Do you know your Sonia?

Small wonder, then, that he is also the most successful captain today, winning about seventy per cent of his matches.

Mohammed Azharuddin lacks almost all of Cronje8217;s talents. But would we even consider replacing Azharuddin as India8217;s captain with Hansie Cronje? There would be riots if the B.C.C.I. came up with such an idiotic suggestion. So think about this: if we could get so wor-ked up about a foreigner taking over the captaincy of the Indian XI, can we sit ba-ck and watch another foreigner grabbing the prime ministership?

Let me anticipate the fairly predic-table protests. It will be said that Sonia Gandhi, unlike Hansie Cronje, is an In-dian citizen. Well, is she?For quite a while now, I have been asking Congressmen precisely when their beloved leader actually became a citizen of this country. When did she formally renounce her Italian nationality? Come to that, has she actually renounced it? Surp-risingly, there is not a single Congressman who is willing to clarify these doubts. Confronted with a simple question 8212; 8220;Is Sonia Gandhi still a citizen of Italy?8221; 8212; no less than Pranab Mukherjee confessed that he didn8217;t know. Purno Sangma reminded him of this at what seems to have been a fairly rumbustious Working Comm-ittee session on May 15.

How can we not kn-ow something so basic? I realise that the Constit-ution is not required reading for Congress-men, but let me remind them of one fact no Indian is entitled to hold dual nationality.

In truth, this is just one of the many grey areas in Sonia Gandhi8217;s bio-data. We know, for instance, that she met the late Rajiv Gandhi back when he was studying at Cambridge. But what was she doing there? Which college is she from, and what subject did she major in? Amazingly, Congressmen are delightfully vague when quizzed on the precise details of their leader8217;s background.

At this point, the usual arguments are trotted out 8212; the 8220;sacrifices8221; made by the Nehru-Gandhi clan, the fact that the Congress8217;s first president was a foreigner, the presidency of Annie Beasant8230; Alas!, these too are not borne out by history.

Whatever the achievements of the Nehru-Gandhis 8212; a can of worms I shall open another day gratitude is not a family heirloom to be passed down the generations. As to A. O. Hume being the first Congress president 8212; a claim that went unchallenged on the BBC8217;s Questiontime India recently 8212; he was nothing of the sort; that honour went to W. C. Bonnerjea, partly because Hume realised that a foreigner was unacceptable in that office. Finally, the only similarity between Mrs. Beasant and Signora Gandhi is that both were living at the taxpayers8217; expense when they achieved the Congress presidency except th-at Sonia Gandhi was living in a luxurious bungalow and Annie Beasant was in a British jail.

I think there was always an undercurrent of unease amongst Co-ngressmen. But there was no corresponding popular sentiment; it didn8217;t matter to most people whom the Co-ngress chose to lead the party. But taking over the whole country is another matter altoge-ther. Questions, searc-hing ones at that, are beginning to be asked. And Sharad Pa-war, Purno Sangma, and Tariq Anwar knew that they would be called upon to answer.

Actually, I believe something good may come of the whole mess. In recent years, the Indian voter has been give no say in choosing his chief executive. He has been treated rather like a small investor in a large firm everybody acknowledges his claims to interest, but larger decisions are always arranged behind closed doors. Charan Singh, Cha-ndra Shekhar, Deve Gowda, and Gujral were products of such deals; not one had a popular mandate.

The usual excuse is that Lok Sabha members must be left free to exercise their choice, which is nonsense. First, it isn8217;t the members of Parliament but their bosses who strike deals. Secondly, other parliamentary democracies make it a point to spell out who their leader shall be. The voters in Britain, Germany, and Israel were given months on end to study Blair, Schroder, and Barak respectively before they got the chance to form a government.

Part of that process, of course, is a series of searching questions posed to the candidates. To date, Sonia Gandhi has never faced that kind of examination. If Sonia Gandhi can do anything other than stumble while reading scripts prepared by her coterie, that talent is well disguised. In fact, I sincerely hope anyone who interviews her steers well away from questions of foreign birth. I am a lot more worried about her other qualifications 8212; if any 8212; to be prime minister.

You could even say the debate on Sonia Gandhi8217;s Italian origins is a bit of a distraction. The true debate, which hasn8217;t even started, should be about her qualifications and her experience. But that must wait until the ongoing drama is over.

When will that be? Sonia Gandhi doesn8217;t deign to confide in humble Indians, but my guess is May 21, when she visits Sriperumbudur on Rajiv Gandhi8217;s death anniversary. You might call it a mock-Easter 8212; starting on a Sunday with the letter from the three Congressmen, and ending on a Friday with a stage-managed resurrection. And just to complete the farce, it is the Roman who is pretending to be crucified!

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