The Myth of the Renunciation
Krishen Kak
13 March 2011
“The Big Lie is a propaganda technique. The expression was coined by Adolf Hitler, when he dictated his 1925 book Mein Kampf, for a lie so `colossal’ that no one would believe that someone `could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously’”
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Lie, 26/2/11).
“…when one lies, one should lie big, and stick to it…” - Joseph Goebbels, Die Zeit ohne Beispiel, Jan 12, 1941.
“…people will believe a big lie sooner than a little one; and if you repeat it frequently enough people will sooner or later believe it…” – “Hitler As His Associates Know Him”,
http://www.nizkor.org/hweb/people/h/hitler-adolf/oss-papers/text/oss-profile-03-02.html, para 26.
The Constitution of India is the defining text of the Republic of India . The Constitution states “There shall be a Council of Ministers with the Prime Minister at the head to aid and advise the President” (Art 74.1) and “The Council of Ministers shall be collectively responsible to the House of the People” (Art 75.3).
The Union Cabinet is the inner council of the Council of Ministers. The Indian Prime Minister is Dr Manmohan Singh. He heads the Union Cabinet and the Council of Ministers. The buck stops with him. This is the de jure position.
“Madam, what Cabinet are you talking about? You direct and everything would be done”.[1]
It is popularly acknowledged that “Madam” is Mrs. Sonia Gandhi and that she heads Dr Manmohan Singh. This is extra-Constitutional. She is responsible to no one. No buck stops with her. This is the de facto position in our country.[2] How did this come about?
Through the Myth of the Renunciation.
In Christian mythology (Luke 1.26-38), as also in Islamic mythology (Koran 3.45-51; 19.16-26), the angel Gabriel announced to Mary that she was going to bear a son, even though she was a virgin. Her son was to be called Jesus. Roman Catholics celebrate, nine months before Christmas, this story as the Annunciation. Protestants, however, call this story the Myth of the Annunciation. Nevertheless, this myth is accepted as true by an estimated 2.47 billion or more Catholics and Muslims the world over.[3] There is not an iota of factual evidence in support of the Annunciation.
Likewise, in India , we have our Nehru-Gandhi mythology and we have a hagiolatrous myth that is still broadcast and believed by millions not just in India but the world over. This is the Myth of the Renunciation, that “Santa Sonia, our Lady of Renunciation, so graciously handed the reins of power to her chosen subordinate…”[4] There is not an iota of factual evidence in support of the Renunciation.
In December 2010, Wikileaks reported Sonia Gandhi’s freewheeling confession to Maria Shriver that was claimed to “put the lie to cocktail party suggestions that she courts Manmohan Singh’s job”. No, as too is popularly acknowledged, she doesn’t need to court his job. Courtesy the Myth of the Renunciation, she can and does enjoy our country’s prime minister’s power and perquisites without any of its responsibility or accountability.
A Garrulous Sonia Gandhi Opens Up To Maria Shriver.
Maria Shriver, wife of the governor of California and Sonia Gandhi, the most powerful person in India and the head of the ruling Congress party, have a one hour meeting…For her visitors, Mrs. Gandhi is warm, even effusive, admirable, informed far from her normal reserved self, her “Italian” nature showing through.
Without prompting and at her own initiative Mrs. Gandhi then spoke at length about her personal life……
In a candid revelation of her personal political stance, Mrs. Gandhi stated that “the right was becoming strong in India and Congress weak,” tipping her hand and “compelling” her to enter politics to protect the Gandhi family legacy. She also revealed that her children were “not keen” about the idea, but eventually told her, “whatever you decide, we will back you.”
Mrs. Gandhi was reluctant to provide details regarding her decision to turn down the Prime Minister’s post after the UPA’s surprise 2004 electoral victory, stating that “I am often asked about this, but tell people that I will write a book someday with the whole story.” She would only say that she “felt better” that someone else became PM and “did not regret” her decision. Shriver congratulated Mrs. Gandhi for her resoluteness and described her as “courageous.” Clearly embarrassed by this adulation, Mrs. Gandhi made no response. She elaborated, at Karan Singh’s insistence, saying that she was under lots of pressure, as the “party workers” were “very upset.” They “could not understand” why she, as party President, was not taking up the post, since they had voted for her and won a majority……
Despite her carefully erected Indian persona, her basic Italian personality is clearly evident in her mannerisms, speech and interests.[5]
The Wikileaks report contains all the key elements of the Myth of the Renunciation, cunningly and assiduously constructed and broadcast by our Nehruvian-seculariat.
