Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi invoked the bloody imagery of the deaths of Indira Gandhi in 1984 and Rajiv Gandhi in 1991, even as he worried over meeting a similar fate. 'Meri dadi ko maara, mere paapa ko maara, shaayad mujhe bhi maar dalenge' (they killed my grandmother, my father, they may even kill me) he said at a rally in Churu, Rajasthan.
Rajiv Gandhi said something similar to Sonia Gandhi in October 1984, albeit in a private conversation hours after Indira Gandhi's assassination. Journalist and political analyst Rasheed Kidwai writes in '24 Akbar Road', how Sonia had pleaded with Rajiv not to take up his mother's mantle, "I begged him not to let them do this. I pleaded with him, with others around him, too. He would be killed as well. He held my hands, hugged me, tried to soothe my desperation. He had no choice, he said, he would be killed anyway."
At a rally in Alwar, Rahul Gandhi pointed at his beefy Special Protection Group (SPG) bodyguards and recounted how Indira Gandhi's guards-turned-assassins Satwant Singh and Beant Singh were his friends. "They taught me badminton. And out of anger, my friends killed my grandmother."
It was his third public reference to the assassinations in his family. Curiously, all those reference were made in Rajasthan. At the AICC session in Jaipur on January 21 this year, Rahul first mentioned playing badminton with his grandmother's killers.
'Bhindrawale brainchild of IndiraG, IPKF from peace keeping to anti LTTE-decision of Rajiv G,what's Congress upto now that Rahul worries for' Olympic silver medalist and BJP member Colonel Rajyavardhan Rathore tweeted after Rahul Gandhi's speeches.
Death and martyrdom, however, have been a recurring theme in Gandhi family speeches.
At her last public speech in Bhubaneshwar on October 30, 1984, Indira Gandhi eerily prophesied her own death: "I am here today; I may not be here tomorrow. But the responsibility to look after national interest is on the shoulder of every citizen of India. I have often mentioned this earlier. Nobody knows how many attempts have been made to shoot me; lathis have been used to beat me. In Bhubaneswar itself, a brickbat hit me. They have attacked me in every possible manner. I do not care whether I live or die. I have lived a long life and I am proud that I spend the whole of my life in the service of my people. I am only proud of this and nothing else. I shall continue to serve until my last breath and when I die, I can say, that every drop of my blood will invigorate India and strengthen it."
She was assassinated just a day later by her Sikh bodyguards.
Rajiv Gandhi invoked his mother's death a year later. At his famous 'power brokers' speech at the Congress centenary celebrations on December 28, 1985 he rued the ethnic divide within the country. "We proclaim to celebrate the unity of India. It is a fact of transcending significance. But is it not also a fact that most of us, in our daily lives, do not think of ourselves as Hindus, Muslims or Christians, or Malayalis, Maharashtrians or Bengalis…is this the India for which Mahatma Gandhi or Indira Gandhi sacrificed their lives?" he asked.
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