Rajdeep: What influence did Indira Gandhi have on your politics in life?
Sonia: Well, I wouldn’t be in politics if I wasn’t her daughter-in-law.
Rajdeep: But when you had to take tough decisions in life, have you thought of her? I mean you had to take a lot of tough decisions in life — your decision not to become PM…
Sonia: Tough decision... the first was whether to join politics or not. I did not join politics. And as probably is known, I did not want my husband to join politics. He was not keen to join politics. He was very happy as a pilot where there is your own pace and own life. But, it’s precisely because of a certain duty that I felt towards my mother-in-law and my husband. Because I saw them struggle, work day and night to uphold certain values, certain principles. And when it came to my call, I felt that I was being cowardly not to respond to them.
Rajdeep: So, you don’t hold it against your mother-in-law sometimes that she virtually, as you say, forced your husband to join politics. You had to enter politics against your initial instincts, because there was duty that you saw towards Mrs Indira Gandhi? She saw politics almost as a duty and, therefore, virtually pushed her family members into politics!
Sonia: I don’t think she pushed any member of her family to join politics. But I think she brought up her sons in a manner in which they appreciated, they understood the kind of work, the kind of in a way sacrifice she had done to uphold her certain values, because I think she herself did not want to be in politics. Perhaps this is something that very few know.
Rajdeep: She didn’t want to be in politics?
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Sonia: She was not terribly keen to be in politics.
Rajdeep: But once she was in politics, she was the ultimate power politician. So it seemed almost the outsider that she was made for politics. You are telling me today that you believe that Indira Gandhi’s instinct was not to join politics!
Sonia: That’s my belief. I may be wrong.
Rajdeep: There is some evidence to that that she had in the mid-Sixties even planned to go and live in England for a while.
Sonia: Well, I said that it’s my belief. I think, left to herself, she would have chosen a normal life.
Rajdeep: So, she also saw a sense of duty to Jawaharlal Nehru?
Sonia: I will always say to her country, to the people of the country.
Rajdeep: You think that was her sense of duty?
Sonia: Without any doubt whatsoever.
Rajdeep: The reason I am asking you this is the one criticism that has always been made against Indira Gandhi, it's made against you. It's been made against the Gandhi family that it is promoting its dynasty. That it is almost as if you are saying the family members were forced into politics. But somehow, they have all been in politics for four generations.
Sonia: Yes. I understand that people do look at it that way. But I would say that just like in a family of doctors, in a family of professors, in a family of business, one or the other within the family will choose the same path as the father.
Rajdeep: You don’t think that it is dynasty politics?
Sonia: I would say there is a difference, because in politics you are elected and you are defeated democratically. There is that difference.
Rajdeep: When I ask you about mother-in-law’s values, ideals, what according to you are the central ideals and values that Indira Gandhi represented?
Sonia: Secularism.
Rajdeep: And secularism in the classical way, you believe, not as it described today as minority appeasement because…
Sonia: Absolutely not, absolutely not.
Rajdeep: It was treatment on a par for all religions?
Sonia: Absolutely.
Rajdeep: And every citizen?
Sonia: All Indians are... were... are the same regardless of their background of their religion.
Rajdeep: We have pictures of Indira Gandhi with tribals... celebrating Eid... and celebrating Hindu festivals... now many have criticised that over the years saying that this has led to appeasement. You believe that there was genuine sense of treating everyone equally.
Sonia: Yes she did, she did... completely... absolutely
Rajdeep: Mrs Gandhi’s black mark was the Emergency and till today people, in a sense, look at Mrs Gandhi’s two images; one in the 1971 war, as the biggest moment, and her darkest moment as the Emergency of 1975. How do you believe she would see the Emergency today?
Sonia: I cannot say exactly how she would see the Emergency today. But I can say that if she had not felt extremely uncomfortable with it at some stage, she would not have called for elections.
Rajdeep: You know there are those, ma’am, who say that today the Congress party needs a leader like Indira Gandhi to take on someone like Narendra Modi — the reason they say Mr Narendra Modi is a tough prime minister much like Indira and the Congress doesn’t have that kind of tough, competitive leadership to take on…
Sonia: I don’t agree with that. Don’t forget that when Mrs Gandhi entered politics, she became president of the party or later prime minister, she was ridiculed, she was made fun of, she was insulted — there was nothing that she did that was right.
Edited excerpts, reproduced with permission, from an interview of Congress President Sonia Gandhi by Rajdeep Sardesai on India Today Television, November 22