In the Year of Her Lord 2004, Edvige Antonia Albina Maino alias Sonia Gandhi[6] led her Congress Party to a much-debated win in our country’s general election. Among the first to revel were Italians. The “Cinderella of Orbassano” was preened as the Empress of India, and there was gloating in what “India’s National Newspaper” called her “native town”:
In Orbassano, the mainly blue-collar township where Ms Gandhi grew up, there was jubilation. Major Carlo Marroni, the Mayor of Orbassano told The Hindu: “We are extremely happy and proud that a daughter of our commune is poised to become the Prime Minister of India...”
Claudio Gallo of the Turin-based daily La Stampa said... “We welcome this development. It means we can hope for more secular policies from the new Indian Government...”....
Guido Rampoldi of the daily La Repubblica told The Hindu in a telephone interview: “We are very proud of the fact that Ms Gandhi has succeeded and India should be proud too. It shows an openness and maturity on the part of the Indian electorate that would be hard to find anywhere. I cannot, for instance see a woman of Indian origin becoming a head of government in Europe. But of course, she’s not really Italian any more. Quite understandably, she wants to cut ties with Italy, so as not to offer any ammunition that her enemies could exploit…”[7]
From the mouths of Italian horses you have it. They wanted “more secular policies” though neither the Vatican State nor the Italian State extend to Indians/Hindus the kind of civic and political rights the Indian State extends to Italians/Christians. They claimed “she’s not really Italian any more” and “wants to cut ties with Italy”, though the evidence is so convincingly to the contrary, and the Americans when she met Maria Shriver were certainly not fooled.
The evidence of the Indian contribution to the Italian economy through the Nehru-Gandhi connection, the evidence of the Italian contribution to Indian security strategy, the silence of Orbassano’s Cinderella over the Pope’s 1999 declaration in India to convert us to Catholicism, the evidence of Cinderella fleeing with her children - and the children are Italians under Italian law - to Italian hearths when India was under threat, and so on...
But the most telling comment came from Bruno Crimi of Panorama magazine, who covered the Indian elections for it. In the magazine “owned by Italy’s Prime Minister and media magnate, Silvio Berlusconi”, Crimi crowed: We both have Italian Prime Ministers now...
Only, of course, she still wasn’t the prime minister.
Sonia Gandhi, during her election campaign, had shrilled her pride at belonging to the family that had sacrificed so much, that had sacrificed its lives for the nation.
What sacrifice? An ordinary jawan and his family sacrifice more. Consider the facts.
If the Nehru-Gandhis died for the nation, then so does any public servant who dies while on duty. The nature or the emotion of the dying does not alter this principle. Sacrificing one’s life for the nation means going out to die for it - as a jawan does. Not one of the Nehru-Gandhis went out to die - on the contrary, they were heavily protected by jawans against such an eventuality. But a jawan off to war says his farewells first, because he knows - as does his family - that he may not come back. Whose, then, is the real sacrifice? Who, then, really dies for the nation?
Now consider what a “grateful” nation has given the Nehru-Gandhis for their so-called sacrifices for the nation...
Apart from Bharat Ratnas and numerous taxpayer-borne perquisites[8], there is the control over vast areas of prime Indian real estate. In Delhi alone, the family, protected at taxpayer’s cost, occupies, again at taxpayer’s cost, three centrally-located enormously valuable public properties. Through the Rajiv Gandhi Foundation it occupies and controls another enormously valuable piece of real estate; this Foundation has been the recipient of taxpayer largesse; the family’s private estate in Chattarpur has for years been secured at the taxpayer’s cost; and a sycophantic HRD minister changed the rules of the Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts to make Sonia Gandhi its head-for-life, IGNCA’s land alone reportedly being worth Rs 5,000 crores.[9]
Now consider what the family of a jawan gets when he’s sacrificed his life for the nation. There is an old story - Defence Minister Jagjivan Ram visited a northern town to distribute sewing machines to war widows. One widow took off her chappal and thwacked the Minister with it, asking if a sewing machine was all her husband had been worth. Okay, they may get more than a sewing machine now, but you get the point.
If you don’t, consider finally how many acres of prime public land in the Capital are reserved for memorials of the Nehru-Gandhis. And compare to that the handkerchief-sized space under India Gate for jawans who’ve actually died for the country.
Note it was the Italians themselves who said India had an Italian prime minister. And she has never broken off her Italian connection - not even in matters of Indian national security. She trusts her Italians more than us Indians.[10]
Sonia Gandhi’s election affidavit noted she has a house in Italy - and Italian law will always provide her and her children with a home. And therefore her “native town” jubilated. Only, of course, she still wasn’t the prime minister.
