Book review | A full and impartial political biography of Gwalior’s ‘First Citizens’

The last time I met Madhavrao Scindia, perhaps the only political leader I was personally close, it was to condole his mother Rajmata Vijaya Raje Scindia’s passing and not long before his own sudden tragic death in an air crash. A decade ago he had been kind enough to visit me at my house after my mother’s death. Much to my surprise and that of my journalist wife Arati Jerath our condolence visit to the Scindia residence lasted several hours. Cancelling his scheduled appointments he chose to unburden his heart in an uncharacteristic emotional outburst about his family and politics. It was all of course in strict confidence and totally off the record.

Even two decades after Madhavrao Scindia’s death the details of his private musings cannot be revealed. But he was astonishingly forthcoming about his family — the turbulent relationship with his mother triggered by his visceral hatred for her adviser Sardar Angre, with which of his two sisters Vasundhara and Yashodhara in the BJP he got along and his plans to groom son Jyotiraditya in politics. The Congress leader then perceived as very close to party supremo Sonia Gandhi and a potential prime ministerial candidate also stunned us by confessing he felt stifled and frustrated at what he felt was a determined conspiracy by a coterie around her to diminish him at a time when he was preoccupied with grief over his mother.

Rasheed Kidwai’s meticulously researched book The House of Scindias — A Saga of Power, Politics and Intrigue weaves a fascinating tale providing both anecdotes and insights that revived memories of that fateful last meeting with Madhavrao. An astute journalist with a special feel for Madhya Pradesh politics, Kidwai has done a remarkable job in piecing together the history of a political clan that has captured the public imagination over the decades in this country like no other except the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty. The book acquires particular contemporary relevance after the recent elevation of Jyotiraditya Scindia to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s cabinet more than a year after he brought down the government of his father’s party in Madhya Pradesh by defecting to the BJP along with nearly two dozen Congress state legislators.

The most commendable aspect of the book is its strict neutral tone. The House of Scindias is certainly not a hagiography. Kidwai is not afraid to write on the dubious role played by the Royal House of Gwalior during the 1857 Sepoy Mutiny, the turbulent relationship between Vijaya Raje Scindia and her only son and the ugly legal fracas between him and his sisters over the Rajmata’s will on who should inherit the vast property and wealth left by royal ancestors.

Yet the author does not hide his admiration for Madhavrao Scindia’s public charisma the earned him the title “People’s Maharaja”. He praises his sister Vasundhara for her policies as Rajasthan chief minister, particularly those empowering women, and describes Rajmata Vijaya Raje’s personal charm along with her steely determination to fight against all odds. Kidwai does tiptoe around the private lives of the Scindias but justifiably so since his book is essentially a political biography.

The chapter on Jyotiraditya Scindia written before his elevation as minister in the Union cabinet not only analyses the reasons for him taking the drastic step of defecting to the BJP from the Congress bringing its government in Madhya Pradesh down. Kidwai, one of the most knowledgeable journalists on the Congress, also reveals a fumbling bumbling Rahul Gandhi, then party president in 2018, when it came to choosing the leadership of the three states Chattisgarh, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh, all BJP bastions that his party had won in a major political windfall. Jyotiraditya, perceived as close to Rahul who had hoped to become chief minister of Madhya Pradesh, was clearly a victim of his lack of political savvy which became even more palpable after he resigned from his post in a huff after the Congress was routed in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls. It becomes clear that after being marginalised in a party that in any case was fading fast the Scindia scion had little option but to hunt for greener pastures although his father would have surely looked askance at his son and political heir joining ranks with the BJP, particularly under its current political leadership.

The only shortcoming of the book is that in his anxiety to pack every last anecdote and historical event about so many colourful personalities in barely 200 pages the author falters in style that occasionally appears jerky jumping back and forth in historical chronology. Kidwai would have done well to use a larger canvas to paint the vast byzantine saga of power, politics and intrigue of the Scindias. Nevertheless a commendable work that is essential reading to understand not just the Gwalior dynasty but also the twists and turns of Indian politics.