completely.
the transformation of sonia gandhi is quite amazing. very very well handled.

Hmm, as i said before i have no questions about her Indianess. If our constitution says I am indian by birth and SOnia is indian by naturalisation, then of course both are Indian. I was just talking about the image issue, in the context of her brand image and personality and how much her incapacity to speak any indian langauge other than english (and i think english is very much an indian language) must be making her people work hard.
MGR really din have this problem – in fact he was in exactly the opposite or inverse situation – where altho a malayali, he cud not only speak Tamil he was the king of tamil cinema, same with Rajnikanth if he wants to be CM. Besides i wonder if a major percentage of their fans even knew about their backgrounds. Nasser Hussien gives you a perception that his family was brit since the time of queen victoria. Of course what I am talking abt is really old, but i was trying to look at it as a PR case study – the communication process issues. And the success of Sonia Gandhi will be a very unique case study in academics. It’s incredible.

As far as politics goes the BJP doesnt have enuff scoop and there arent several many grave things going agaisnt the incumbent. Yeh we need more guitar playing Milind Deoras in parliament.

sriram
there is a kannadiga who is the CM of Tamil Nadu. before that MGR – who was mallu – ruled TN. there are half a dozen mp’s in the UK of indian origin. Their cricket captain for a time was of Indian origin.

What is a good hindi accent. I speak hindi with a mumbai /tam accent. am sure that other people have their own regional variations.

I really don’t think that the ‘foreigner’ issue exists anymore except in the minds of the sangh parivaar. As far as the electorate is concerned she is Indian. And she is – there is no detracting from that. If we question her Indianess, we probably will have to define ‘what is an Indian’ and that itself will take up the next few millenia

She will win more seats for congress if she has some better candidates. She needs to replicate the Jyotiraje Scindia, Milind Deora, rahul Gandhi, Sachin Pilot to all India.