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Why do we regard Kalpana Chawla, Sunita Williams and Priti Patel or even Akshay Kumar as Indians, when we still call Sonia Gandhi by her Italian name? This week, Antonia Maino made a comeback on Republic TV when Arnab Goswami opened a personal, no-holds-barred attack on the Congress president over a recent mob lynching incident in Maharashtra’s Palghar district.

BJP leaders and the party’s supporters relish calling Sonia Gandhi a foreigner. Some anchors running pro-BJP channels regularly target the Congress leader and raise her ‘Italian’ roots to paint the party and its supporters as people working against “national interest” — whatever that ‘interest’ entails in their head. And Arnab Goswami is the undeclared leader of this pack. The Pied Piper blurts out inanities and his dutiful followers…follow. Even during a national health crisis, when people, including children, are dying of hunger.

But while Arnab never answers, even those following him never ask: Why is Sonia Gandhi, the wife of former Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and president of India’s oldest political party, an “Italian”, a “foreigner”? After spending all her adult life in India, she is “not Indian” in some people’s eyes. But a Canadian Akshay Kumar is. Because when he is not acting in commercial, nationalist films, he is ‘interviewing’ Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the middle of a national election, offering him a plate of mango-questions to pick and choose from.

Also read: Arnab Goswami’s attack continues. Rahul, Priyanka, where’s your ‘enough is enough’ moment?

Obsession with ‘foreign’

The people who go after Sonia Gandhi and her ‘foreign’ roots also always cherish the achievements of ‘Indians’ and Indian-origin people who were born and raised in foreign countries or those who later took citizenship of other countries. Whether it’s Kalpana Chawla, Sunita Williams, V.S Naipaul, Tulsi Gabbard, Priti Patel, or Jhumpa Lahiri, their achievements are celebrated like those of an Indian.

The thing is, in a country where some people are obsessed with finding and establishing foreigners among them — such as through the National Register of Citizens — Sonia Gandhi’s Italian roots offer an easy route to target a political party that must be demonised and attacked perpetually so that Narendra Modi and his BJP can look good.

Even the argument that Indians are “emotional” about their country and associate birthplace with citizenship and citizenship with Indianness doesn’t hold water. If that was the case, then people hailing from the northeast states won’t be taunted and targeted as “Chinese” or “Japanese” or “Korean”. There have been several instances of people being attacked during the Covid crisis because, well, the virus’ geographic origin lies in the Chinese city of Wuhan. Northeast Indians are discriminated against based on their looks. Even people from the south are mocked; for a large populace of India, everyone in the south is still a “Madrasi”.

It would appear that this obsession with seeing other Indians as ‘not one of our own’ is mainly a Hindi heartland thing. The rampant discrimination has been a bane of Indian society, and continues to divide people along racial and sectarian lines. So, if you are from north India or look like one, you are by default an Indian. Others must show their birth proof, or chant Bharat Mata Ki Jai or be an unadulterated supporter of Modi and the BJP. Although, Sonia Gandhi would still be an “Italian”.

Also read: If Uddhav Thackeray bows before Arnab Goswami’s dare, he will only weaken himself before BJP

Insecurities due to the British past

An ‘Indian’ Sundar Pichai is the head of an American company Google; another ‘Indian’ Satya Nadella is the chief executive officer of Microsoft; Shantanu Narayen leads Adobe; Ajaypal Singh Banga is the CEO of Mastercard. Can we imagine such a scenario in India? How will Indians take it if an Indian company is led by a foreigner?

At the slightest hint of a foreign connection, such figures will be labelled a spy, traitor, Jaichand or anything that a certain group can come up with. To a large extent, most Indians have never really been comfortable with foreigners — even though most crave for their attention and hold their praise of any Indian (mostly Hindu) ritual or custom as the final validation.

The roots of this insecurity perhaps lie in the British past, and seems to have survived even today, with many desperate enough to shrug off the past memories of being ruled by foreigners through persistent dislike for anything or anyone “not Indian”. What they don’t want to acknowledge is that this distinction is not so simple. There were many foreigners who made immense contributions to India’s freedom struggle. Moreover, we are not living in the past. This is modern India. Any insecurity over someone’s place of birth, race or religion should not exist.

Sonia Gandhi denounced her Italian citizenship, learnt Hindi, wore saris all her life, led the country’s oldest political party but she is still an “Italian”. It’s time to ask: what could she possibly do to be regarded as an Indian like a Canadian Akshay Kumar?

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