Sonia Gandhi's charisma is imputed says Dr. Nandi

If the 1998 Indian parliamentary elections were to go down in history as a remarkable one, it would be because of the transformation of Sonia Gandhi from an enigmatic sphinx to a doughty fighter, at whose very sight, rivals ran for cover. If the enthusiastic crowds at her meetings through the length and breadth of India were any indication, the BJP's grim warning about India's coming under the heels of ''Rome Raj'', had clearly fallen on deaf ears. The foreigner Indian controversy raked up by the minions in the BJP camp proved to be a non-starter. A rejuvenated Congress, with Sonia at the helm, is now being subtly wooed by the non-BJP parties in a bid to keep the BJP wolf out of the door.

The Sunday Times interviewed Dr.Ashis Nandy, the internationally known political psychologist attached to the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS) at New Delhi on the phenomenon of Sonia Gandhi. Here are excerpts:



Q: Many educated Indians, both within and outside India, wonder why Indians should hanker for a white from Italy, when they have 980 million sons and daughters of the soil to choose their leaders from. They find it amazing that this should happen in India's 50th year of independence from foreign domination. How do you explain the Sonia phenomenon?

A: In India nobody is an outsider. There are many in India, millions I should say, who are, in looks, language, accent, culture and thought, more foreign than actual foreigners. To give just one example, the tribes in the Himalayas and the north east look very different from the rest of the Indians. Racially and culturally, they are more akin to the peoples of East and South East Asia. But they are not seen as being non-Indians. India is a mixed bag, with a variety of ethnic and cultural types in it. Therefore nobody is a complete outsider here.

Q: I remember actress Simi Grewal asking Rajiv Gandhi in that famous TV interview, if Sonia had any adjustment problems in her adopted Indian home presided over by Indira Gandhi. Rajiv's reply was crisp. He said: "Sonia is more Indian than many Indian girls.'' Interestingly, while Sonia had got along with her mother-in-law, Meneka, the Indian daughter-in-law, had not.

A: I would see the acceptance of a ''foreigner'', as being part of the larger phenomenon of ''adoption'' in India.

Adoption has been a deeply ingrained and widespread custom here. Just as an outsider is adopted into a family to continue the lineage, other social and political systems have also adopted outsiders to meet particular needs.

Q: Would you say that Indians would look up to anyone who articulates the soul of India, irrespective of the person's origins?

A: I would not use the term articulation of the ''soul of India''. What is being articulated is a set of feelings, hopes, fears and the psychological and cultural pre-dispositions of the leader's followers. In this case, the Congress party's workers, followers and voters, see in Sonia a person who articulates a wide range of their feelings. This accounts for her charisma. Sonia is a charismatic leader.

Q: One's idea of a charismatic leader is a person with extraordinary natural qualities. But political sociologists have said that charisma could be inherited or could stem from the position the leader holds. Is Sonia's charisma personal and natural, or is it artificial, derived from the position she occupies in the Congress party?

A: In Sonia's case, it is certainly not personal charisma. It is ''imputed'' charisma. It is not based on her personal qualities. People read in her what they want to read.

Q: What is it that the people are reading in her? What felt needs does she fulfil?

A: Politicians per se have a bad name in India. People are constantly looking for a leader who does not have a disreputable past. The search is for a ''politician who is not a politician''. Persons who are new to politics may thus have an edge at times. Sonia is a new and untested leader with no past of mistakes. She is also not in any of the existing moulds or categories, identified with this or that group in society. She is equally alien to all the groups in Indian society. She is an Indian, and yet is of foreign extraction. She was married to be a Brahmin and yet she is not a Brahmin. She was married to a north Indian and yet she is not one. She is a Catholic but has lived most of her life in a Hindu household.

Sonia's position is analogous to that of the typical Hindi film hero who, looking for the widest appeal in a diverse audience, goes without a caste name or a surname suffixed to his name. He would just be ''Dr. Vijay'' or "Mr.Santhosh'', without a caste or surname added, so that he is not branded as belonging to this or that community. Like the film hero, Sonia is not part of any of the existing communities in India. This accounts for her wider appeal, transcending so many caste, communal, linguistic and regional boundaries. Her cohorts in the Congress, in contrast, are at best regional or communal leaders, and not all India leaders. In their bid to capture power at the national level, these sectional leaders find it prudent to step aside to enable her to play her role as the national leader.

Q: Sonia is the only campaigner to have harped on ''family sacrifice'' as a qualification for being in power. How is this relevant in the present context?

A: Sacrifice, especially familial sacrifice, is a crucial factor in South Asian politics. In South Asia, we think in terms of families not individuals, so coming from a family of people who had sacrificed for the country is an asset. Almost all the women in the apex of South Asian politics have had a history of family tragedy seen as ''sacrifice''. This had enhanced their mass appeal. Benazir's father was hanged. In Bangladesh, Khalida had lost her husband and Hasina's father was assassinated. Sonia's husband and mother-in- law were both assassinated by terrorists. Sacrifice with tragedy is a potent political mixture.

Q: Earlier, the Congress has had ''national'' leaders who were hardcore Indians. Does the present situation not show the bankruptcy of the Congress?

A: The voters do not see it as bankruptcy. They look upon Sonia as a breath of fresh air. Party workers see in her a force that can rejuvenate the party. She is unburdened by a past. Yes, she does have goals such as the scuttling of the Bofors investigations and paving the way for her daughter's political ascendency. But these are seen as minor goals.

