The lingering "family curse".
Author: He An
As the end of India's general election on May 23 approaches, the "largest democratic election in the history of the world" in which 900 million voters are claiming to be participating is gradually becoming white-hot.
The election is seen as a national referendum on current Prime Minister Narendra Modi, whose outcome will determine whether Modi can be re-elected. The biggest challenge to Modi's Indian Party is the Indian National Congress, with 48-year-old Rahul Gandhi becoming the opposition's favorite.
The leader of the banner for the Congress party is the youngest generation of nehru gandhi descendants , Nehru's great-grandson, Indira Gandhi's eldest grandson, Rajiv Gandhi and Sonya Gandhi's eldest son, Rahul Gandhi.
▲ Indira Gandhi with his father Nehru
▲ Indira Gandhi and eldest son Rajiv Gandhi
Modi's battle with the Gandhi family
As India's general elections enter a feverish phase, Modi recently launched a fierce attack on Congress Party President Rahul Gandhi at a rally in Uttar Pradesh. He attacked Rahul's father, former Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, whose life ended in "number one corruption."
Modi was referring to the Bofors case of the 1980s, which directly destroyed Rajiv Gandhi's congressional government and undermined the party's prospects for years in power. The scandal involved rumours of Swedish arms manufacturer Bofors paying huge kickbacks to Rajiv Gandhi during the sale of artillery to India. India's High Court denied the matter.
▲ Modi
Rahul fought back firmly, accusing Modi of embezzling 300 billion rupees (about 30 billion yuan) in the Rafale fighter jets purchased from France. Rahul also promised to reopen an investigation into the historical case modi has alleged if he wins the election.
Modi's declaration of war with Rahul has always been a shadow of the Gandhi family, a powerful political family that not only helped India achieve independence 71 years ago, but ruled the country for most of that time. Yet the shadow of a "family curse" has always hung over the Nehru Gandhi family.
The lingering "family curse"
The Gandhi family, together with the Kennedy family in the United States, the Romanov dynasty of the last Tsar, the Habsburg royal family of Austria, and the bruce Lee family of kung fu superstars, are called the world's top ten cursed families.
They are either hereditary dynasties, or magnates, or international superstars, but what hangs over these prominent families is a lingering shadow of death. All kinds of sudden ways of death have come to generations, resulting in rumors of family curses.
▲ Group photo of the Gandhi family
The Nehru Gandhi family was a family political dynasty that emerged with india's independence in 1947. Nehru became India's first prime minister, and his daughter, Indira Gandhi, also aspired to enter politics.
The first tragedy of the Gandhi family occurred in June 1980. At that time, Indira was the prime minister of India, which she was re-elected after becoming prime minister from 1966 to 1977.
At one point, Indira had focused on grooming her youngest son, Sainjie, to inherit her career, but shortly after her re-election, Sainjie died in a plane crash. As Indira's recognized heir, Indira's younger son, Sanjay, was given high hopes. That same year, Sanjay Gandhi died in a plane crash. The first domino of the family curse began to fall.
▲ Gandhi family character relationships
Four years later, Indira, then Prime Minister of India, invaded the Golden Temple, a Sikh shrine, exacerbating the conflict between Hinduism and Sikhism and laying the groundwork for her death. A few months later, two of Indira's bodyguards shot her dead because of their grudge.
The eldest son, Rajiv, who was far from politics, had to bend to fate and take over the mantle of his mother and brother, as well as the domino card of the death curse. Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated by a suicide bomber by a Tamil Tigers member during a campaign seven years after his mother was shot. The death of authority never spared the Gandhi family.
▲ Rajiv's family photo
Sonia, the witness of the "curse"
From getting rid of it to facing it
As a witness and witness to a series of "family curses", Sonia Gandhi was incomparably aware of the cost of death behind power. In order to save the lives of her loved ones, Sonia Gandhi was desperate to prevent her family from entering politics. However, the irrevocable fate allowed this Italian woman not only to dedicate her life to a foreign India far from home, to accompany her husband's life, and now one of their sons and daughters still can't escape the fateful arrangement, and has come to the forefront of the Indian election. What kind of fate awaits them?
▲ Sonia Gandhi
Born in northern Italy, Sonia met and fell in love with Rajiv while studying in Cambridge, England, and then married into the Indian magnate and became an Indian citizen.
Before The Sanjay Gandhi plane crash, Sonia had tried to dissuade her husband from entering politics. But Sanjay's sudden death left the Gandhi family with no choice.
In 1984, when Indira Gandhi was killed by her bodyguards, it was Sonia who carried her mother-in-law in a pool of blood and escorted her to the hospital.
▲ Gandhi family tree
Seven years later, Sonia once again bids farewell to her loved ones, and in the face of power and death, Sonia's premonition happens again. In her biography of Rajiv, she describes the final farewell this way: "I looked at him, looked at him from behind, until he disappeared before my eyes. This time it's gone forever..."
As Rajiv's widow, Sonia insisted on not getting involved in politics and could not resist the surging political heat. She finally took over as president of the Indian Congress party in 1998, amid requests and expectations from all over the country. This Italian woman, who has aversion to politics for most of her life, has contributed all her wisdom and emotions over the past two decades with the ebb and flow of Indian politics. As a pair of children took the stage, Sonia became more and more recessed. But the fear of children has never been stronger.
In December 2017, Sonia's son, Rahul Gandhi, took over as president of the Congress party. Began a head-to-head confrontation with India's current Prime Minister Modi, and was also pinned on the outside world as the best candidate to pull Modi down.
▲ Rahul Gandhi
Sonia's daughter, Priyanka Gandhi, preceded her brother Rahul and accompanied her mother on campaigns many times. This is despite Priyanka's refusal to enter politics for years. But three months before the Indian election began voting, she was appointed Uttar Pradesh secretary general of the Congress party. Priyanka Gandhi, 47, eventually became the gandhi family's newest warrior.
▲ Priyanka Gandhi
This political dynasty, shrouded in a "family curse", has always occupied an important position in Indian politics. Their immense charm comes from nehru's great political legacy and indira's iron-blooded rule, and who can deny that this "curse" hanging over the gandhi family is not part of their family's mysterious charm, apart from the exotic blood that Sonia brought?