Could I be the next Sonia Gandhi?

No, I don't actually have pretensions to the next President of the Indian National Congress, or any British political party for that matter.  It is, however, worth looking at how someone looks can mean acceptance or rejection by an electorate - and on what basis.

Sonia Gandhi was born Antonia Maino to an Italian Catholic family in a small village in Italy.  She met Rajiv Gandhi (eldest son of Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi) in Cambridge while he was at the university and she was studying English and working as a waitress to make ends meet.  It was love at first sight apparently and they married in 1968 and went to live in Delhi.  Her family nickname for her was Sonia, hence her transformation into Sonia Gandhi.

Those familiar with modern Indian history will know that neither she nor her husband Rajiv had any intention originally of entering politics (Rajiv was an airline pilot).  It was after the death, however, in a plane crash of Rajiv's younger brother Sanjay that Rajiv entered politics.   Rajiv was then elected as Prime Minister in 1984 after the assassination of his mother, Indira Gandhi.  Tragically,  Rajiv himself was assassinated in 1991 and, despite, initial reluctance, Sonia Gandhi became the leader of the Congress Party in 1998.  She is currently the President of the Congress Party.

So, Sonia, originally from a Catholic family in a small village in Italy, has now become an immensely powerful figure in Indian politics.  She has been named among the Time 100 most influential people in the world for 2007 and 2008 and also ranked as the ninth most powerful person on the planet by Forbes Magazine in 2010.

Her Italian origins have certainly not gone unremarked, and she received (and continues to receive) hostile remarks from the opposition once she entered politics.  Bal Thackeray, the late leader of Shiv Sena once asked, 'How is it that when we ask one white skin to quit India, you are welcoming another white skin?.....Our ancestors, who fought for freedom, overthrew the British' (quoted by Patrick French in 'India' p.71).

But Patrick French goes on to comment on her popularity among voters in India - and their lack of concern about her foreign origins.  He says her appeal rests partly on iconography - someone who shared the suffering of the masses, her original reluctance to enter politics and 'renunciation' of the leadership in 1991.  She wears saris, avoids Western clothes and speaks Hindi.  Her name - Sonia - is a name that had become popular in India as well, so didn't seem out of place.  But crucially, her Mediterranean light brown skin colour and black hair meant she looks as though she might have come from a high-caste north Indian background.  French comments that had she been of blonde northern European or black African origin, she would never have been credible as an Indian leader.

This raises some interesting questions.  If I had been like Sonia Gandhi, met and married an Indian man in politics, would I have been accepted with my fair skin, blue eyes and blonde hair?  If not, is that inherently racist - judging someone by their colouring rather than who they are?  Could I ever fit into India and become an Indian citizen in a way that now in the UK, we have come to accept that someone can be of any colour or ethnic origin and still be British.  Patrick French, apparently is a 'Person of Indian Origin' - or at least has a PIO visa by virtue of being married to Meru Gokhale (presumably of Indian origin).  It has occurred to me that if Susen and I got married, then I too could have a 'Person of Indian Origin' spouse visa despite my blonde hair and blue eyes.

India is actually highly ethnically, religiously and linguistically diverse.  But could this one day stretch to a blonde hair, blue eyed female leader? (that is, elected, not a foreign imposed colonial figure Queen Victoria style).  That would be interesting.