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Journalism of Courage
The credit given by Sudheendra Kulkarni to Feroze Gandhi for taking on his father-in-law is, like reports of Mark Twain’s death, rather exaggerated (‘What if Sonia had to face her father-in-law’, February 12). Feroze was estranged with his wife and also Nehru, who personally didn’t like the good-for-nothing fellow. His questions in Parliament about Mundra’s shady deals were at the prompting of the Birlas, who saw in the upstart a grave threat. Feroze was in fact paid handsomely to ensure months of drinking stock for raising the issue. These days you call it ‘cash for questions’. This version was confirmed to me by a top Birla CEO who started his life as Mundra’s personal assistant. Feroze was therefore by no means a paragon of integrity whom Sonia would be afraid of confronting.
Years ago an old hand on dynasty politics told me a story which I also want to cross-check. Was Feroze born of a Parsi mother converted to Islam and married to a Muslim merchant in Allahabad who happened to be a supplier of provisions to Motilal Nehru’s family? His mother was a Gandhy before marriage — a name that Feroze adopted and that has bequeathed to the so-called first family its much-prized family name, resonant with the Mahatma’s legacy. Can Kulkarni confirm if this story is true?
H N Bali
Feroze’s father Nawab Khan was a Muslim and his mother a Persian Muslim. Jawaharlal Nehru did not approve of the inter-caste marriage for political reasons. If Indira Nehru were to marry a Muslim she would lose the possibility of becoming the heir to the Nehru dynasty. At this juncture, according to one story, Mahatma Gandhi intervened and adopted Feroze Khan, and gave him his last name.
S N Sarbadhikari
I am surprised that an informed journalist like Kulkarni should be brainwashed into toeing the Congress mythmaking about the Nehru-Gandhi family’s concocted lineages. Feroze’s father was a Muslim while the mother was a Parsi. He was raised as a Muslim. Indira fell for him while he was a declared Muslim and even married him in a Nikah ceremony. That fact would have added to the flavour of the point that you have raised.
Ghulam Muhammed
I recall what Justice Dinshah Madon (then the chief justice of the Mumbai High Court) said to me in the ’70s at a casual meeting in Pune about the workings of fate concerning the name ‘Gandhi’. Being a Parsi Zoroastrian, he was fully aware of some of the weirdest surnames commonly found among members of the community. He had wondered about Indira Gandhi’s political fortunes (Sonia was then probably still bartending in Oxford!) had Feroze hailed, for instance, from the ‘Sodawaterbottleopenerwalla’ or the ‘Khalidabbabatliwalla’ family!
Bhalchandrarao C Patwardhan
My simple question to Sudheendra Kulkarni is ‘What was the NDA government doing for six years to bring the Q crook to book?’ . I am afraid just as the Congress side is not interested in justice, Kulkarni’s side is not interested in justice either. The Hinduja factor is very complicated and Kulkarni knows it better than most others. I am sure he knows there are senior people within the BJP whose careers have thrived on the Bofors business. The two sides have combined to make India and the Indian justice system look like a joke. And if the standards Kulkarni demands of Sonia were applied to those close to the top during the NDA regime, the Vajpayee government would have fallen within a month. The responsibility of seasoned people like Kulkarni — especially now that he has seen how the system works from within — is to raise our public discourse above the prevailing byte-counterbyte culture. I find it pathetic that even leaders like Advani are swept off their feet because some half-informed 23-year-old kid gives a flashy headline to an equally half-baked story.
Harish Khare
