Sonia: India, Women, & Foreigners

[Guest guest]

Though the Sonia Gandhi situation has changed since the following

editorial was written, I think it nonetheless offers a wise and

thoughtful rumination on India herself:

 

"The deeper explanation for Sonia Gandhi's ascendance has to do with

the peculiar nature of India's society and its unusual history.

 

India is a land of sharp contrasts. Although conservative, Indian

society -- a melting pot for different races and cultures for

centuries -- is also liberal and accommodating in some respects.

Although gender equality does not match Western standards, the

centrality of Mother Goddess in Hindu thinking has opened political

doors for women, with governments in three large Indian states and in

Delhi currently headed by women. And although intensely proud, Indians

are not at all xenophobic.

 

In its history, India was repeatedly attacked by foreign invaders from

the time of Alexander the Great. Afghan, Persian and Central Asian

invaders set themselves as rulers in Delhi. The end of British rule

closed nearly a millennium of foreign domination and reign over India.

 

But long before it began falling prey to foreign conquest, India had

nurtured cultural and economic interaction with distant lands. With

its wealth of philosophy, respect for life in all its manifestations,

compassion and tolerance, India had since ancient times built a

heritage as a benign and assimilative civilization.

 

Being a foreigner has rarely been a disadvantage in India. And being a

foreign woman has been distinctly advantageous, if one looks at the

number of women from overseas who played a role in India's

independence and cultural movements. Even after independence, there

have been examples of foreign women wielding clout in Indian society,

including Mother Teresa, an ethnic Albanian who became famous as the

"Saint of the Gutters" of Calcutta, and the Frenchwoman known

reverentially as "The Mother who created Auroville," the international

spiritual hub of the devotees of philosopher Sri Aurobindo.

 

In the hullabaloo over the rise of Sonia Gandhi, it has been

overlooked that she is not even the first woman from Europe to head

the Congress Party. In fact, Sonia Gandhi is the third European woman

to be Congress Party president, the first being Annie Besant who led

the party when Mahatma Gandhi (not related to the Nehru-Gandhi

dynasty) was cutting his political teeth in India.

 

While members of the defeated Bharatiya Janata Party still seek to

make an issue of Sonia Gandhi's foreign origins, the reality is that

the Congress Party has a redoubtable history of turning to foreigners

for leadership. Having been founded in 1885 under the inspiration of

Englishman Allan Octavian Hume, the Congress Party today has come full

circle, elevating another person from Europe as prime minister of India."

 

Source: The Japan Times, "Why India accepts a foreign-born leader," by

BRAHMA CHELLANEY, May 19, 2004

URL: http://www.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/geted.pl5?eo20040519bc.htm