The Nehruvian-seculariat swung into action. “In the unfolding burlesque on succession to the throne of Delhi, the most enduring and funniest image was that of octogenerian Jyoti Basu, former West Bengal chief minister and veteran communist, rushing forward to push Ms Sonia Gandhi’s candidature for prime ministership... he had voluntarily decided to function as the spokesman for the Gandhi family”.[11]
Eminent lawyer Shanti Bhushan claimed the Indian Constitution does not distinguish between citizens ”on ground of place of birth”[12], no doubt inadvertently omitting to mention that Mrs. Gandhi did not acquire citizenship under the Constitution but under the Citizenship Act, and the Citizenship Act in its proviso to s.5(e) has “provided that in prescribing the conditions and restrictions subject to which persons of any such country may be registered as citizens of India under this clause, the Central Government shall have due regard to the conditions subject to which citizens of India may, by law or practice of that country, become citizens of that country by registration.”
In other words, under Indian citizenship law, there is a clear stipulation of reciprocity and, from all accounts till then, Italian law did not permit Indians marrying Italians to hold high public office.
There were, therefore, clearly in law what Sandhya Jain called “certain ambiguities” over Sonia Gandhi’s pretensions to prime ministership.[13]
There was also the incontrovertible fact that, during security threats to India, Sonia Gandhi had not chosen to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with other Indians in India, but ran away to Italian sanctuary. There was the incontrovertible fact that Sonia Gandhi, in India, as an Italian citizen married to an Indian, and from the Prime Minister’s House, broke this country’s electoral and foreign exchange laws.[14]
Recall that the President of India himself declared, in his April 18, 2004 address to the nation, that “in a democracy, an important principle is the equality of every citizen”.[15] If considerations of national security officially debar Indian citizens in certain official positions from marrying foreigners, surely such security considerations apply with the greatest possible force to Sonia Gandhi who by her acts had already shown her loyalty to our country was highly suspect.[16]
The Hindu reported the President of India had merely invited Sonia Gandhi “for discussions”[17] Nevertheless, NDTV announced Sonia Gandhi was to be sworn in on May 19, 2004 as prime minister of India.
Jubilation in India too. Vande Mata-Rome!
But we live, as the Chinese malediction goes, in exciting times! On May 18, 2004, the whole world saw why a handful of White foreigners could rule a subcontinent of Browns – and why a single White foreigner still can. It is not without reason she’s called the Empress of India. And, yes, she’s still very much a foreigner. More than 40 years in India, and recall the American confidential assessment of the Italian quite unchanged behind her Indian mukhota.
The Congress Parliamentary Party (CPP) met in the Central Hall of Parliament – with non-MPs Mr and Mrs Robert Vadra in the front row - and put on a spectacular display of obsequious servility and mawkish sycophancy. Congress Members of Parliament lined up to grovel and abase themselves before Sonia Gandhi as she sat in regal disdain, haughtily nodding at some especially expressive presentation of vassalage. Mani Shankar Aiyar and Renuka Choudhary led the maudlin tears, as they begged their mallika-e-jahan not to orphan them. Jairam Ramesh scaled the peak of unctuosity by clubbing Sonia Gandhi with the Buddha and with Mahatma Gandhi. Uriah Heep could’ve taken lessons from these MPs.[18]
The spirit of Mussolini hovered in the air as the Congress (Indira) exposed for all the world to see its fascisticization into the Congress (Italy). And aptly so, for nothing in Italian law prevented Sonia Gandhi as Indian prime minister also becoming the Italian prime minister. [19]
A hagiographical myth was in active creation, scripted by Sonia Gandhi and her children. As Prabhu Chawla wrote of that tamasha that was that CPP meeting, “On one side...were over 200 Congress leaders, a wailing legion of the suddenly orphaned pleading to the Leader... on the other side. All the while, she maintained eye contact only with the family - son Rahul, daughter Priyanka and son-in-law Robert Vadra - who sat in the first row. Never before had family members of a prospective prime minister attended such a meeting...the privileged three were the only ones she completely trusted”.[20]
It was disgusting and demeaning, this total abandoning of personal and national self-respect before a White European - and I say “White” advisedly for, “if Sonia Gandhi had been black, had been a person of African origin, this problem would never have arisen”.[21]
Consider how the English-language mainstream media tried to influence our perceptions, presenting assumption as fait accompli: Sonia Gandhi invited to be PM, Sonia Gandhi to be sworn in on May 19, Sonia Gandhi rejecting the prime ministership...
Yet none of this was true at all.
