The Next Generation

By William Stewart

Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was reminiscing about her father, Jawaharlal Nehru, some years ago. "People say he was like the banyan tree: nothing and nobody grew in his shadow," she mused. "They are wrong. He was like the sun, and let everything and everybody grow -- even the weeds, let us be honest." It was vintage Indira, who would have denied there was a Nehru dynasty even as she came to symbolize it.

Leadership has been the Gandhi family's birthright. In a land accustomed to rajas, maharajas, kings and emperors, a republican ruling family was consistent with India's long history. It lent legitimacy to the government of a country that until independence in 1947 had been as much a state of mind as a nation-state.

No wonder Congress elders turned immediately to Sonia Gandhi, 44, as party leader. But Sonia is a widow with no desire for power. She never wanted her husband Rajiv to enter politics, much less succeed his mother. It was Sonia who cradled Indira's head as she lay dying from assassins' bullets, and friends note that after the shooting in 1984, she became obsessed with the safety of her husband and children. Behind the dark glasses she wore during public appearances, her eyes constantly searched crowds for a possible assassin. Says a friend: "What she was most afraid of in the world was losing Rajiv."

Sonia's aloofness has helped make her a formidable and somewhat unfathomable figure. She assiduously tended Rajiv's constituency in Amethi, Uttar Pradesh state, but apparently disliked politics. Though a naturalized Indian citizen ! since 1983, she is Italian by birth, and almost certainly would have faced strong opposition on that ground alone.

One of three daughters born to building contractor Stefano Maino and his wife Paola in Lusiana, a small town in Italy's Veneto region, Sonia was sent to Cambridge in the early '60s to study English. There she met Rajiv, who was studying mechanical engineering at Trinity College. Although both families initially opposed their marrying, it was Indira who first gave her blessing and later persuaded Sonia's parents to consent. The young Italian wholeheartedly adopted India, learning fluent Hindi and Indian cooking.

While Sonia refuses to step into the limelight, what about the rest of the family? The nearest heirs are her two children. Like his father at the same age, Rahul, 20, a Harvard undergraduate, shows no interest in politics, preferring photography and target shooting. He is the quieter, more introverted of the two children.

But her daughter Priyanka, 19, a student at the College of Jesus and Mary in New Delhi, shows flashes of her grandmother's fabled toughness and composure. She has displayed a flair for politics, and her strength during her father's funeral prompted a party worker to say, "Give her time, and she is definitely Prime Minister material."

Beyond Rajiv's immediate family, there are other Gandhis and Nehrus interested in taking up the family business. Maneka Gandhi, 34, widow of Rajiv's younger brother Sanjay, is highly ambitious and politically astute, currently holding office as Minister of Environment. But she quarreled with the family when Indira cut her out of the succession after Sanjay's death, and joined the opposition. The only other possible choice is Arun Nehru, 47, a cousin of Rajiv's and a former corporate executive who once was Minister of Internal Security in Rajiv's Cabinet. But the two fell out in 1986, and Arun does not seem to have either the political support or popular appeal needed to make a successful bid for power.

With reporting by Anita Pratap/New Delhi