(Ashok Malik is a columnist and writer living in Delhi)Born into an aristocratic family in Bharatpur and married to the daughter of the former Maharaja of Patiala, K. Natwar Singh is the archetypal establishment figure in Delhi. A senior member of the Indian Foreign Service (IFS), he took early retirement to contest the general election of 1984. His closeness to the Nehru-Gandhi family was no secret. It was rewarded in 2004, when he became foreign minister in the first UPA government.
Subsequently, Natwar lost his job because his son was found to be involved in the Iraqi oil-for-food scandal. During the years his regime was under United Nations sanctions, Iraq's long-time dictator Saddam Hussein was allowed to sell small quantities of crude oil to pay for his country's food imports. These oil quotas were sold through hand-picked intermediaries, with Saddam and his close confidants understood to be getting kickbacks.
Friendly non-Iraqis were "obliged" with quotas and allowed to make tidy profits. One such crude oil quota was picked up by Natwar's son. Many believed - and still believe - that Saddam gave the quota to the Congress as a political party and not merely to an individual politician, and that Natwar's son was not the sole beneficiary. The Congress, on its part, insisted the Singh parivar was guilty of private practice and sacked Natwar.
This led to an estrangement between the diplomat-turned-politician and the Nehru-Gandhi family, four generations of which he had served. The bitterness this created forms the context of Natwar's book, One Life is not Enough. It is worth noting that if Sonia Gandhi and the Congress had stood by Natwar and rehabilitated him in the years following the oil-for-food scandal, this book may never have been written. In the broader scheme, this realisation makes it difficult to sympathise with either side. Both the writer and his target(s) are people who have lived off the system.
Having said that, Natwar's claim that Sonia's primary reason to turn away the prime ministry in 2004 was not an "inner voice" or even concern that Indian politics was not ready for a foreign-born prime minister, but her son's insistence that she not take the job and to that extent risk her life, is bound to be embarrassing. If nothing else, at the level of salacious gossip it will certainly hurt the Congress and dent what remains of the Nehru-Gandhi mystique.
Natwar's allegation that Rahul Gandhi was stubborn and refused to let his mother become prime minister cannot be dismissed out of hand. For one, he has cited precise witnesses to the event. Second, consider the history of the Nehru-Gandhi family. By her own admission, Sonia "fought like a tigress" to prevent Rajiv from entering politics and becoming prime minister. Concerns for his life and at the very least his privacy were on her mind.
In 2004, the Congress won a fluke election. The BJP lost, slumping to 138 seats in the Lok Sabha, but the Congress (145 seats) did not quite triumph. Nevertheless it got to lead the post-election coalition. Rather unexpectedly, given the predictions before the election, Sonia was in position to become prime minister. Faced with a real decision - as opposed to a hypothetical one - it is possible Rahul panicked.
The question is not about Rahul's concerns, which were perhaps to be expected in a son or family member, especially a neophyte who had just entered politics. The question is why did Sonia succumb to Rahul's pressure, if indeed it was the only thing that stopped her from moving into 7 Race Course Road (which is what Natwar says happened)? Were the immediate family and its whims and wishes more important that what the party and the allies wanted? Were there other reasons?
Sonia has hit back by saying she will write her own book and explain. While this is a nice, rhetorical sound bite, nobody seriously expects her to produce a tell-all or candid autobiography. After 10 years of absolute though proxy power, she has internalised that old mantra, "Never apologise, never explain".
It is more likely the intellectual cum public relations eco-system that surrounds the Nehru-Gandhis will spend the coming weeks excoriating and excommunicating Natwar, and attempting to reduce him to a non-person. It would be so typical of Delhi's beautiful people: all high drama and low politics.
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