Widow of ex-PM Rajiv born in pre-Alps of Veneto
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| Sonia Gandhi overcame her reluctance to become a major figure in Indian politics |
Sonia Gandhi, an Italian who married into a famous political
dynasty and became the most powerful woman in India, was born on this day in
1946 in a small town near Vicenza.
In 1965, in a restaurant in
Cambridge, England, where she was attending a language school, she met an
engineering student from the University of Cambridge. They began dating and
three years later were married.
His name was Rajiv Gandhi, the eldest son of the future Indian
prime minister Indira Gandhi. They were
married in a Hindu ceremony, Sonia moved into her mother-in-law’s house and
from then on lived as an Indian. Rajiv became an airline pilot while Sonia
looked after their two children, Rahul and Priyanka.
Everything changed when Indira Gandhi was assassinated by
Sikh nationalists in 1984, a year after Sonia had been granted Indian
citizenship. Rajiv had entered politics
in 1982 following the death of his brother, Sanjay, in a plane crash and was
elected to succeed his mother as prime minister.
Sonia wanted to remain in the background, having developed a
passionate interest in preserving India’s artistic treasures. Inevitably she became
more involved, campaigning on her husband’s behalf, and when Rajiv himself was killed
by a suicide bomber in 1991, she was invited to take over as prime minister.
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| Sonia Gandhi at a meeting with the former US president Bill Clinton |
She declined but then watched her husband’s Indian National Congress
Party lose its way over the next few years and was urged to help revive its
flagging fortunes. She joined the party in 1997. Within a year she was leader
of the opposition in the Indian Parliament and in 2004 won the general
election.
Amid controversy over whether a foreigner should be allowed
to assume the highest office in the country, she opted not to become prime
minister, nominating Manmohan Singh to hold the title instead, a move that was
accepted by her political opponents.
Nonetheless, as chair of the 15-party governing coalition,
named the United Progressive Alliance, that was charged with running the
country, she was the most powerful woman in Indian politics and therefore one
of the most powerful women in the world.
How different her life might have been had she not met the young
Rajiv Gandhi on that evening in 1965.
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| The house in Lusiana where Sonia Gandhi was born in 1946 |
Born in Lusiana, a town in the Veneto about 20km (12 miles)
north of Vicenza, her birth name was Edvige Antonia Albina Maino. She spent her early years in the Contrada
Maini – the Maini quarter – which historically was dominated by people from the
Maino family, many of whom spoke a Germanic language called Cimbro.
It was her father, Stefano, who began to call her Sonia. A
fervent supporter of Benito Mussolini’s Fascist party, he had fought in Russia
alongside the Axis forces during the Second World War and was taken prisoner,
but was grateful for the kindness of three Russian women who helped him after
he was released. One was named Sonia,
the others Anouchka and Nadia, and he used their names as nicknames for his own
three daughters.
When Sonia was nine, the family moved to Orbassano, a town
near Turin, where her father started a small business. He built his family a two-storey villa, with
tall iron gates, that remains the family home even today.
He was a strict catholic and sent Sonia and her sisters to a
convent, where they were boarders. Sonia was remembered as a lively student who
took part in theatre activities and sang.
Later, she attended a Berlitz language school in Turin,
eager to learn good English, a command of which was regarded as essential for
any Italian with ambition. It was becoming the norm for wealthier Italian parents
to send their children to study in England, hence Sonia’s arrival in Cambridge
in January, 1965.
She did not care much for English weather nor the food, and
the only cuisine resembling Italian that she could find in Cambridge at the time was at
the Varsity Restaurant, whose owner was Greek-Cypriot. It was where she met
Rajiv. Some accounts of her life say she took temporary work there as a waitress while studying, although it is not clear whether she was waiting on tables or simply there as a diner on the night she met Rajiv.
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| Rajiv Gandhi (left) with his mother Indira and brother Sanjay as a young man in India |
Although she was a beautiful girl, never short of male
attention, and comfortably off, too, thanks to her father’s generous allowance,
it was only after meeting Rajiv that she felt her time in Cambridge became
bearable. Rajiv was wealthy but Indians were not allowed to take much money out
of the country and he therefore had to live a humble life. He took a part-time
job in a supermarket while not studying.
Sonia met Indira Gandhi in London and it was plain to her that
her relationship with Rajiv met with his mother’s approval. But her own parents
had reservations about the idea of her marrying a non-Italian, never mind one
from a country so far removed from Italy as India, even though Stefano thought
Rajiv was sincere and was impressed by his determination to support her by
becoming a commercial pilot.
He forbade Sonia to travel to India until she was 18 and
even then said he would give their relationship his blessing only after they
had lived apart for a year, hoping it might cool. It did not, and they were married in 1968.
Although her life from then was in India, Sonia returned to
Italy from time to time but did so discreetly. When she won the 2004 election,
the media descended on Orbassano. Her
father had passed away some years earlier but her mother and sisters still
lived in the town. They declined all interviews, however, their reluctance
explained by the mayor of Orbassano, who told reporters that they had been
upset by the tragedies that had beset the Gandhi family and asked to be left in
peace.
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| Lusiana nestles in the picturesque hills of the northern Veneto in the shadow of the Alps |
Travel tip:
Lusiana is a town of slightly more than 2,500 inhabitants in
the picturesque pre-Alps of northern Veneto, about 20km (12 miles) north of Vicenza
and about the same distance west of Bassano del Grappa. It is located about
750m (2,450ft) above sea level on the Asiago or Sette Comuni plateau. It is a
centre for tourism both in summer and winter. The church of Santa Caterina in the
nearby village of the same name contains an altarpiece by the artist Jacopo
Bassano.
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| Piazza Umberto I in Orbassano |
Travel tip:
The town of Orbassano is in an area about 20km southwest of
Turin that was deforested in Roman times. It grew from a village to a town in the
19th century when a railway line from Turin and a textile factory
was opened, although it remained a relatively small municipality until the
1960s, when its development as an industrial centre saw the population double to
around 16,000 in the space of a decade, largely due to Fiat opening a plant at
nearby Rivalta. The town, with a pretty central square, Piazza Umberto I, has
continued to grow and is earmarked for a
direct metro link to the centre of Turin. A road out of Orbassano is named Via Rajiv Gandhi.