INDIRA: THE POWER OF MADAM
Sagarika Ghose has become one of those journalists who attracts near continuous abuse on social media. For the Modi bhakts, she represents ‘sickular’ Lutyens Delhi hypocrisy, a well-heeled liberal unable to accept her irrelevance. So she must have anticipated the frosty reception from some quarters for her new book, Indira: India’s Most Powerful Leader.
Indeed, almost 90 per cent of the reviews on Amazon give the book one star out of five. Many of them appear to have been written even before the book was available to buy. The notoriety of both subject and biographer has certainly created a buzz, whether or not it boosts sales. In the preface, Ghose notes that publisher Juggernaut approached her with the idea for a biography of Indira Gandhi, in the centenary year of her birth, ‘to bring Indira alive for a new generation’, and confesses that she has drawn on the work of other biographers and scholars rather than bringing to light new information. The book is thus a journalistic effort to place Indira in the contemporary context, examining her fraught legacy and identifying the lessons she taught Indian politicians. Not least, our current prime minister. Discussing Indira’s appeal to the masses, rather than power brokers, she notes, ‘Is it any wonder then that from Amit Shah and Narendra Modi to Sonia Gandhi and regional bosses, politicians across the spectrum still refer to the Indira Gandhi playbook?’
Ghose’s impetus for writing this biography is also personal. She was a college student when Indira was assassinated and begins each chapter with a letter addressed to ‘Dear Mrs Gandhi’. It’s a ghoulish gimmick and should have been dropped. What purpose does it serve to ask questions to presumably the ghost of Indira, questions such as
WITH ITS MIX OF TRAGEDY AND PRIVILEGE AND HER EVENTUAL FAILURE, INDIRA’S LIFE WAS SOMEWHAT SHAKESPEAREAN
‘Were you embarrassed and ashamed about your failure to gain a degree at Oxford?’ No authoritative answer is available. And speculation is not any less speculative because it comes in a letter.
Ghose’s Amazon critics accused her of bias. But Ghose is careful to acknowledge Indira’s very mixed legacy, her undermining of Indian democracy, her paranoia and her increasing superstition. With its mix of tragedy and privilege, and her eventual failure, due in no small part to fatal flaws in her character, her life was Shakespearean. Ghose tells Indira’s story fluently, so that even though it is familiar in its contours, it makes for riveting reading. Nor does she shirk from addressing the horrors of the Sikh pogrom of 1984—murder licensed by Rajiv Gandhi and his Congress henchmen. If Ghose cannot be accused of hagiography, her empurpled prose does strain to imbue Indira with an unwarranted grandeur. Nevertheless, Indira serves as an effective primer to a troubled and troubling prime minister.