How did 10-year-old Rahul Gandhi react and break the news of uncle Sanjay Gandhi’s death to his grandmother in Italy? Sonia Gandhi’s memoir offers a poignant account of the same. She also revealed how Italian remained a language of private conversations in the Gandhi family.
“Chacha e morto.” The words, meaning “Uncle has died” in Italian, were all that 10-year-old Rahul Gandhi could repeat after receiving the news of his uncle Sanjay Gandhi’s death in a plane crash in June 1980. Unable to fully comprehend the tragedy, Rahul had broken down while relaying the message to his maternal grandmother in Italy. When Sanjay’s parents, Sonia and Rajiv Gandhi, eventually returned home, Rahul Gandhi was inconsolable, the Rajya Sabha MP revealed.
In her newly released autobiography, Belonging: A Journey of Love, Sonia Gandhi recounts the family’s shock and grief over Sanjay’s sudden death, while offering a glimpse into how Italian, her mother tongue, remained part of the family’s private conversations even after she moved to India.
Sanjay Gandhi, the younger son of then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, died on June 23, 1980, when the aircraft he was piloting crashed near Safdarjung Airport in New Delhi.
In June 1980, Sonia and Rajiv, along with their children, Rahul and Priyanka, had travelled to Italy for a vacation. The couple had left Rahul and Priyanka at Sonia’s parents’ home in Orbassano before setting off for Florence for a holiday together. On June 23, as the couple returned to their pensione in Florence for a late breakfast, an agitated member of the staff asked them to call Sonia’s parents urgently.
“Our hearts sank: Something must have happened to the children,” she writes.
But the news awaiting them was far worse. When Sonia called her parents, they learnt that Sanjay, Rajiv’s younger brother, had died in a plane crash.
Rajiv was “white with shock, petrified with anguish”, Sonia recalls, as Sanjay had been his only brother and someone with whom he had shared most of his life. The call conveying the news had come from Delhi to Sonia’s mother. Unable to understand what was being said, she handed the telephone to 10-year-old Rahul. The caller was RK Dhawan, the personal secretary of Rahul’s grandmother and Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi.
The message from Dhawan to a young Rahul was abrupt. “There has been an accident, Rahul. Chacha has died,” Dhawan said.
Rahul relayed what he had heard to his Italian grandmother, bursting into sobs. Sonia writes that her mother tried to calm him, but the young boy was in a state of shock and could only keep repeating, “Chacha e morto” (“Chacha has died”).
When Sonia and Rajiv reached home in Italy’s Orbassano, Rahul remained inconsolable despite their efforts to comfort him. Priyanka, too, was stunned and bewildered. Sonia’s family members had gathered at the house, all shocked and saddened, with her father particularly distressed.
ITALIAN IS A PART OF THE GANDHI HOUSEHOLD
The episode also offers a glimpse into the Gandhi family’s use of Italian, reflecting Sonia’s Italian maternal roots. Although she had moved to India after marrying Rajiv Gandhi, her mother tongue remained part of her family’s private life.
Senior journalist and columnist Coomi Kapoor, writing in The Indian Express, has also described an instance of Sonia and Rahul switching to Italian during a private exchange in front of journalists.
At a dinner marking two years of the UPA government in 2006, Sonia was speaking to senior journalists when Rahul approached her. She asked him whether Priyanka had spoken to him, and he assured her that there was nothing to worry about. Sonia remarked that it appeared to be a false alarm. Realising that she could not continue the private conversation in front of the media, she switched to Italian, with Rahul responding in the same language, Kapoor wrote.
Sonia is herself a multilingual speaker. In a 2004 profile, British newspaper The Guardian described her as a talented linguist who could converse in English, French, Spanish, Italian and Russian, besides Hindi. Her Italian background has remained an important part of her personal history, even as she built a life and political career in India.
Rajiv Gandhi, too, was fluent in Italian. In his 2016 book, From Inside the Steel Frame, retired IAS officer Ashok Pandey recounted an incident from the early 1980s, when he was serving as special assistant to the then Minister of State for Defence, Shivraj Patil.
During a visit to Mazagon Dock in Bombay (now Mumbai), where a newly acquired Indian Navy ship was on display, Pandey recalled seeing Rajiv explain the vessel’s technical features to his parents-in-law in Italian.
“Technically sound, he was explaining to them in Italian, different features of the vessel,” Pandey wrote, adding that he could see that Rajiv’s in-laws understood and appreciated his explanations.
SANJAY’S DEATH AND THE GANDHI FAMILY’S GRIEF
Sonia’s account of the events following the phone call also captures the devastating impact of Sanjay’s death on the family, particularly Indira Gandhi.
When Sonia and Rajiv returned to Delhi, they found Indira Gandhi numb and devastated. Sonia writes in her autobiography that her mother-in-law had kept her emotions to herself during the long and desperate hours following the accident.
Among the notes Sonia found on Indira’s writing table after her death was one describing the moment she reached the accident site. “As I was going to the spot I prayed, ‘Oh! God, don’t let it be him.’ When I saw that it was him, I kept repeating to myself, You must keep going — talk, walk, do something,” Indira had written.
She had gone to the hospital with Sanjay’s young widow, Maneka Gandhi, and asked her to wait while she made sure that his head had been bandaged. Sanjay’s body was subsequently taken in an open vehicle to Indira’s office at 24 Akbar Road. Even amid her grief, Indira continued to oversee arrangements, ensuring that elderly relatives and colleagues had chairs and that those gathered on the hot summer’s day were given water.
When Sonia and Rajiv reached home, they went to see Sanjay’s body before returning to the house. Indira embraced them and clung to the children. It was only then that she finally broke down.
Holding Rajiv tightly, she cried uncontrollably: “Why, why Sanjay… Why him, why not me?”
Rajiv, too, wept. Sonia writes that it was agonising to witness the two of them in such pain. “I wanted to do something — to embrace them, to say something that would console them — but my heart was too full,” she recalls.