Shuddh Bollywood Sonia Gandhi: 'Banned' biography 'The Red Sari' hits the stands

A ‘dramatised biography’ of Sonia Gandhi, which could not be published in 2010 following protests from the party’s cadre, has hit the stands. According to a report on The Indian Express, the publisher, Roli Books, has said that they though there was no official ban on the book, a slew of protests made the atmosphere in the country unfavourable for publishing the book in India in the past. Interestingly enough, it seems that Sonia Gandhi’s lawyers have themselves cleared Roli to publish the biography now. “After the change of government in May 2014, we wrote to them (Gandhi’s lawyers), asking them if they wanted to publish it now, and they gave us their consent,” Pramod Kapoor, publisher, Roli Books told The Indian Express . PTI reports that The Red Sari, written by Javier Moro, was ready in 2008. “Originally published in Spanish in 2008, The Red Sari, written by author Javier Moro, had created a controversy when Congress spokesperson and lawyer Abhishek Manu Singhvi had said it contained ‘untruths, half-truths, falsehoods and defamatory statements’ and threatened legal action.” The Spanish version of the book is called ‘El Sari Rojo’. When the book was translated into English in 2010, Congress took severe exception to it and Moro was even served with a legal notice, reports The Telegraph. [caption id=“attachment_2049417” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Sonia Gandhi. AFP.[/caption] Kapoor told The Telegraph that in the past four months that they have been working with their Spanish publishers to bring the book out, there has been no pressure from the Congress to stop. He said, _"_Nobody approached me to stop this and we faced absolutely no resistance from anyone. We just Indianised the book a little to suit our market.” The published further added that there is nothing controversial about the book and the blurb paints a rather docile picture of the Congress President. It reads as follows: “The true story of a naïve young woman, confronted by the complicated and dangerous world of Indian politics.”  Outlook magazine , which managed to get excerpts from the book, which almost make it seem more like a Mills and Boon romance than a biography of one of India’s most powerful politicians. For example, sample the following lines recounting Sonia’s relationship with Rajiv Gandhi: “Can love arise in such an instantaneous, almost insolent way? When Rajiv took her hand as they were walking in the shade of the ancient walls of the cathedral, Sonia had no strength to pull it back. That warm, soft hand transmitted a feeling of immense, profound safety and pleasure. She could not pull her hand away.” The language of the book, if the excerpts are anything to go by, graduates from representing cloistering romance to melodramatic family feud. The following lines hold testimony to the same: “The atmosphere had never been so charged. On 20 June 1975 the party organized a solidarity rally at the Boat Club and it was Sanjay’s idea that the whole family should be together. “It’ll be good for the people to see us all together,” he had said. “I’d prefer it if you didn’t decide for us,” Rajiv spat back at him. However, while the contemporary discourse around Sonia Gandhi paints a picture of a woman unwilling to let go of the leash on India’s oldest political party, The Red Sari seems to suggest that she was far from willing to take a plunge into politics. In fact, it has dramatic scenes which involve Sonia sobbing and throwing a fit at the idea of Rajiv Gandhi having to make a formal entry into politics. “Oh no! Oh my God, no!” Sonia sobbed in a flood of tears. “They’ll kill you, they’ll kill you…” she repeated as P.C. Alexander, Indira’s official secretary, came to interrupt them. The wheel of succession could not wait. It was urgent to set it in motion. He took Rajiv by the arm.” The excerpts published by Outlook, strangely, seem like bits of a Prakash Jha film script. Perhaps, when the publishers were ‘Indianising’ Sonia’s story for publishing, it seems that they didn’t have to look beyond Bollywood for inspiration. There might be a reason why the Congress doesn’t have a problem with the publishing of the book now. After PM Modi made Sonia Gandhi out to be a power hungry, autocratic politician, this books seems to paint her character as that of a tragedy queen fit for a tear-jerker. That’s one account of the ‘dynastic politics’ that won’t hurt the Gandhis right now. Moro told The Outlook , “I think at that moment the book irritated Sonia and her family very much because the book revealed her origin in detail and they didn’t like that at all. The Congress hardliners at that time didn’t want the book to come out because they didn’t want Sonia to be perceived as a low-class European girl because the party had made huge efforts of highlighting her in public imagination as someone from the royalty because whom she was married to, to the Gandhi family.” Though the writer admits that most of the ‘family scenes’ are ‘imagined’, the rags-to-power story is no more a taboo in Indian politics thanks to Narendra Modi. The Congress giving a book a encouraging pat on its back, five years after it opposed it, hints that perhaps the Gandhis can now do with a piece of the humble pie.