Sonia Gandhi had only been invited by the President “for discussions”; she had not been invited by him to form the new ministry. How then could she “humbly decline this post” when it had still not been offered to her? That she had been elected CPP leader may have entitled her to stake a claim, but that was a far cry from that claim having been accepted. She and her party clearly assumed the President had no Constitutional discretion to exercise in this matter but should function as a Nehru-Gandhi flunkey, as KR Narayanan had[22], and as Zail Singh had too, swearing in Rajiv Gandhi even before the CPP elected Gandhi its leader.
Sonia Gandhi and her party and its fellow-travellers assumed that any Indian citizen who questioned her legal eligibility for the post was anti-national; that it was illegitimate, anti-secular, anti-Gandhian and anti-people to raise the issue of her foreign origin - all “a vicious campaign”, as The Hindu editorially pontificated, in a blanket bracketing of such citizens with “the sangh parivar”.[23]
Let us start from Sonia Gandhi’s own statement of her inner voice telling her (at least for the previous 6 years) never to aspire to prime ministerial office (highly suspect, as SUS instances more than once) and that she was only listening to this inner voice.[24] Let us try and believe her. Now, her flunkeys announced:
1. She was a renouncer in the true Indian tradition.
But how could she renounce what she never wanted and what, in any case, had not been offered to her. And if she truly was a renouncer, how about her renouncing the vast public property and purse she still controlled, and renouncing the 6 crores annually from the public exchequer “to provide her a home and security”.[25] That would be the real renunciation, because then she’d be giving up something she wanted and had.[26]
2. It was “the people’s verdict/mandate” that she be our prime minister.
This assumed that Indian laws did not apply to Sonia Gandhi as, indeed, she herself assumed.[27] Her own electioneering did not project her as a prime ministerial candidate and, in any case, the Congress did not win a majority on its own - it cobbled together one after the elections. But this “people’s verdict” or “people’s mandate” – and note, not for her party but for her and her children - is a fabrication of stunning mythicality.[28]
If Sonia Gandhi six years earlier had decided she never wanted to be prime minister, why didn’t she announce so clearly and unambiguously before the electioneering had begun? Then both her party and the Indian electorate would’ve known what’s what. Instead, as Barkha Dutt noted on NDTV, to a question to Sonia Gandhi on her election as CPP leader meaning she became the prime ministerial candidate, she said “aisa hi hota hai”.
If it was the people’s verdict that she be prime minister, why was she running away from the maidan-e-jang (the imagery of the battle was her own)? Was this her contempt for the vox populi expressed so weepily by her Party’s MPs?[29]
3. She was hounded by the BJP’s “vicious attacks” (this from NDTV’s Mumbai anchor) on her foreign origin.
Sitaram Yechury “said the main reason why Sonia opted out was the issue of her foreign origin” - and not any inner voice - and she apparently flip-flopped over her decision, with her children helping the allies make her relent, and then she changed her mind again.[30] But why did asking legitimate questions about her legal eligibility - as The Pioneer, May 19, 2004 speculated the President did - become “vicious attacks”?
4. Finally, Sonia Gandhi’s innocent children told Jyoti Basu that “they have lost their father, and now they do not want to lose their mother as well”.[31]
Yet it was their mother herself who had initiated the possibility of such a second loss with her “coup de toilette” against Sitaram Kesri[32], it was still the case when in 1999 she met President KR Narayanan to stake her claim to prime ministership with her mythical claim of “we have 272 and more are coming”[33], it was still the case when she began her electioneering in 2004, it was still the case when she and the Congress won in the elections, it was still the case when the CPP on May 15 with her present elected her its leader and prime ministerial nominee, it was still the case when the Congress began patching together a majority with letters of support from the Nehruvian-secular parties to her as prime ministerial candidate of the United Progressive Alliance, it was still the case when the Congress and these Nehruvian-secular parties were on May 16 hosted by her at her residence and unanimously decided she was their prime ministerial nominee, it was still the case when the media broadcast for May 19 her swearing-in as prime minister, it was still the case when she first went to meet the President.
It was only after she met the President that the media began to report the Congress contacting the supporting parties for Manmohan Singh as leader. For what happened at Rashtrapati Bhawan we may have to wait for the presidential memoirs, but The Pioneer, May 19, 2004, usefully speculated on a Presidential appreciation of the implications of Article 102 of the Constitution and s.5 of the Citizenship Act on the eligibility of Sonia Gandhi for prime ministership.
