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Mails To 'Dearest Mother'...Then A Meet With The Daughter

The build-up to a plead-and-pardon story has been on for a while now. The Priyanka-Nalini meet may bring it to climax.

Outlook News Desk

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W
ill Nalini Sriharan, convicted in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case, be granted amnesty and freed on September 15, the birthday of DMK founder C.N. Annadurai, when the Tamil Nadu government usually releases those serving life sentences? Can the goodwill generated by Priyanka Vadra's hour-long meeting with Nalini on March 19 at the special prison for women in Vellore give an extra impetus to this process?

The meeting has been mostly spoken of in the language of truth, reconciliation and pardon. These abstractions apart, the one thing uppermost on Nalini's mind is to secure her release from prison after having been in solitary confinement for 17 long years.

To take forward the process of her release, Nalini's lawyer S. Doraiswamy will be filing a writ petition in the Madras High Court next week. "I would have filed the petition by now, but held it back when I heard from Nalini's mother about Priyanka's visit," he told Outlook. So, does he foresee Nalini's release on September 15? Well, "it's a possibility," shrugs Doraiswamy. "There are chances. Nalini's application was being rejected since 2005 on the ground that she was still an ltte sympathiser and would create problems."


The various letters Nalini has written to authorities in the last few years—both in the state and central governments, besides to Sonia Gandhi—make it clear that the convict has been pleading for her release. Outlook has accessed some of these handwritten letters. And in the one dated October 15, 2007, written to the Union minister of state for home, with a copy to Sonia, Nalini says: "...I have spent the longest years (in prison) among political prisoners. Even in Shri. Mahatma Gandhi's case and Smt. Indira Gandhi's case, prisoners awarded the life term served only 14 years and were released."

Outlook has also reliably learnt that Nalini has been writing a letter a month since November last year to Sonia, pleading her mercy and intervention. In all these and earlier letters, she addresses Sonia as "dearest mother". The tone of the correspondence makes it evident that Nalini has tried to build a rapport with Sonia and clearly understands that it is only Rajiv Gandhi's widow who can help her the second time over (Sonia had earlier got Nalini's death sentence commuted to a life term).

In one of these, she pleads: "Mother, as a last resort I have come to you...mother, only your kind and firm interference can bring us (positive) response since you can understand our struggle to see our daughter." Sonia too has often enquired about Nalini's welfare—it's evident from her letter earlier to Mohini Giri, former chairperson of the National Commission For Women.

As for Nalini's family, they appear to nourish hopes of her early release. Her younger brother P.S. Bhagiyanathan said Nalini was "very happy and cheerful" after Priyanka's visit. "My sister feels that the Gandhi family has pardoned her and her sins have been washed clean. For over two years now, after she completed 14 years in prison, she has been very depressed. She has been hoping against hope that she would be released."

On whether the goodwill generated by Priyanka's visit will facilitate his sister's release, Bhagiyanathan had this to say: "It was totally a personal and humanitarian meeting. Both did not want any media hype—it is unfortunate the press has picked up the story." He also adds that his sister and Priyanka "did not discuss any legal issues".

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