Towards the end of 1973, Sanjay Gandhi was introduced to Maneka Gandhi, a young woman Sonia Gandhi remembers in her memoir as vivacious and full of life. Maneka was ten years younger than Sanjay and still a minor at the time.
The two married within a year, when Maneka turned 18, and she entered the Gandhi household as its “Choti Bahu”. But what began as a new chapter in the family’s life gradually gave way to domestic tensions and political differences that eventually drove Maneka out of the household. Looking back, Sonia says the episode had all the makings of what would today be called a “reality show”.
“Maneka was…full of zest. It was refreshing at first to have a younger sister-in-law in the house. But slowly, the atmosphere began to change, with irritations cropping up in the home,” Sonia Gandhi writes.
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Sonia, whom the household staff called “Bahurani”, recalls that she initially saw Maneka as another daughter of the family. She believed there was enough space for both of them in the household and considered them “equal daughters of the house”.
“…but she probably saw it as a putdown,” Sonia writes.
She says she would usually ignore Maneka’s rude remarks rather than allow an argument to escalate. There
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