But she has clearly developed a high stake in politics. The Mainos (her natal family) back in Italy, did ask her to come back after Rajiv's death. She was not in politics and had been against Rajiv's entry into politics after Indira's death. But Sonia had seen the possibility of her children becoming leaders in India, and did not want to deny them the opportunity. Rajiv too was a reluctant entrant into politics. But having tasted power, he did not quit upon defeat. He fought back vigorously. Having tasted power, Sonia has shaped herself into a gutsy fighter too.

Q: But do the people not see her hidden political agenda?

A: People do not want to look through because of the unsavoury record of her rivals, the other politicians.

Q: Over all, what do you think Sonia's impact would be like?

A: A recent study by our Centre (CSDS) had shown that the impact was partial. There were many areas where people did not know that she had plunged into the election battle. She had definitely enthused the Congress workers, but the chances of the party's winning back the Muslims are dim.

But the minorities and other anti-BJP votes might use strategic options to defeat the BJP, which means that, at some places, the Congress might be strategically placed to receive anti-BJP votes

Annan, UN in grand alliance

On too many occasions the UN has been the big men's whipping-boy. Bill Clinton for one has kicked it harder than his two immediate Republican predecessors ever did. Nikita Khrushchev banged his shoe at it and Charles de Gaulle called it ''ce machin''. Yet once again we see how in a crisis the big powers run to it to get themselves off the hook, this time for a bombing no one really had the argument or stomach for.

Back in 1954 there was the charged incident over the capture of 17 U.S. airmen by China. American opinion became extremely agitated. There was even some wild talk about the use of nuclear weapons. The UN was asked to intervene and Secretary General Dag Hammarskjold went to Beijing to talk to Premier Chou Enlai. It took six months of negotiating but finally the men were released. Dwight D Eisenhower, the then U.S. President, has a whole chapter in his book on the incident, but Hammarskjold's central role is almost totally ignored.

It is the same in Robert Kennedy's book on the Cuban missile crisis, when the Soviet Union and the U.S. came perilously close to a nuclear exchange. There is only a passing mention of Secretary General U Thant's letter to the Soviet Premier, Khrushchev, written in the face of a strong protest by the Soviet Ambassador to the UN.

Yet it was U Thant's letter that elicitated a crucial response from Khrushchev indicating that there was room for compromise.

In Suez in 1956, in Lebanon in 1958, in the Congo in 1969 and in the 1973 Middle East war it was the UN that provided the escape hatch for the big powers who had put themselves on a collision course. In the wake of the Yom Kippur war, although both the U.S. and the Soviet Union had agreed in principle to a cease-fire there seemed to be no way of implementing it.

The situation looked exceedingly dangerous. Egypt was calling for Soviet help. Richard Nixon put the U.S. on a nuclear alert. It was fast footwork at the UN, principally by a group of Third World Nations, that helped break the impasse. They pushed for a UN force to go in - and, unbelievably by the slow lights of modern day interventions, it was on the ground the next day.

Hammarskjold was undoubtedly the greatest of all Secretary Generals. Although elected because he was an accomplished bureaucrat he matured into a leader with a mystical feeling of mission.

He attempted to steer the UN into Laos in 1959 to pre-empt military aid from the U.S. and the Soviet Union. He hoped that once he got the principle of a UN presence established it could be applied to the rest of Indo-China. But the U.S. and the Soviet Union resisted his effort with ferocity - a tragedy since it could have averted the war in Vietnam and Cambodia.

He had a better response with Africa's first post-colonial civil war in the Congo. Hammarskjold managed this time to persuade the UN to intervene because both the Soviet Union and America feared the development of anarchy and worried about the political cost of pre-empting each other. But when the Congolese Government split, with the West and the East taking different sides, the UN effort nearly disintegrated. Hammarskjold was considering resignation when in a final effort to resolve the secession of mineral-rich Katanga his plane crashed and he was killed.

With this victory in Baghdad the present Secretary General, Kofi Annan, looks more ready than any office-holder since Hammarskjold to take up his mantle.

He played the cards dealt him by the U.S., Iraq, Russia and France with subtle patience and strategic finesse.

Yet the UN is a pale shadow of what it could become, as a mediator and peace-maker, not to mention its work with refugees, nuclear, proliferation or the critical role its ancillary, the International Monetary Fund, is playing in the Asian crisis. All of these are strapped for cash, mainly because of America's failure to pay its $1 billion back dues in the case of the central UN or to increase its quota in the case of the IMF.

Even though the finger of blame today is usually pointed at Congress rather than at the White House the denigration of the UN that led to Congress' disenchantment owes much to Mr. Clinton.

Clinton had taken office committed to reinvigorating the UN. Candidate Clinton had even called for the establishment of a small, standing, UN ''rapid-deployment force''.

All this was buried in the sands of Somalia during the UN intervention in its civil war in 1993, a mission that went horribly wrong when a great fire-fight led to serious American casualties - 18 killed, 78 wounded. Contrary to what was said at the time only a minority of U.S. soldiers were under UN command. And the operation that led to the gun battle was initiated by the Special Operations Command in Florida. But when it all went wrong the Clinton Administration cruelly tried to shift the blame, briefing the press that American lives were lost because of flaws in the UN command.

Right now the White House and Congress owe the UN one. Annan got them off the Iraqi hook where political hype had impaled them. American soldiers' lives were saved from what would have been an unnecessary war. It really is America's time to pay up and give this talented and proficient Secretary General all the support he deserves.

(This column is syndicated to and appears today also in Bangkok Post, Boston Globe, Dawn, Japan Times, Los Angeles Times, Manila Chronicle, New Straits Times, Philadelphia Inquirer, San Francisco Chronicle, Statesman, Toronto Star and many other leading newspapers of the world.)

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