I don’t mind who you go out with provided you tell me: Indira told Feroze, writes Sonia Gandhi

“Feroze has many faults, which one of us hasn’t?… But that doesn’t make any difference to my feelings for him. I like him in spite of his faults, or it may be, because of his faults,” former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi wrote to a friend who told her of gossip about her husband.

They married in 1942. Five years later, India was free, and Jawaharlal Nehru became Prime Minister. He needed Indira’s help with work, Sonia writes.

“While Feroze, recognising the demands of the new situation, had agreed initially to the arrangement, he came to resent it later when Indira’s duties by her father increased, and it became difficult to accommodate both sides. They had by then two children — Rajiv, born in August 1944, and Sanjay, born in December 1946,” she writes.

“Indira, being the official hostess for the prime minister, had to accompany her father on tours in India and abroad, while Feroze could not, on account of his job. Amie Aunty (a member of Indira’s staff) told me that at formal dinners, following protocol, Indira would be placed next to her father, whereas Feroze would be some distance down the line or close to the end of a long table. People used to joke about it and tease him, and Feroze would be hurt and offended. Such instances must have contributed to a growing feeling of alienation,” she adds.

Outside a bookstore in Khan Market in New Delhi, Tuesday. (Express photo by Anil sharma)

Sonia writes that in the mid-1950s, Feroze moved to a separate house he was entitled to as a Member of Parliament. “He became known as a charming bon vivant who enjoyed the company of friends and women,” she adds. She writes that a few years after their wedding, Indira wrote to Feroze, “I don’t mind who you go out with or what you do, provided it makes you happy and you tell me about it… before I hear tall tales from other people.”

Sonia writes that Indira told her that when Feroze developed a “more serious relationship that she found very painful”, they had “come to the point of considering a formal separation after a stormy fight”.

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“He asked Nehru for an opportunity to discuss the matter, as she, too, felt that Feroze should talk about it with someone he trusted… Nehru reasoned with him, and after some months he abandoned the idea of taking the separation further.”

Congress MP Sonia Gandhi with her newly released memoir, “Belonging: A Journey of Love”. (PTI Photo)

Sonia writes that Rajiv fondly remembered the time spent with his father, including visits to his home. “Rajiv told me a woman was present at times, but he never mentioned her name — perhaps he didn’t know it, or preferred not to recall it.”

In 1958, Feroze suffered a heart attack and “there was a healing of old wounds”.

“Indira, who had been in Bhutan with her father, returned to look after him and spent long hours with him in the nursing home till his recovery. When in 1959 she had to undergo surgery for a stone in her kidney, Feroze was equally concerned and was constantly by her side.

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“The old differences between them had begun to disappear, and in 1960 all four of the family went on a holiday together to Kashmir… But three months later, Feroze suffered another heart attack, this time fatal. Indira, who was in Kerala, flew back and went straight to the hospital. Feroze regained consciousness for a while, when suddenly he had a coughing fit; Indira slightly raised his head, and then it was all over. He was just forty-eight years old,” Sonia writes.

Sonia writes that she often wondered about their “complicated” relationship. “After my mother-in-law’s death, it became clear to me, reading through the letters exchanged between them, that they may have fought bitterly, they may have for some time drifted apart, but the bond that had held them together was never sundered,” she writes.

“In spite of the ups and downs of her marriage, my mother-in-law once confided to me, she couldn’t have married anyone but Feroze; he was the only man she ever loved. After her death I found amongst her papers an unfinished note: ‘I am writing to you Sonia because I see some glimpses of myself in you, and many of my husband in my son who is your husband’.”

Sonia writes, “I’d say that the only person with whom she (Indira) had an unreserved closeness was her husband, Feroze; even when their marital relationship foundered, she wrote loving letters to him. When I told her that my younger sister was contemplating parting from her husband, she replied, ‘Tell her she mustn’t take a decision while she is angry or hurt. I’ve always regretted my break with Feroze’.”