The reappearance of Priyanka Vadra on the campaign trail might be the proverbial shot in the arm needed for the beleaguered Indian National Congress party. The granddaughter of Indira Gandhi – the country’s first female prime minister and possibly the most controversial – Vadra has always shunned the limelight. But even as she continues to take a back seat to her older brother, Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi, fellow party members hold her in high esteem, especially for her negotiating skills and diplomacy.
Vadra put her talents to good use last month, bringing about an important seat-sharing alliance between Congress and the Samajwadi Party, which holds the local government in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh. With the state in the middle of constituency elections, it’s a strategic move by Congress, as it continues to flounder against the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which won the 2014 general elections in a landslide.
Vadra was born Priyanka Gandhi in Delhi on January 12, 1972, into a famous dynasty of politicians. Her great-grandfather, Jawaharlal Nehru, was sworn in as the first prime minister of India on August 15, 1947; since then, the clan, and the Congress party, which was established in 1885, have been in power for much of the time.
But the family is perhaps best known for the double tragedy they have endured: the assassinations of Indira and her son Rajiv Gandhi, Vadra’s father, in 1984 and 1991. Both were prime ministers when they were killed, and their untimely deaths are widely speculated to be the reason why Vadra isn’t interested in becoming a fully fledged politician. In that regard, she’s less like her mother, Sonia Gandhi, an Italian who quietly adopted the language and land of her politician husband. Sonia joined Congress after Rajiv was killed by a suicide bomber. She’s currently the party’s president, and is always in the public eye, engaging in political rallies alongside her son.
But Vadra’s definitive reason for her passive approach to politics, in her own words, is domestic bliss. She’s devoted to her two children, Rehan (also spelt Reihan) and Miraya, and husband of 20 years, businessman Robert Vadra. While the couple’s disparate personalities make their marriage the focus of much speculation, the flamboyant entrepreneur has always been a staunch supporter of his wife’s occasional political forays: last month, he accused a member of parliament of sexism and misogyny after a BJP politician made disparaging remarks about Vadra’s physical appearance.
In a 2009 interview with Outlook India magazine, Vadra offered a rare, if humdrum, insight into her private life, talking at length about baking cupcakes for her children and shopping for groceries at New Delhi's Khan Market. But behind the sanguine statements lie memories of a sequestered childhood in New Delhi: she and her brother were homeschooled after their grandmother was shot by her Sikh bodyguards, an act of revenge brought on by her orders that the military storm a Sikh temple during an insurgency in Punjab.
Vadra is a staunch Buddhist – her way of making peace with the family’s blood-spattered past – and has a master’s in Buddhist studies. Unlike her brother, she is an excellent orator, and gave her first public speech at the age of 16. She also has a strong command of Hindi; she says she owes this, and her love of Hindi literature, to her tutor, the late Teji Bachchan, a stage actress, one-time confidante of Indira and the mother of Bollywood superstar Amitabh Bachchan.
Vadra is also a devout follower of the meditational technique vipassana, which she has practised since 1997. A few years ago, in a televised, seemingly informal chat with Indian journalist and author Barkha Dutt, with the women comfortably seated on the grass in the grounds of the Vadra home in Delhi, she revealed that vipassana helped her “find herself” and emerge from the shadow of her grandmother, whom she idolised: “I grew up in a household where [Indira] was the head and she was an extremely powerful woman. Being a little girl and seeing this woman who … stood for so much, it had an effect on me. I think I was confused about my identity until a certain point … And I realised that this [politics] is not for me.”
Yet she hasn’t completely rejected the political arena, surfacing to back her brother during Congress’s successful campaign in the 2004 general elections and the failed bid in 2014.
Critics point out that the siblings are surrounded by sycophants and purveyors of the Gandhi name. It’s true that party members idolise Vadra, because they see in her glimpses of her wilful grandmother. Eloquent, charismatic, spirited and quick-tempered, she even looks like the former prime minister, with similar bobbed hair and a penchant for cotton saris. This simplicity also endears Vadra to the people, especially those in the family strongholds of Uttar Pradesh’s Rae Bareli and Amethi. These districts are among the only constituencies Vadra visits when campaigning. In Amethi, despite steadfastly refusing to stand for elections, she remains the favourite, as seen in this popular party slogan: “Amethi ka danka, bitiya Priyanka” (“Amethi’s clarion call for a leader is for our daughter Priyanka”).
It’s in Rae Bareli and Amethi that Vadra seems most at ease, but this frequently presents a security nightmare when she casually steps outside the cordon to shake hands with supporters, cuddle babies and allow the elderly to cup her face in their hands.
Despite her popularity, Vadra maintains that her brother is more politically astute. In her interview with Outlook India, she describes him as a "sophisticated thinker" with a "brilliant mind", a portrayal that is at odds with his public image: critics dismiss Rahul as a naive idealist; his speeches, in public and in parliament, are frequently ridiculed; and he's the constant butt of jokes on Twitter. But Vadra's loyalty remains steadfast, as seen in her most recent appearance with her brother in Rae Bareli last week. Television channels showed them arriving at the rally in a helicopter as surging crowds held up garlands and chanted "Priyanka". But to their dismay, it was Rahul who gave the speech – a meandering attack on the BJP government, complete with puerile Bollywood references – while the crowds slowly thinned, and his sister listened silently.
With the next general elections in two years’ time, there’s a lot at stake for Congress, and by association, Vadra. Burdened with the party’s failing fortunes, it might be time for this reluctant heir to embrace a role that does justice to her family’s legacy and her inherent political instincts.
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