What is clear is that “the President applied different standards to Sonia Gandhi and Dr Manmohan Singh. The evidence of it is the appointment of Dr Manmohan Singh. On Wednesday evening at 6 o’clock Dr Manmohan Singh was elected as the leader and at 8.15 p.m. he was given the letter of appointment. The President neither asked him the evidence of majority nor did he ask him about the support...”[34] The CPP had now elected Sonia Gandhi’s nominee as its leader, and he promptly collected the President’s invitation that had been kept ready for him. No discussion, nothing. There had been no such invitation awaiting the previous CPP-elected leader Sonia Gandhi herself when she trotted with her confident claim to the President. He sent her back empty-handed.
It was after this that Sonia Gandhi’s children came out with their fears of being orphaned as the factor influencing their mother to change her mind about being prime minister. “Jyoti Basu said...that...Sonia Gandhi had been dissuaded from becoming Prime Minister by her children, who fear that she might be killed”.[35] Priyanka Gandhi later clarified that “her mother’s decision was the response to her inner voice” and “said she might think about it after seeing the reaction of the party. This further fuelled speculation that the plot may change again”.[36] “Security threat was not the reason for...Sonia Gandhi not taking up prime ministership, according to her son, Rahul”.[37] Rahul Gandhi said that she “did what an ideal Indian woman should have done”.[38]
The English-speaking media projected the innocence of Sonia Gandhi’s children. But “the Marxists do not believe that Sonia Gandhi was solely guided by her ‘inner voice’ in declining to accept the post... [Jyoti] Basu has described her stand as ‘funny’... ‘We have also seen how her son and newly elected MP Rahul Gandhi offered her flowers in the Parliament to congratulate her after being elected leader of the Congress Parliamentary party. Had Rahul and his sister Priyanka any objection to their mother becoming the prime minister, why did not they say so in the beginning? Why did they raise objections at the eleventh hour?’ the CPM leaders ask”.[39] Why indeed?
So perhaps the children were not so innocent after all but, as the haazri of the Vadras at the CPP meeting showed, they were very much part of the plot. Remember that Pinocchio belongs to their natal tradition.
This whole business of Sonia Gandhi and her “inner voice” and her “humbly declining” the prime ministership is pure unadulterated naatak-baazi. If Sonia Gandhi is arrogant[40], she has every reason to be - a “cinderella” from a village in Italy with the elected representatives of the world’s largest democracy fawning at her feet, personifying her as our country, deifying her a mother-goddess, all in the best traditions of a Bollywood tear-jerking mythological.
It was we natives ourselves begging a White European to remember it is her mission to civilize us. Thus, senior politician and MP Ram Vilas Paswan was “ready to sacrifice even [his] life, pledging his life to work under her leadership”. Not surprisingly, her fellow-Italian, journalist Paolo Pontoniere, could write proudly that “Europeans revel in the pleasure of having one of their daughters bringing new hope to another continent”.[41]
Sonia Gandhi says, “Mujhe lagata hai ki aaj ki rajniti mein sant bane rahana hi sabse mushkil kaam hai (It appears to me that remaining a saint in politics is the most difficult thing)”.[42]
Jairam Ramesh ‘umbled himself all over again: “A long line of renunciates have dotted India right from the days of Gautama Buddha to Mahatma Gandhi; and, Sonia Gandhi has now joined this pantheon.”[43]
Alas, but Sonia Gandhi is no renouncing saint. She hasn’t renounced anything at all, neither pelf nor power, both appropriated through the backdoor while her “inner voice” answers the front door. Such is the Myth of the Renunciation.
Rahul Gandhi said the value that he’d uphold in politics is “Truth. I have seen that in politics, especially in our country, truth has been the first casualty”.[44]
Truth as a first casualty?
As in the Myth of the Renunciation - a lie so `colossal’ that no one would believe that someone `could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously’.
As in the Myth of the Renunciation - “don’t be fooled,” says Rahul Gandhi, “once a Gandhi, always a politician.”[45]
The Renunciation. Fellow Indians, don’t be fooled. It’s a Big Lie.
Notes
1. Mulayam Singh Yadav and Lalu Prasad in Parliament (“The super boss”, Grapevine, The Pioneer, May 10, 2010). Some four years earlier, the Whites had already understood this - “The Economist had famously described Mr Singh as a Prime Minister in office but not in power.” (“In office, not in power”, edit, The Pioneer, May 25, 2010). “Dr Singh declared: `The government will be run under her guidance’“ (Harish Khare, `We will focus on the poor’, The Hindu, May 21, 2004) just ”as...Jawaharlal Nehru had needed the Mahatma’s benign hand on his shoulder” (Inder Malhotra, “Congress culture too needs reform”, The Hindu, May 23, 2004).
