Former Congress president Sonia Gandhi, who has been so callously targeted by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and Bharatiya Janata Party for her foreign origin over the last many decades, has some lessons for Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the true nature of Indian nationhood. In her book Belonging: a Journey of Love, which released today, she also sends out a subtle message to the Sangh Parivar about their flawed understanding of Hinduism, as well as Indian culture and philosophy.Discussing her formal and fleeting exchanges with Modi, in the book she writes:“We come from different ideological worlds; his idea of this country is vastly different from mine. All I learnt about India was assimilated from members of my family, their lives of service, and their faith in a nation that encompassed a host of races and cultures, languages and faiths, based on principles of liberty and equality for all. Narendra Modi’s idea of India was constructed by the ideologues of the RSS and the experience of his own growing up.”She adds:“It affirmed a fundamentalism in which his faith and culture superseded all others. In that India, hierarchy, order, and control are central. He was fighting for his vision of India, and I for mine: an India against hegemony, an India that stands for inclusiveness, secularism and social justice.”While the Congress has always said similar things about the RSS-BJP, this book underlines their ideological incompatibility with India’s soul in an exceptionally sophisticated manner, without relying on strident and acerbic political rhetoric. It says:“The ideological forces behind Prime Minister Modi are undermining a system that for close to 80 years has held intact a diverse population, a tapestry of different languages, beliefs, and customs in a delicate web of unity. It is this fabric, essential to our unity and freedom, that’s now threatened by an authoritarian force bent upon changing the very nature of our country.”Hinting that the RSS training might have a critical role in shaping Modi’s worldview and antipathy towards the Congress, she writes:“I tend to believe that this antipathy stems from the conditioning of the prime minister by the RSS. It has inculcated in its cadre a commitment to an exclusionary, hardened version of Hinduism that has crafted into a political agenda. What I have learnt from my mother-in-law is the faith that’s been practiced for centuries in India by vast numbers of our people – from stalwarts of the freedom struggle to the poorest in our villages. It embraces diverse beliefs and different paths, adheres to no single deity, dogma prophet, or scripture, and has included traditions of dissent.”Also read: Great Expectations: A Few Notes in Preparation for Sonia Gandhi’s Upcoming MemoirShe further says:“I was educated by them in the way of ahimsa and dharma as Mahatma Gandhi interpreted it, and from this followed my own experiences of acceptance and understanding. Of course, the centuries-old caste system that ruled Indian society has its own long-standing problems of oppression and inequality, but some of the major figures of reform have used ideas precisely within Hinduism to question and challenge the stranglehold of caste. The core idea of inclusiveness within Hinduism is summed up in the Vedic mantra “Ekam sat vipra bahuda vadanti”, which in translation means “the truth is one, the paths to it are many.”While the prime minister ruthlessly pushes the majoritarian agenda, the message of cultural synergy and equality coming from a person who was tormented by the BJP for her country of birth is significant. Gandhi referred to the rise of divisive and exclusionary politics under BJP, saying:“Ever since the BJP came to power, brutal attacks on minorities as well as Dalits have increased exponentially and mostly gone unpunished. Propaganda videos, social media content, and movies designed to create resentment and suspicion of minorities receive official approval.”Explaining that she has hardly had any meaningful conversation with Modi, she writes:“It wasn’t personal. His path to politics was charted along a course completely different from mine. But there were elements of his discomfort with the ruling elite of our times that I, too, had come to understand well. I often found myself ill at ease in a drawing room in Delhi in the midst of a political discussion – feeling that the opinions expressed were very far removed from the reality in India. The suffering, the struggle to survive, that I had witnessed in my constituency and seen in my travels through the country were to this privileged group unimaginable. Mr Modi’s origins may not have been as humble as his PR team has made out in marketing his image, but he had certainly worked his way to power within the RSS from an underprivileged world.”But she pointed out that Modi was backed by the “business world”, and was not a people’s candidate, for the post of prime minister, saying:“The mainstream media is largely owned by corporate houses, and their management consistently gave the advantage to our opponents in shaping public opinion. Our achievements were overshadowed by the BJP’s successful use of both the mainstream and social media to propagate charges of corruption in our government, I could sense a degree of fatigue and complacency in our government which weakened our capacity to communicate our successes and counter the force of the richly funded BJP’s onslaught. At any rate, the allegations began to fly. In fact, the prime minister and the party took action against those ministers who were indeed found to be engaged in corruption and asked them to resign. Many of the accusations framed by our opponents were later proved to be wrong. Officials appointed to investigate alleged scams had come up with inflated and distorted reports; they were later rewarded by the BJP.”The book also deals with burning issues like capture of institutions and diminishing freedoms. Gandhi writes:“Politically, over the past decade I have seen India fall way down the list of nations deemed liberal democracies. Under Manmohan Singh, our country was inching up the ladder in economic, social, and political league tables. That’s been reversed in several key indicators, most tellingly in freedoms, democracy, and the media.” Lamenting that TV anchors had become the “propaganda arm of the government,” she writes, “paid troll armies brand as ‘traitors’ and ‘anti-nationals’ members of the public who dare to uncover corruption, to speak out or criticize the prime minister and his policies. Many dissenters have been imprisoned on false charges without bail or trial.”On the Election Commission of India, the book says,“Indignation and despair filled my heart each time I witnessed the anti-democratic methods by which the Modi regime manipulated and toppled our elected state governments, casting aside the people’s mandates. And, the most dangerous to our country’s future, the ruling party has crippled the guardian of democracy, the Election Commission of India, turning it into a willing accomplice in their objective of grabbing power by any means, and all costs.”Sanjay K. Jha is a political commentator.