The loss that changed Varun Gandhi
Why one of the rising stars of India’s ruling BJP is now distancing himself from the party
The loss of his four-month-old daughter Aadya Priyadarshini, who died in his arms in 2011, transformed Feroze Varun Gandhi. He had named her after Indira Priyadarshini Gandhi, the grandmother he adored.
Feroze was her favourite grandchild.
The son of Sanjay and Maneka Gandhi, with all its attendant baggage, Feroze, as he is called by close friends, was forced to live out his mother’s break from the Gandhi family, which included joining the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), yet maintaining an extremely fond relationship with his cousins Rahul and Priyanka Gandhi.
A close friend says: “Before Feroze used to shout, but after Aadya’s death he whispers — you have to strain to hear him.”
Feroze took a two-month break, barely speaking to anyone and rethought his entire life and choices, say people close to him. The nature of his schizophrenic relationship with the BJP, the bond of pain and trauma he had with his mother, who he had seen struggle all his life, Feroze literally sat down at the drawing board and worked on himself.
He chose to let go of fear, the friend said, when I asked what had changed. “When you lose a child, what can the loss of a party post or an election mean?”
Conversely, this made the youngest Gandhi — he is 38 — understand the pain his grandmother had gone through when her favourite son and political heir Sanjay died.
Feroze was sent to Harrow to study, following in the footsteps of his great grandfather, India’s first prime minister Jawahar Lal Nehru. He had to be withdrawn after two years for security reasons when his uncle Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated.
From the top hats of Harrow he was sent to Rishi valley, where students occasionally sat under trees to study. Feroze has, perhaps, had the most bewildering life. He was a published poet at the age of 20 with his volume called The Otherness of Self — illustrated by M.F. Hussain. His new book A Rural Manifesto — Realising India’s Future Through Her Villages — is due for release later this week.
So why did the introverted, shy and cerebral Feroze make that infamous speech in 2009 where he allegedly threatened to cut off people’s hands for which he was sent to jail by the Election Commission? He fought a case defending himself, saying he did not say any such thing and that the tape was doctored.
Feroze has set out to deliberately burn his bridges with the BJP after the Narendra ModiAmit Shah duo took over the party. Shah stripped him of all posts as a punishment for refusing to speak against his cousins, but Feroze did not seem to care. The BJP high command asked him to contest against Rahul Gandhi in Amethi, but he refused.
Modi’s visceral hatred
He was taunted by the leader, making the offer “are you scared?” And Feroze is said to have replied: “I don’t think we should reduce politics to a tamasha (spectacle).”
Initially, the BJP made much of Feroze as he was appointed the youngest-ever general secretary of the party. In the Modi era, with his visceral hatred of the Gandhi name, Feroze was completely sidelined.
Feroze refused to share a stage with Modi except on one occasion in West Bengal. As Shah sought to sideline him, Feroze tried to reach out to the youth by going on lecture tours of colleges across the country. He also writes a syndicated column in Indian newspapers. Feroze keeps taking pot shots at the policies being followed by the Modi government.
So will it be Feroze’s expected home-coming to the Congress?
Going by his turbulent life, even Feroze himself perhaps does not have the answer. Aadya’s loss made him a new person. Anasuya, his second daughter, was born in 2014 and Feroze ensures he spends hours with her daily. She may help him find answers.