New heir lays claim to Gandhi legacy

HIS father and grandmother paid the ultimate price in their pursuit of power, but Rahul Gandhi is carrying the torch of the new generation for India’s political dynasty.

No one could deny politics is in the blood of the 33-year-old former financial consultant, but whether he can return the Congress party to the glory days of office is less certain

His father, Rajiv Gandhi, served as prime minister of India, as did his grandmother, the legendary Indira Gandhi, and his great-grandfather, Jawaharlal Nehru, who was the country’s first prime minister following independence.

To the surprise of political observers in the world’s largest democracy, the family matriarch and party leader Sonia Gandhi has chosen her son Rahul to enter the political fray rather than his charismatic sister Priyanka.

Before it was announced last month that he would contest the traditional family seat of Amethi in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh, little or nothing had been seen of Rahul on the political circuit. Shy and quietly-spoken, he was more known for his interest in the outdoors and cricket.

About all that was generally known of him was that he attended one of India’s smartest schools, studied abroad and then worked as a financial consultant in London.

He also had a "Latin" girlfriend. "Not sure exactly what nationality," a Congress official said. "Venezuelan, I think. No, maybe Spanish".

Described by party insiders as "serious-minded" and as having "a good eye for detail", Rahul must be aware of the great hopes invested in him.

He vowed to fight "tooth and nail" to remove caste and religious divides in India. He told the BBC World Service: "My sister [Priyanka Gandhi] and I believe that what is going on in India today, the division of India along caste lines, along religious lines, is absolutely wrong. We believe in this passionately and whether it is my sister or me, we will fight this, no questions asked, all the way."

He is not afraid to invoke the spirit of his father. At a recent campaign rally in Amethi he said: "I’m here to complete my father’s work. He had a vision of India, a modern India. I decided to join politics while travelling on the train carrying my father’s body. I saw a lot of people running after the train. I thought I must do something for the people who loved my father."

His opponents in the incumbent Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) are likely to make capital out of the fact that he is half Indian and half Italian. Many believe that only a ‘true Gandhi’ - Sonia is widely dismissed as a ‘foreigner’ - can revive the declining fortunes of the once great Congress party.

And Rahul is painfully aware of the risk he is taking. Personal security is tight around the candidate.

Nehru’s daughter Indira Gandhi became prime minister in 1966 and ruled with only a three-year break until her assassination in 1984 when she was succeeded by her son, Rajiv. He was assassinated by a suicide bomber while campaigning before elections in 1991.

Having ruled India for nearly four decades after independence from Britain, Congress went into a spiral of decline during the 1990s, recording its worst ever election result four years ago.

Last November the party lost three key state elections to the BJP - prompting the ruling party to hold national polls six months ahead of schedule.

Out of power for eight straight years and realising that the era of single-party government is over, the Congress party has followed in the footsteps of the BJP by forming alliances with small regional parties.

Congress has an uphill struggle against the election campaign of Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee and his BJP-led coalition government.

Under the slogan ‘India is Shining’, the message of India’s success is being beamed out countrywide: in newspapers and magazines, on television and radio, even by way of recorded announcements on mobile and domestic telephone lines.

Welcome to the new India, goes the BJP mantra, a land of political stability, international prestige and unparalleled economic growth - to say nothing of cricketing prowess, including a victory last week over Pakistan, and gleaming call centres.

India might have a booming economy with an unprecedented growth rate; it might boast a nuclear weapons capability and a space research programme second to none in the region; and it may be able to deploy 175,000 electronic voting machines in the world’s largest exercise of democracy.

But the casual disregard for the welfare of the poor is still very much a feature of life in the subcontinent.

Nevertheless, the government can boast the recent improvement in relations with India’s long-standing foe, Pakistan.

A ceasefire has been in operation in the contested Himalayan state of Kashmir for the past six months and, despite the occasional attack by Islamic militants, the lull in hostilities looks set to continue.

"This peace with Pakistan looks to be going down really well with the electorate", said one commentator. "Pretty surprising when you think that Pak-bashing was until recently the most popular show around. But when the PM suggests the two countries might in the future settle their differences on the cricket pitch, rather than throwing bombs at each other, people cheer their approval."

The elderly Vajpayee, 79, enjoys tremendous personal popularity and there is no doubt he will return to power, bringing the BJP-led ruling coalition with him.

Paternal and gracious, he has managed to distance his party from the Hindu hardliners and their old rallying cries of Hindutva, or Hindu supremacy.

He also remains untainted by the horrors of the western state of Gujarat, where hundreds of minority Muslims were massacred by Hindu extremists under the eyes of the BJP state authorities.

Though the killings took place two years ago, their legacy still haunts the country. This week, the Supreme Court ordered the retrial of 21 men who had earlier been acquitted of involvement in the slaughter of 14 Muslims, burned to death in a bakery in the city of Vadodara.

In doing so, the court delivered a stinging verdict on the state’s Chief Minister, Narendra Modi, and his BJP associates for turning a blind eye to the killings.

DECLINE OF A DYNASTY

IT IS a political dynasty often described as India’s Kennedys. The Nehru-Gandhi family dominated politics in the subcontinent for 40 years after the end of British rule.

Rahul Gandhi has said it was "a humbling experience" to stand in the Amethi constituency in the state of Uttar Pradesh, where his father, the late Rajiv Gandhi, had been elected three times.

Rajiv was killed by a suicide bomber in 1991, seven years after his mother, Indira Gandhi, was assassinated.

A popular misconception has been to consider Indira Gandhi to be a relative of the Mahatma Gandhi. But the Mahatma was only a close family friend. Indira took the Gandhi name by marriage to Feroze, a Parsi student and later political activist who also had no family connection to the great man.

Indira was murdered by her two Sikh bodyguards. They gunned her down in a hail of 30 bullets in the garden of her official residence in Delhi.

Rahul’s great-grandfather, Jawaharlal Nehru, was independent India’s first prime minister.

Rajiv’s Italian-born wife Sonia, left, is currently the leader of Congress. Some senior members within the party had been eager to field Rahul’s older sister, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, 36, but she has not become a candidate.