This way to the confessional

In an attempt at a political overkill, many were hell-bent on getting Sonia stigmatised, with a 8220;Made in Italy, Don8217;t Buy8221; tag neatly stapled to her clothes. The joke is on them right now. We don8217;t have to plot our poll dopesters8217; Delphic orales against actual results to reach the conclusion.

Wading through the bulk of anti-campaigning that at times took a side-swipe at her religion as well in certain quarters, Sonia Gandhi appeared as that stigmata capable of cherishing and reopening at will all the wounds inflicted on the other members of the controversial family. And this she did with all the saintliness one associates with the Christian concept of Stigmata.

Have a dekko at the AP photograph flashed in several newspapers featuring the bilssfully skyward faces of village women gathered at a rally, with Sonia Gandhi8217;s hovering copter somewhere off the screen. So many sunflowers in a phototropic frenzy, one would say, and the photograph tells us much about the country, its people and their future. Leaders are born out of the gut feelings, not the acquired logic, of a people. And so how tangible could be a Bofors issue or any scam in a village where one of the remotest things is drinking water which, like guardian angels, could only descend from the heavens? Talk about putting the kybosh onthe super-Soniac effect!

This by no means is to eulogise over the new political rookie from the Indira dynasty, or to play down the genuine apprehension of those who raised the 8220;Sonia alien8221; klaxon. The pity is not that this UNBP fell neatly flat but that it betrays wounds deep within us, in the country8217;s psyche 8212; wounds which unlike Sonia8217;s enviably marketable domestic trauma, can8217;t be turned into the stigmata of a nation. It is the kind of dark material one usually takes to the confessional, precisely the place we prefer to keep away from.

For what we have beneath the easily detectable xenophobic rubric is a mass of shame, guilt, frustration, all springing from the question 8220;Haven8217;t we utterly failed as a nation, as a people, in making democracy work, that is, if leap-frogging from one hung-parliament to another is not to be mistaken for democracy?8221;

Sonia inadvertently posed this question for us, challenging us to come up with a pedigree of genuinely 8220;Made in India/Made for India8221; politiciansof the post-independence period. We made a grab at the list of the newly elected MPs and virtually drew a blank. Yes, sir, we have every doggone reason to sneer at that 8220;god-awful Italian8221; and political kibitzer.

One seasoned journalist called this election the mother of all elections8217;. The spooky fact, however, is that we feel that way on the eve of every election, listening to the communal disc jockey announcing Segue 8230; Miracles!8217;. But this time there is a difference. Thanks to Sonia, retrospection is possible, even made inevitable. It need not come as a nasty tap on country8217;s polical funny bone if one were to say that Sonia8217;s jay-walking into politics was the best thing that happened to the country in the immediate past.

The point is not that Sonia is great. The point is that as someone told Richard Nixon at a juncture, the buck stops right here. It should. It can8217;t be passed anymore because the moment of truth the real McCoy, not the BJP slogan has arrived. The nearest signpost reads: 8220;Thisway to the confessional8221;. Making a detour will be fatal.