'Courage & Commitment' is not about Sonia Gandhi or Congress, but my life: Margaret Alva on her memoir

You may say that you haven't criticised Sonia Gandhi but that resignation letter you wrote in 2008, which has been released for the first time, is scathing.

I have not criticised Soniaji. Why would I fight with Soniaji? I became Congress general secretary because of her. My relationship with Sonia has been very close and it hasn't changed.. I went and gave her the first copy of my book with a message written inside. I said 'Madam, you will find it interesting.' What I have written are recorded facts which are already in the public domain, in Parliament records and in the knowledge of people around. 'Only one thing', I told her, 'I have done without your permission – release my resignation letter for the first time.' I resigned in 2008 and till today, it has been in my locker. I felt I had to say why I went out; I wanted to set the record straight.

But isn't she (Sonia Gandhi) and the Congress responsible for the dire straits in which the party finds itself?

You can't blame her for everything or Rahul (Gandhi), for that matter. Somebody loses an election somewhere and you blame them –what were the local leaders doing? They are as responsible for running a state as the central leadership. Every party, not just the Congress, is going through a crisis. What about Mayawati? What's happening in the BJP? In states like Karnataka? Even Mamata Banerjee has faced so many revolts.

So why the book now?

It's not a book written now, or even in a day. When I was in the Raj Bhavan all alone, locked up like a princess, I had the time and I began recollecting events of my life and what landed me there – my journey from a middle-class girl in Mangalore to Raj Bhavan where everybody danced around me. My first draft was 850 pages long, written by hand. It's taken me four years. My life changed in 1969 after I joined the Congress. I came to Parliament, became a minister, general secretary because of the party and finally governor. My life has been influenced to a large extent by the party to which I gave the best years of my life. I have not written this book in anger. Or to get even or prove a point.

You are quite scathing about Sanjay Gandhi...

Well... he created a lot of problems for the party during the Emergency. They almost sent my husband to jail. We went through such difficult times when the CBI was sent after FCI (Food Corporation of India where Alva's husband worked) officers. We hardly had anything to live on. I used to sell my wedding gifts to run the house.

What has been your relationship with Narendra Modi's government? You were probably one of the few UPA-appointed governors not dismissed after NDA came to power.

I offered to resign when I met him for the first time after he became prime minister. But he said there's no question. 'You're doing a good job, you will please continue.' And within a few days, I was appointed governor of Goa and Gujarat. Of course, the press was quick to say, 'she's going to the BJP'.

I met him recently for the second time and that was to plead with him to reconsider the decision to merge the Bharatiya Mahila Bank with SBI – I feel it is in the interest of women. We are the third country in the world to set up a women's bank. I said don't take it away, see what can be done. I also gave him a copy of my book.

There have been many books written by disgruntled Congressmen in recent times. Have you read them?

I haven't read them. I am not comparing myself to anyone else. I don't know what their problems were or their differences. But as I say in my epilogue – this is about my life as I went through it. That's all.

But do you feel the Congress will ever recover ground?

They said the same thing in 1977 – that Indira Gandhi's face will never be seen again. Within three years, the people who had abandoned us were back. Not only that, she was prime minister again with a massive majority. Politics is like an ocean, the waves come and go. Elections are about emotions not about numbers. One slogan of garibi hatao swept the country.

You speak about your parents-in-law, Joachim and Violet Alva. The latter, especially, seems to have been a huge influence on your life.

She was the most wonderful mother-in-law one could have. Unfortunately, I was there with her for just five years. I married in 1964, she died in '69. She was a freedom fighter, a member of the municipal council in Bombay, she taught, she was a lawyer – the first woman in the country to argue a case before a full bench of the Bombay High Court in British India, and won the case for her husband who had been arrested for sedition. She got him out and the court asked, 'Has your client paid you your fees?' She said, 'He's a pauper in jail'. The court granted her fees. I have not forgotten the two things she said: Never take anything on credit for your domestic needs; if you have the money buy it or else do without it, and second, get ready for the day in the morning. You should be able to go anywhere from the Connaught Place to Rashtrapati Bhavan without being clumsy or overdressed.

Why haven't your children joined politics?

My youngest son, Nivedith, applied for a Congress ticket three times and was denied it. He is now chairman of the Coastal Development Authority and a secretary of the party. I have not pushed my children. We are of a generation that has gone through politics with our hands clean.

Book excerpts

On one occasion, Saroj (Khaparde) marched into the Well of the House and threw the bloodstained saree of a 'Harijan rape victim' on the Secretary General's table as proof of her visit to Uttar Pradesh, charging the Home Minister, Charan Singh, with being anti-SC. He stood up to protest.
Saroj then challenged him: 'If you are truly pro-SC, as you claim, then marry me: an SC unmarried woman!"
Singh was shocked, and so was the House. He retorted, 'Yeh kya baatein hain! Main shaadi-shuda hoon!' ('What are you saying? I am married!')
Saroj shouted back, 'Mujhe koi purvah nahin!' ('I don't care!')…
…angry that Saroj had humiliated his leader, one of Singh's MPs in the Rajya Sabha, Rameshwar Singh, took her on the next day, shouting, 'Agar tumari shaadi nahin huyee, toh tum rape ke baren mein kya jaanti ho?' ('You claim to be an unmarried woman, what do you know about rape?')
Saroj told him 'Bahar aaeye, main aapko rape ke bare mein sikhoonge.' ('Come to the lobby and I will tell you.')
And true to her word, when the House adjourned, she walked up to him in the lobby, and ripped his kurta."
— Recollections of events in Parliament around 1978, when the Janata Party was in power

***

'Light-heartedly, I asked, "Why this proposed amendment only for Muslim women? What about Christian women? We are also minorities? Who will provide for us?'
"Get divorced and come back to me. I will tell you where to go!" the Prime Minister shot back rather curtly.'
— An exchange with Rajiv Gandhi over his moving an amendment in Parliament to reverse the Supreme Court's verdict in the Shah Bano case

***

"While Pilot, Prasada and Scindia got all the honours due to them as Congress leaders – with shamianas erected at the AICC to receive their remains before the last rites – PV Narasimha Rao, the tallest of them all, was denied a state funeral in Delhi. His body was not even let into the AICC compound; instead, the gun carriage carrying the former Prime Minister and Congress President was parked on the pavement outside the gates, with chairs lined for party leaders. I was shocked to see this when I arrived. Ever since, I have regretted not protesting and walking away."
— On Prime Minister PV Narasimha Rao's death in 2004

***

"Once I had made the mistake of saying: 'The Alvas are the only political family to have a member in Parliament without a break for almost half a century.' This statement sealed our fate. It was seen as a challenge.
— On leaving Delhi after her appointment as governor of Uttarakhand in 2009. Margaret Alva lost in the Lok Sabha elections that year; and she was not given a nomination for the Rajya Sabha because, as she says it, "the coterie around Soniaji wanted me out of Delhi at all costs"

***

Times have changed and for the first time I have come to feel like a misfit in an organization that I considered as precious as my own home. A look at our recent candidates lists show a distinct pattern of patronage to the wealthy and rich lobbies like mining, education and real-estate…
I have now come to realize that I am out of tune with the decision-makers around you. My opinion is ignored or not called for; my warnings brushed aside (though proved right later) and requests always turned down. My direct access and rapport with you has been resented by many for many reasons and they want me out."
— Angry resignation letter to Sonia Gandhi, written in November 2008, after the Congress was pushed to second spot in the Karnatakata state elections

(Published with permission of Rupa Publications)