Saint Sonia: Sari seems to be the hardest word
The famous have lives
SPEAKING
VOLUMES
NILANJANA S ROY
few months ago,
A Norberto Fuentes wrote
an autobiography of Fidel
Castro, a book that starts and
ends in Castro’s voice, where by
page 150 the reader has
forgotten that this is a fictional
creation. Fuentes’ relationship
with Fidel was a dark and
troubled one; he was once one
of Castro’s supporters, then one
of Castro’s prisoners, and finally
one of Cuba’s exiles.
The Autobiography of Fidel
Castro, unauthorised and
unacknowledged by its subject,
reads like the most venomous of
letters from a disillusioned
lover: Fuentes was close enough
to Fidel to know exactly where
to put the knife in, whether he’s
describing Fidel’s real thoughts
on Che Guevara or his
fascination with the bloody
exactness of the guillotine. In its
original Spanish edition,
Fuentes’ fictionalised
autobiography is pulling readers
in, despite its thousand-page
bulk-in part because it fills an
unusual gap. Castro, unlike
most dictators, has never
written his memoirs, and
inexact, fictionalised and
dependent on Fuentes’
imagination though it is, his
autobiography fills a need
among readers to know more
than the sanitised, official
hagiographies will offer.
In India, an official biography
of Sonia Gandhi is available.
Written by Rasheed Kidwai, it is
dutiful, thorough, respectful —
not, in fact, a terribly exciting
read. It sold well when it came
out, in the absence of better
material. In the years since
Kidwai wrote his biography and
since Javier Moro, the writer-
nephew of Dominique Lapierre,
penned his “fictional biography”
of the Indian Congress party
leader, there have been no better
biographies of Mrs Gandhi.
The Red Sari, Moro’s slightly
breathless account of Sonia
Maino’s life before and after she
became Mrs Rajiv Gandhi, has
been attacked in a tide of rising
hysteria by Congress loyalists.
Currently, Moro has been
threatened with defamation
suits if he publishes the book in
India; his publishers, Roli
Books, are holding firm and
Moro is annoyed enough to
have threatened his own
lawsuit in turn. The question of
defamation — if any — is one
for the courts to decide; but
defamation only applies if you
get the facts of a person’s
life wrong.
The Congress point of view,
summarised by the arguments
of spokesperson Abhishek
Singhvi, appears to be that since
this is not an authorised
biography, it shouldn’t be
published. There are also
allegations of defamatory
material — none of these can be
judged until The Red Sari is
published here. Moro’s prose
tends to the purple, but it’s not
very likely with his background
as a decent researcher and with
Roli’s experience that the book
contains much libelous matter.
With respect, here are three
things the Congress might want
to consider.
1) If you’re a public figure,
you’re fair game for fiction: The
ethics of the fictional biography/
autobiography have yet to be
established, but as Paul Theroux
knew when he wrote Sir Vidia’s
Shadow about his friendship
with V S Naipaul, it’s perfectly
kosher to write about someone
who’s already in the public eye.
Moro allows himself to
speculate about Sonia Gandhi’s
thoughts and feelings — but by
calling his work a fictional
biography, he’s covered his
bases.
that can be researched, are
often exhaustively covered, and
are of great interest to the
ordinary public — as long as the
writer isn’t making up stuff, he’s
on safe ground. Or more bluntly,
the famous make excellent raw
material for a book. And free
speech covers the right to
speculate about the inner lives
of the powerful. If Castro and
Obama can take it, so can Sonia.
2) Don’t be an unpaid
publicist for the other guy: The
Congress hysteria over The Red
Sari has brought it front-page
stories, prime time television
slots and added anything from
5,000 to 10,000 potential readers
to Moro’s audience. Presumably
Roli Books and Moro are less
than grateful because of the
aggravation they’ve been
caused, but the Congress PR
machine might want to consider
that their campaign has raised
far more interest in The Red Sari
than any publisher would have
been able to achieve unaided.
3) Do it the Obama way:
There’s no question of an
unauthorised biography of
Barack Obama doing anywhere
as well as his own accounts of
his life have done. Why?
Because Obama’s
autobiographical writings are
searingly honest, detailed and
brilliantly written. The sleazy,
gossipy biography or the
fictionalised biography just can’t
compete. If Sonia Gandhi wrote
her own memoirs, or authorised
a really good biographer to write
a no-holds-barred account of her
life, there’d be no room for the
overblown romanticism of The
Red Sari. Given that its only
competition is a hagiography,
Moro’s book will do brilliantly.
What would you rather read, the
life of St Sonia, or an
exaggerated but human account
of Sonia Maino’s journey to
become Sonia Gandhi?
nilanjanasroy@gmail.com