To PM Or Not To PM

In latest news, Sonia Gandhi is expressing her reluctance to be the Prime Minister, which I think is quite impressive and foresighted of her. One could already sense this whole foreign origin thing becoming a huge issue, and I think she's doing the right thing under the circumstances.

But I couldn't say that and let it go without throwing my two cents in, so...

Personally, I do agree that it seems strange to allow a person of foreign origin to head a government, but the question then is, where does one draw the line? For example, if, say, Rahul Gandhi had been born in Italy but had moved to India for good within a matter of months, would that (and more importantly, should it) render him ineligible for the post of PM? I don't think it should. Then should there be a minimum residency requirement in India and/or a maximum residency requirement outside India? That might be the way to go.

In any case, in this particular scenario, when I don't really see a viable leadership alternative, and when there is nothing (yet) in the Constitution that doesn't allow it, I think it would make sense for Sonia Gandhi to be PM. Granted she is a political novice (although given her handling of these elections, I'd say she's learnt a few tricks of the trade from the family she married into), but does anyone else in the Congress really command that kind of support for PM? I'd have to say that the Manmohan Singhs and Ghulam Nabi Azads don't inspire the kind of national sentiment that a Gandhi would.

I must hasten to say here that I only support this idea in the interests of governmental stability. Unfortunately, governmental stability doesn't necessarily translate into socio-political stability, which might be the bigger issue here.

For once, the Times of India had something interesting to add to this whole issue - they said that if Sonia became PM, that would only indicate the robustness and inclusiveness of the Hindu-dominated Indian democracy, which already has a Muslim bachelor President and would add to the mix a Roman Catholic foreign-born widow as PM! This compared with the other "great democracy of the world", USA, which, has never had (and most probably never will have, at least in my lifetime) anyone other than a white, Christian, married man as President.

Ru Paul for President, anyone?