"At the very beginning of his book, "The Nehru Dynasty", astrologer K.N.Rao mentions the names of Jawaharlal's father and grandfather. Jawahar Lal's father was believed to be Motilal and Motilal's father was one Gangadhar Nehru. And we all know is that Jawaharlal's only daughter was Indira Priyadarshini Nehru; Kamala Nehru was her mother, who died in Switzerland of tuberculosis. She was totally against Indira's proposed marriage with Feroze.
Why? No one tells us that!
Now, who is this Feroze? We are told by many that he was the son of the family grocer. The grocer supplied wines, etc. to Anand Bhavan (previously known as Ishrat Manzil).
What was the family grocer's name?
One frequently hears that Rajiv Gandhi's grandfather was Pandit Nehru.
But then we all know that everyone has two grandfathers, the paternal and the maternal grandfathers. In fact, the paternal grandfather is deemed to be the more important grandfather in most societies.
Why is it then, no where, we find Rajiv Gandhi's paternal grandfather's name? It appears that the reason is simply this. Rajiv Gandhi's paternal grandfather was a Muslim gentleman from the Junagadh area of Gujarat. This Muslim grocer by the name of Nawab Khan, had married a Parsi woman after converting her to Islam.
This is the source where from the myth of Rajiv being a Parsi was derived. Rajiv's father Feroze, was Feroze Khan before he married Indira, against Kamala Nehru's wishes.
Feroze's mother's family name was Ghandy, often associated with Parsis and this was changed to Gandhi, sometime before his wedding with Indira, by an affidavit.
The fact of the matter is that (and this fact can be found in many writings) Indira was very lonely. Chased out of the Shantiniketan University by Guru Dev Rabindranath himself for misdemeanor, the lonely girl was all by herself, while father Jawahar was busy with his life.
Feroze Khan, the grocer's son was then in England and he was quite sympathetic to Indira and soon enough she changed her religion, became a Muslim woman and married Feroze Khan in a London mosque.
Nehru was not happy; Kamala was dead already or dying. The news of this marriage eventually reached Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (better known as Mahatma Gandhi).
Gandhi urgently called Nehru and practically ordered him to ask the young man to change his name from Khan to Gandhi. It had nothing to do with change of religion, from Islam to Hinduism for instance. It was just a case of a change of name by an affidavit. And so Feroze Khan became Feroze Gandhi.
When they returned to India, a mock 'Vedic marriage' was instituted for public consumption. On this subject,writes M.O. Mathai (a longtime Private Secretary of Nehru) in his renowned (but now suppressed by the GOI! ) 'Reminiscences of the Nehru Age' on page 94, second paragraph: "For some inexplicable reason, Nehru allowed the marriage to be performed according to Vedic rites in 1942. An inter-religious and inter-caste marriage under Vedic rites at that time was not valid in law. To be legal, it had to be a civil marriage."
Great perceptivity !
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