Ramachandra Guha: The rise and fall of Sonia Gandhi

by Guest Sat Mar 18, 2017 4:10 pm

Sonia Gandhi is still a member of Parliament. She is still president of the Congress. But it is fair to say that after the general elections of 2014 and the UP elections of 2017, it is impossible for her to ever regain an important place in Indian politics. Hence this column, which has provided a provisional assessment of her two decades in political life. It remains only to say that in its overall trajectory, Sonia Gandhi's political career strikingly resembles the political careers of three other members of her family. Nehru enjoyed stunning political success for many years, but from 1959 his fortunes started declining. Between 1969 and 1975, Indira Gandhi was hugely and massively admired across India for her economic and military policies; but from Emergency onwards, her record and reputation became more mixed. In the first few years of his prime ministership, Rajiv Gandhi won plaudits for forging accords with secessionists and for promoting cutting-edge technologies; then came the successive appeasement of Muslim and Hindu fundamentalists and the Bofors scandal. Sonia Gandhi's political life has mirrored all of these; in experiencing success and achievement in its first phase, but decline and failure in the second.

There is thus a markedly family feel to the arc of Sonia Gandhi's life in Indian politics. However, her son, Rahul, may prove an exception to the rule; in being the first Nehru-Gandhi never to know political success at all.

https://www.telegraphindia.com/1170318/jsp/opinion/story_141160.jsp#.WM2fuBiZMdV

by Guest Sun Mar 19, 2017 9:26 pm

another good article about the decline of the Congress (and its leadership):

http://blogs.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/aakarvani/congress-pvt-ltd-punjab-is-poor-consolation-for-a-family-firm-in-decay/

Ramachandra Guha: The rise and fall of Sonia Gandhi

Ramachandra Guha: The rise and fall of Sonia Gandhi

Re: Ramachandra Guha: The rise and fall of Sonia Gandhi