I have been watching Sonia Gandhi on TV and reading about her, ever since the Congress turned out
to be the single largest party in the elections.
I found her very smart and not really naive as I thought before and now her decision not to take up
the Post of Prime Ministership was smart, really smart, reinforcing my views about here.
The words/phrases that were frequently used by Sonia Gandhi and others describing her were
'doing your own thing, inner voice, respect my wishes', words/phrases synonmous with the West.
It's an individualistic thing.
This again reinforces Sonia Gandhi's western-ness, an inherent quality not suited for the role of a
Prime Minister of this country. It was a right decision, indeed. Tremendous pressure from various
quarters, but she wouldn't budge from what she doesn't want to do, which is the way it would be,
which again is 'Do your thing' which a westerner would identify with.
In some sense, for Sonia, this was setting right what was wrong.It was exactly opposite of what Rajiv
did in 1982. Rajiv was under tremendous pressure to take up the leading role after Indira Gandhi's
assassination. It has been widely said that Rajiv was reluctant to get into politics as was Sonia.
But Rajiv gave in to the pressure and went by what everyone wanted, a distinctly Indian trait.
That decision to get into Politics eventually killed him, which is another story, altogether.
