Natwar Singh in his study at his Jor Bagh home. Natwar Singh in his study at his Jor Bagh home.

No one crosses Sonia Gandhi and tells tales. P.V. Narasimha Rao had to resort to fiction and even then he stopped the book just after his protagonist became prime minister. Arjun Singh published his memoirs posthumously but they were suitably abridged by the family to minimise damage to the First Family.

K. Natwar Singh, 83, is an unlikely candidate for rebellion. A proud Nehruiite, who spent 31 years in the Indian Foreign Service and 24 years in the Congress, he is still given to fondly recalling his one-time friend Sonia.

Read: Madam Sonia said I had to be fixed, says Natwar



He talks about the many hours he has spent in her company, discussing books (she introduced Gabriel Garcia Marquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude to him in 1988), people (she told him things she said she hadn't told even Priyanka and Rahul) and political gossip (they discussed Bill Clinton's affair with Monica Lewinsky).

"She would even pass chits to me, with jokes, in the middle of state dinners," says Natwar. He spent many sessions with her working on her speeches, travelled with her to foreign destinations, and even ran sensitive errands for her, such as working on Congress leaders to accept her prime ministerial choice, Manmohan Singh.

Watch full interview: Narasimha Rao wasn't Sonia's first choice as PM, says Natwar Singh



So when he decides to tell almost all in his new book One Life Is Not Enough, you can understand why she is worried-and why, as he likes to repeat, she came to his Jor Bagh home with daughter Priyanka to ask him not to publish the book. Does she regard the book as a cry for attention? Or as vengeance for having been abandoned after the Volcker report in the Oil-for-Food scandal? Her army of antagonists will regard it as live ammunition.

Among the many startling disclosures in the book, Natwar writes that she said no to becoming prime minister because Rahul told her he would take "any possible step to prevent his mother" if she did so. In the book, he writes, he gives his mother 24 hours to change her mind, a threat that has her in tears. Given that recently he was in direct competition to become prime minister, it is clear that Rahul remains conflicted about power, a reality that will do nothing to lift Congress morale.

And will further damage Rahul's credibility as the party's white knight. Natwar also reveals that Sonia had a mole in virtually every major ministry, including his-in an interview to India Today, he adds that Sanjaya Baru, media adviser to then prime minister Manmohan Singh, was right when he said in his book, The Accidental Prime Minister: The Making and Unmaking of Manmohan Singh, that all files went to her for clearance.

Natwar also gives details of how she kept both Narasimha Rao and Manmohan Singh on edge. Rao complains to him that her aloof attitude is affecting his health. Manmohan calls him to his hotel suite in Bangkok in 2004 and tells him how lonely he is-only a month into the 10 years he was in office. It's as much an autobiography as it is a portrait of one of the nation's most powerful politicians ever. Natwar chronicles her transformation from a diffident, nervous, shy woman to an ambitious, authoritarian and stern leader, almost Bourbonesque in that she never forgives or forgets. He calls her "arrogant", "deliberately capricious", "Machiavellian", a "prima donna" and describes her behaviour as "vicious" and "venomous". She emerges as someone with strong dislikes, who never forgets a mistake or forgives a betrayal-whether it is an indiscretion by Jairam Ramesh or Arjun Singh reportedly speaking of her being surrounded by a 'coterie'.



Watch full interview: Rajiv sent troops to Sri Lanka without telling Cabinet: Natwar Singh



No one is spared, even if it is her mother-in-law's old associate Kenneth Kaunda, who makes the cardinal error of staying with his old friend-the late Lalit Suri, who lost favour with Sonia for reasons Natwar will not disclose. "The list of such people who fell out with her is very long," he says.

It all boils down to the Oil-for-Food scandal which Natwar believes he was made scapegoat for. He notes how the Justice R.S. Pathak committee cleared him but how the truth about who the money actually went to has yet to come out. Natwar talks of the 70,000 pages of documents recovered by former UN under secretary-general Virendra Dayal which were submitted to the ED and not heard of again. When he asks Pathak why they were never examined, he tells him "it's a long story". Natwar believes he was hung out to dry by the Congress and made to bear the cross at the explicit instructions of Sonia Gandhi. As he says: "Not even a leaf moves in the Congress without her knowing."

But even all that damage to Sonia is nothing compared to what is perhaps his most brutal blow: No Indian, he writes, would have ever behaved the way she did. He says she has an un-Indian core which is very distinct, manifest in the unemotional way she can cut people out of her life. "She has been in India since she was 19, she has imbibed everything Indian, and has never put a foot wrong. But there is 25 per cent of her which can never change," he tells India Today.

Excerpts: Nehru, my first PM



All this will be music to the ears of the BJP. He knows that but dares any Congressman to suggest that it is part of a conspiracy by the BJP-no matter that his son Jagat Singh is a BJP MLA from Gopalgarh, Rajasthan, and no matter that the book ends with Natwar meeting Prime Minister Narendra Modi to offer advice on foreign policy.

Excerpts: Working for Indira



There is more in the book that will delight critics of the Nehru-Gandhi family. Natwar, a Nehru loyalist, writes of the love India's first prime minister had for Edwina Mountbatten and the fact that he discussed many state secrets with her in their letters-"he had many affairs, so what?" he says.

He calls Rajiv Gandhi "the noblest human being" but points out his folly in trusting his coterie, so much so that his pal Arun Singh almost brings India to the brink of war with Pakistan with General K. Sundarji, without informing the prime minister. Indira Gandhi is the only one who escapes his criticism-even though she often puts him firmly in his place.

Excerpts: Rajiv Gandhi, a prisoner of coterie

It is a place, at the feet of the dynasty where every grateful Congressman resides for eternity in unquestioning servitude, that Natwar has dared to arise from. In a considerably diminished Congress, will others follow?

Follow the writer on Twitter @kavereeb

