EXCERPTS
ON RAHUL GANDHI I can’t escape the feeling that Rahul’s uncritical examination of his family’s record means he may not be learning the right lessons from history. I begin to see how Sonia views her role in politics, not as the active, activist reformer who will clean out the Augean Stables of corruption and nepotism, but as someone whose role is much simpler—to preserve her family’s legacy of secularism until her son is ready to take up the reins of power, to intervene here and there on behalf of the poor, but not to challenge the nature of the Congress political beast. If Modi made no secret of his disdain for foreigners in that first meeting (in 2007), my next interview with him, some five years later, was very different. This time he seemed keen to impress, to make a case for his international rehabilitation... He did his best to be charming, to smile and demonstrate a lighter, human side. I have to admit to having found it equally unsettling. MANMOHAN SINGH As soon as I saw the caller ID I knew I was in trouble... (Manmohan) Singh, I had written, was in danger of going down in history as a failure, as a silent, tragic figure who probably should have resigned at the end of his first term. I knew this call meant trouble. ON PRIYANKA GANDHI With the moon above her, a shower of rose petals was caught in a camera’s flash as it fell across her; an image I can still picture in my mind’s eye. Somehow, Priyanka simply projects that indefinable star quality that her studious and earnest brother lacks.