The tallest Indian

Sonia Gandhi stands today as the tallest Indian. Never before has someone at the threshold of the country's highest and most powerful office decided to not take the final step of getting sworn in by the President.

By becoming prime minister, she would have stepped on to the world stage and indeed into history, and not just for the extraordinary set of circumstances in which someone born as an Italian could become the leader of a quite different country of more than a billion people.

But in turning down the office, she has done herself enormous credit and gained immeasurably in stature. It would of course have been better if she had made her position clear before the meeting of the Congress Parliamentary Party last week, so that the drama of the last two days could have been avoided.

Perhaps it needed prodding from the ranks of the Sangh Parivar, and the threat of more extreme forms of protest must have been daunting.

Two sets of circumstances are worth recalling. First, Sonia Gandhi had turned down the leadership of the Congress party when it was first offered to her in 1991, in the wake of her husband's assassination.

It has also been revealed, rather late in the day, that when she claimed a parliamentary majority in 1999, she intended to have Manmohan Singh become the prime minister.

Indeed, she moved to assume leadership of the Congress six years ago only when the party seemed in danger of disintegrating. It was a response to the call of duty. So she has credibility on her side when she claims that becoming prime minister has not been her motivation.

The second circumstance worth recalling is that Indira Gandhi, in the face of an adverse court ruling in 1975, refused to step down and chose instead to clamp an Emergency regime on the country that forever has stained her record and been a scar on the country's memory.

The original Mrs Gandhi would have done herself and her country a favour if she had simply stepped down then and sat out the mandatory six years.

Similarly, Sonia Gandhi could well have steeled herself, assumed office, stared down the critics and argued with full justification that she is technically and politically qualified to be prime minister, having led her party to a position where it alone can lead the new government.

But she must know that the issue of her original nationality had the potential to divert her government's attention from pressing issues. In choosing to step aside, therefore, she has displayed uncommon good sense, a robust recognition of what is in the larger interest of her party and the new government, and indeed a very fine sense of propriety "" more than the first Mrs Gandhi showed when she had the opportunity to rise above herself.