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Sonia Miano (Khan) Gandhi
The Kingmaker
Sonia Gandhi, who was born in Italy and married into the dynasty,begged her husband to stay out of politics and was drawn into it herself only when the party was in dire need of leadership.  A new generation of Gandhis arrives to save ailing, incompent and shameless Indian party from disaster at the polls.   Sonia Gandhi (55) inducted her son Rahul (34) and daghter Priyanka (33) into politics and they actively participated and won in the recent elections.   A calcified, out-of-touch, visionless and nepotistic dynasty is poised once again to lead and the dynasty rule continues in the world's largest democracy, albeit with fresh and young Indo-Italian genes having Brahmin-Christian-Muslim-Parsi blood with charming pale faces and charisma which no other brown Indian can claim.   Sonia Gandhi's rise from a small-town in Italy to modern India is a story of love, death and dynasty, culminating in the most sensational victory of an Italian middle class woman ever to become the kingmaker in the Indian Union of a billion people.  She will run the country from behind scenes as she installs Manmohan Singh as the Prime Minister of the Indian Union, to avert a brewing foreigner-crisis and save the country.

Sonia was born in 1946 in small town of Orbassano seven miles from Italy's busy metropolis of Turin, in the Tuscan countryside. Her father, Stephano, doted on his "little princess" and provided his three daughters with a strict Catholic education.  Her mother and two sisters still live in Orbassano, in a terracotta-coloured two-storey house on the outskirts of town.  The residents of Orbassano told India's Outlook magazine recently they remember the young woman who was a "hard working, intelligent girl" with a "very good singing voice".  The road leading east out of Orbassano is called Via Rajiv Gandhi, after Sonia's late husband and the last member of the world's most successful political dynasty to be Indian prime minister.

She became an Indian citizen in 1983, 15 years after she married Rajiv at the age of 21.  The two met at Cambridge, where she was studying English and Rajiv was studying engineering and ultimately failed to get any degree.  Arriving in India in 1968, the young Mrs Gandhi struggled to cope with the country's deeply ingrained culture. At first, she did not like Indian food or clothes and there was a minor uproar when she was pictured in a miniskirt sucking on a lolly.

Like the Kennedys in America, the Nehru-Gandhis are India's first family of politics, whose rise has been marred by tragedy. Her mother-in-law, Indira Gandhi, was assassinated by her Sikh bodyguards in 1984. Her husband, Rajiv was blown up by a Srilankan Tamil suicide bomber in 1991.

After her husband's death, Mrs Gandhi quietly departed from public life giving an opportunity for the Congress party to avoid the dynasty.  But she was wooed back by a floundering Congress party in 1997 and agreed to campaign, hoping that the Gandhi name and white skin would cast a spell over the brown electorate.  She is a talented linguist who can converse in English, French, Spanish, Italian and Russian.  In the beginning she read short speeches with the Hindi in Roman script. Now fluent in Hindi, she can attract the masses in the northern India and speak to them in a language they understand.  

The reason for her success appears to be a combination of hard work, her name, her skin and largely the increase in the alleged gap between the rich and poor in the recent economic boom lead by the right wing Bharatiya Janata Party. BJP may be compared to right wing American Repucblican Party. However, while Republican Party is supported by Christian Coalition in a country founded under principles of Judeo-Christian principles and God, the secular BJP is supported by Hindu groups in the Indian Union founded under a secular Constituion.  While booming economy benefitted the urban and middle class, the rural India remained where it was left by Congress causing jealousy and discontent among the poor.  

Sonia's grasp of policy issues appears shaky.  Yet she has shaped a winning strategy for the Congress party, which has been out of office for nearly a decade. Apparently, it was also her idea to target rural India, which remains chained to poverty and has been left behind as the urban centres modernise. However, it should be noted that "Garibi Hatao" (remove poverty)was Indira Gandhi's slogan in 1970s, which remains to be achieved even after more than forty years of leftist-socialist Congress rule and only about five years of rightist-capitalist BJP rule.  Yet, it is a very popular theme that draws crowds and a vote winner, for it is the poor that votes in India.  A series of barnstorming speeches by the Congress president drew the crowds. Her message that India did not shine was successful. Poverty has been the Indian truth for the past fifty years and before.  She also added glamour by bringing into politics her handsome son Rahul (34) and beautiful daughter Priyanka (33), and sent a strong message that the Gandhi dynasty was here to stay.  She also made it clear that Muslims who vote in block and make a big difference at hustings, who make up 25% of India's 1 billion people, had nothing to fear from a Congress party that has been traditionally minority leaning and drew support from minority religions.  On moral decisions in family life and politics, she commented recently, "I suppose these Catholic (Christian) values are at the back of my mind.  I feel very strongly about India being a secular state. By secular state I mean one that will encompass all religions."  

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