The bachhas are here

To be sure, the pictures in the morning papers demanded a second look. A Gandhi, make that two, in the BJP. As the young man in the black bandhgala and red tilak posed with his mother and Atal Bihari Vajpayee, the smiles seemed to mask, and tell, such a long story. Nearly three decades ago, Jan Sangh stalwarts dug in their heels against the Emergency imposed by Indira Gandhi and her son; they have made criticism of the Family and its dynastic politics a calling card ever since. Go back further in time and exclaim at a great grandson of Nehru joining a party that many say articulates the most violent, and perhaps most successful, critique of the Nehruvian legacy. Truly a strange coming together, of Varun and Maneka Gandhi and the BJP.

But is it really? It would be a useful exercise someday to track the guilty men of the Emergency and see how many have been welcomed into the saffron fold. The Gandhi family split years ago and the well publicised saga of Mrs Gandhi versus the Other Mrs Gandhi has run dry of any sparkle it once had. And everyone knows Maneka Gandhi’s ‘Independent’ status for eight years was actively supported by the BJP anyway. No, Varun and Maneka Gandhi’s joining the BJP does not shock. It does titillate the imagination, though. Not for the echoes of the past, but for reasons of the future.

Young Varun, still too young to contest an election, is clearly one. He has already launched a campaign of sorts — we now know he thinks his tai’s ‘‘foreign origins’’ are an issue, but not the issue, and that he will do what his new party requires him to but play no negative, only ‘‘positive’’ politics. In other words, Varun Gandhi has already flung down the gauntlet for those more veteran in the political game: decode me, if you can. Priyanka Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi are the other reasons of the future why we will watch this new relationship with care. The siblings were given a hectic political outing recently, speculation about their imminent electoral baptism has touched an all time high. Will it be a war of the Gandhi bachhas? Must the Indian people now circle the ‘‘real Gandhi’’ in the picture? This saga has just begun. Enjoy.