Rasheed Kidwai

Some Lesser Known Facts About Rasheed Kidwai

• Rasheed Kidwai is a well known Indian journalist, author, columnist, and political analyst. He began his career as a newspaper reporter, and later, he turned up as a panellist on several Indian news channels including News 18, Times Now, ABP news, and NDTV.

• The Indian government and its political parties, community affairs and Hindi cinema are his core areas of working. He keeps the record of the life stories of the Indian National Congress, Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi.

• After completing his higher education from Leicester University, UK, Rasheed Kidwai was honoured with a fellowship program by the British and Commonwealth Office, UK. Soon after returning to India, he started working as an associate editor at The Telegraph, Calcutta.

• The news on various television channels, radio programs and newspapers has also been tracked and covered by Kidwai. Several articles and writings by Rasheed Kidwai has been printed and broadcasted on various media houses including Rediff, Amar Ujala, The Quint, Dainik Jagran, Mumbai Mirror, The Print, ABP News Blog, Network 18, The Tribune Chandigarh,  Inquilab, Prabhat Khabar.

• Rasheed Kidwai is also an author and political analyst. He published ‘Sonia – A Biography’ in 2003. Initially, this biography was written in English by Rasheed Kidwai. Later, it was translated and published in Hindi, Telugu, Marathi, Punjabi, Tamil languages.                                                           

• The book ’24 Akbar Road’ was written by Rasheed Kidwai in 2011. It was a short history of the people who were considered as the cause of the rise and fall of the Congress government in India.

• The life journeys of various Indian actors-turned-politicians were traced by Rasheed Kidwai in his book ‘Neta Abhineta’ in 2018. The stories of actors and actresses including Prithviraj Kapoor, Nargis, Sunil Dutt, Amitabh Bachchan, Jaya Bachchan, Rekha, Mithun Chakraborty, Dharmendra, Hema Malini, Govinda, Shatrughan Sinha, Rajesh Khanna, Vinod Khanna, Dev Anand, Dilip Kumar, Jaya Prada, Javed Akhtar, Shabana Azmi, Paresh Rawal and Raj Babbar were covered in this book. ^[2]Business Standard                               

• In 2018, Rasheed Kidwai published a book titled ‘Ballot – Ten Episodes That Have Shaped India’s Democracy.’ In this book, he traced the Indian elections procedure and the life stories of the Indian politicians including N T Ramarao, Bal Thackeray, Mayawati and Mamata Banerjee.               

• ‘The House of Scindias – a saga of Power, Politics and Intrigue’ was also published by Rasheed Kidwai, and it is one of his major works.

• At Observer Research Foundation, Delhi, Rasheed Kidwai is appointed as a Visiting Fellow.

• Rasheed Kidwai is a frequent columnist at various English, Hindi and Urdu online portals and newspapers.

• His genre of writing is mainly biographies and memoirs in English, Hindi and Urdu languages.

• According to Rasheed Kidwai, Sonia Gandhi was not assigning the reins of the Indian National Congress to her son Rahul Gandhi because the other leaders in the congress party were reluctant to accept Rahul as their supreme leader. In 2017, in an interview, Rasheed explained the situations in the congress party,
  

  As a seasoned politician, Sonia Gandhi is acutely aware of the reluctance of Congress leaders to wholeheartedly accept Rahul as the party’s supreme leader. She does not want to “impose” her son on them. There are 150 important leaders in the party, holding important posts and positions at various levels. She is trying to strike a balance so that the power transfer is a smooth affair.”

  He further narrated the two differentiated styles of working of Rahul Gandhi and Sonia Gandhi,

  Rahul is an unconventional politician and drastically different from his mother. Rahul is more pragmatic. He does not care much for traditional power structures and hierarchies. Sonia Gandhi inherited a fragmented Congress in 1998 after a lot of thinking and deliberations. She was acutely conscious of her foreign origins. She ran the party [beginning in 1998] like a matriarch with a Japanese method of maximum consultation, minimum disciplinary action.”

• Rasheed Kidwai covered a life incident of Raj Kapoor and Indira Gandhi in his book Neta – Abhineta. An interesting fact from the book,
  

  Apparently, the former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was so impressed with the Kapoors, she was hoping to have Rajiv married to Ritu, Raj Kapoor’s eldest. This wasn’t because she was starstruck, but because the Kapoors contributed significantly to “cultural diplomacy” and Prithviraj Kapoor also played an exemplary role as a nominated MP. Nehru was struck with amazement when he met Stalin on a tour to Russia as one of the questions he asked was about Raj Kapoor and Awara.”

  The life stories of the Indian film actress Nargis and Member Parliament Khushwant Singh were also covered by him in his book Neta – Abhineta,

  Nargis asking fellow Rajya Sabha MP Khushwant Singh for a favour, to stay at his home in Kasauli while dropping her son Sanjay Dutt to The Lawrence School, Sonawar. He agreed and later, when someone tried to introduce them, Nargis reportedly said — “I’ve slept in his bed!”

  A fact about the life of Jawaharlal Nehru was also traced by him in the same book. He wrote,

  Whenever Jawaharlal Nehru was very impressed with a movie or play that was screened for him, he’d invite them home to Teen Murti, but this created other hassles. For instance, when Nehru invited Prithviraj Kapoor to his house for dinner, he turned it down because the other crew members were not invited. Nehru took note and, soon enough, all 60 turned up in Teen Murti Bhavan.”

• In his book ‘The House of Scindias – a saga of Power, Politics and Intrigue,’ Rasheed Kidwai revealed the fact that Sonia Gandhi’s first choice as prime minister of the UPA government was not Dr Manmohan Singh. Earlier, she decided that Madhavrao Scindia would be the Prime Minister of India if Congress would win the 2004 general elections, but Scindia died in a plane air-crash on 30 September 2001. He explained in his book,
  

  K. Natwar Singh, 89, diplomat-turned-politician insists even today that Madhavrao Scindia would have been PM if he had lived. He would have been Sonia Gandhi’s first choice as prime minister of the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government instead of Dr Manmohan Singh.”