was wary of foreigners. Naturally he was not charmed when Sonia one day told him she would marry the Indian Prime Minister’s son. He did not attend Sonia’s wedding and predicted it would end soon. Later, however, Stephano would come to grow fond of Rajiv.
Love at first sight
Sonia had met Rajiv while the two were in Cambridge. Rajiv was a student at the university and Sonia studied English at the Lennox Cook School. Each evening, noisy groups of students from Cambridge University would meet at Varsity, a Greek restaurant that Sonia too would visit in search of Italian food. It was love at first sight. For Sonia, one of the boys in a large group always stood out: “One with big, black eyes and wonderfully innocent and disarming smile.”
Rajiv made the first move through a common friend, Christian, who played the go-between. He was a German and, luckily, fluent in Italian. One day at lunchtime, he introduced Rajiv to Sonia. Rajiv asked her out and, within days, they became close.
The couple would tie the knot on February 25, 1968. Sonia’s maternal uncle, Mario Predebon, gave the bride away in the civil marriage on the back lawns of 1, Safdargunj Road after a brief mehndi ceremony.
India’s daughter-in-law and the tragedy in Sriperumbudur
Sonia seldom had problems with Indira, despite her mother-in-law’s imposing personality. As she told Eric Silver of the Guardian News Service in 1986: “My upbringing is such that I feel my husband is superior and his mother even more superior.”
Sonia also told a visiting correspondent from an Italian magazine that Indira was an affectionate mother-in-law. “Living with her was a wonderful experience,” Sonia said, adding that she could never forget Indira’s small note to her soon after her marriage when her mother left for Italy. “I was feeling lonely and depressed. As soon as I returned from the airport, I got her note. It said: ‘Just to say hello and to tell you that we all love you.’”
Over the next 12 years, politics in the subcontinent would change dramatically. The Bangladesh Liberation War would break out and Indira would be voted out of power in the elections held after the Emergency. Those were fraught times, but Sonia would remain largely unaffected, save perhaps for a change of address — from the Prime Minister’s 1, Safdargunj Road residence to 12 Willingdon Crescent — after the Congress’s defeat in 1977. Politics was yet to touch her directly.
Then, one day, it would suddenly change. Sonia and Rajiv were in Italy when her brother-in-law Sanjay Gandhi died in an air crash while practising loops in his Pitts S-2A aircraft over Safdarjung Airport on June 23, 1980. A chartered aircraft was sent to Rome to fetch them.
By August next year, 1981, Rajiv was a Member of Parliament, elected from Amethi, the Uttar Pradesh constituency his younger brother had represented.
In another three years and a bit more, Rajiv would become India’s Prime Minister following Indira’s assassination on October 31, 1984. Less than seven years later, on May 21, 1991, he too would be dead, killed by a suicide bomber at a campaign meeting in Sriperumbudur. Stephano’s worst fears had come true. The old man had always been uneasy about his son-in-law entering politics.
Search for a successor
The Congress had no clear succession mechanism. The family hold of Indira and Rajiv had dismantled the post of number two in the party. At well past midnight, senior leader Arjun Singh was outside 10 Janpath looking on as a small group of party workers, reportedly loyal to him, chanted, “Sonia lao, desh bachao”.
When the Congress Working Committee met eighteen hours after Rajiv assassination on May 22, 1991, Singh proposed Sonia’s name for party president and the others endorsed it. The deliberations took place while Rajiv’s body lay in state. The CWC’s decision was communicated to Sonia by a group of leaders that included Ghulam Nabi Azad and Pranab Mukherjee.
Sonia did not say anything. A day later she issued a short statement refusing to accept the post. It said: “The tragedy that has befallen me and my children does not make it possible for me to accept the presidentship of the Congress.”
In September 1991, the Election Commission announced by-elections for the Amethi Lok Sabha seat that Rajiv had represented, triggering a fresh “Sonia lao” (draft Sonia in) campaign. This time, Sonia lost her patience and decided to go on a tour of Europe and America with Rahul and Priyanka.
Between 1991 and 1996, a section of party leaders, particularly those from north India, never missed an opportunity to call on Sonia. Sonia seldom spoke, but her willingness to hear out all those unhappy with the Prime Minister was indication enough that she did not approve of Rao’s style of functioning.
Arjun Singh, M.L. Fotedar, Narain Dutt Tiwari and others not only succeeded in creating more distance between Rao and Sonia but also managed to deal a blow to Prime Minister Rao that eventually contributed to the defeat of the Congress in the 1996 general election.
Sonia enters politics
The Congress’s defeat in the 1996 general election came as no surprise to Sonia. She had received ample feedback from all over the country that the party would not reach the 200-seat mark. Within days of the election defeat, it became clear that Rao would not be able to run the party. He had been all powerful and important as long as he was the Prime Minister, but running an organization was a different game altogether.
In December 1997 Sonia indicated her willingness to play a more active role in politics. It was Priyanka and Rahul who helped their mother make up her mind. The family was convinced it had to fight the BJP, which was bent upon destroying whatever good had been achieved from the Nehru era to Rajiv’s rule. Contrary to popular belief, it was Rahul’s persuasion that influenced Sonia more than Priyanka’s. Rahul had offered to quit his job in London as a consultant at Monitor Deloitte Group to help her, a gesture that moved Sonia deeply.
On December 28, Sonia went public about her intention to join politics. The choice of the day — December 28 — was not without significance. It was the 112th anniversary of the founding of the Indian National Congress. On January 11, 1998, Sonia addressed her first rally at Sriperumbudur, in Tamil Nadu, where Rajiv was assassinated.
[Author-Journalist Rasheed Kidwai is a visiting Fellow of the Observer Research Foundation. He tracks government and politics and considered a specialist on Congress party affairs.]
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