Sonia Gandhi delivered Christmas lunch to her imprisoned mother-in-law, Indira Gandhi, inside Delhi’s Tihar Jail on December 25, 1978, NDTV reported in its coverage of her memoir, Belonging: A Journey of Love.
The former prime minister spent a week in the facility after the Janata Party government came to power following the 1977 elections and the Emergency. Indira Gandhi requested enough food for three female guards and a young foreign prisoner in the same compound, whom Sonia Gandhi identifies as an accomplice of serial killer Charles Sobhraj.
“My mother-in-law had said in a note that under no circumstances should I deliver her lunch — I should have my Christmas meal with Rajiv and the children. I couldn't do it,” Sonia Gandhi writes in her memoir.
“My mother-in-law felt sorry for her, and when it turned out that she didn’t eat ham, we quickly had to change the menu and prepare a roast chicken instead,” Sonia Gandhi writes in the book, which was released on November 10.
The young foreigner was remembered by Sonia Gandhi simply as an Australian girl. Police arrested three women alongside Sobhraj in Delhi in July 1976: Marie-Andree Leclerc, Barbara Smith, and Mary Ellen Eather, an Australian nurse from Sydney. Leclerc, a Canadian from Quebec, was likely the prisoner held in Tihar in December 1978 before her release and return to Canada in July 1983.
Parliamentary Expulsion and Prison Conditions
The Lok Sabha committed Indira Gandhi to jail on December 19, 1978, after adopting a resolution moved by Prime Minister Morarji Desai. Parliament expelled her from Chikmagalur for breach of privilege and contempt of the House regarding information collected about Sanjay Gandhi’s Maruti car project.
Sonia Gandhi describes passing through a series of enclosures secured by heavy iron bars and padlocks before reaching the cell. A US embassy telegram noted she was incarcerated in the same facility where political opponents were held during the Emergency.
“I was moved to tears seeing her tiny figure sitting on a metal chair in the corner of that bare, cold jail cell,” Sonia Gandhi writes, noting the freezing conditions in December with an open toilet and a concrete block for a bed.
Indira Gandhi sometimes slipped handwritten notes into books or tiffin baskets. One note mentioned counting the security measures: “You remember the telegram I got asking me to count the bars? Well, I have!… A total of 193 bars and 11 padlocks!”
Indira Gandhi returns to power
Indira Gandhi was released on December 26, 1978, the day after the Christmas visit, and returned home. She returned to power as prime minister in January 1980, and the Lok Sabha rescinded the 1978 expulsion resolution in 1981.
Why Indira Gandhi went to Tihar Jail
Why was Indira Gandhi sent to Tihar Jail in December 1978?
The Lok Sabha expelled her for breach of privilege and contempt of the House after finding she obstructed officials gathering information about her son Sanjay Gandhi’s Maruti car project.
Who were the women arrested with Charles Sobhraj in 1976?
Police arrested Marie-Andree Leclerc, Barbara Smith, and Mary Ellen Eather alongside Sobhraj in Delhi in July 1976, sending them to Tihar Jail.
When was Sonia Gandhi’s memoir published?
The book, titled ‘Belonging: A Journey of Love’, was released on November 10.