Your father abandoned your mother... who should have aborted you’

Rebecka Saudamini Arnes, 34, born in India and adopted by a Swedish couple from Mumbai, has been searching for her biological mother for nearly four years now. A pursuit during the course of which, she says, she has been at the receiving end of some very nasty emails on her birth from Tushar Gandhi, the great grandson of the Mahatma, whose family was apparently instrumental in her adoption.

In August this year, Arnes, a psychiatric nurse working in Hoor, Sweden, moved the Bombay High Court, seeking its help to get more information about her mother, who is believed to have surrendered her as a two-day-old baby at Shraddhanand Mahila Ashram in Matunga.

Annexed to Arnes’s petition is an email exchange between her and Gandhi, during which Gandhi asked Arnes to stop bothering him. Arnes has contended that her adoption was facilitated by Gandhi’s parents Arun and Sunanda, who helped a number of Swedish couples adopt Indian children before themselves migrating to the US. Arnes says she sought the help of Tushar as he still lives in Mumbai.

In one reply to Arnes’s email, Gandhi wrote on January 29, 2010: “I don’t think your biological father was a person able to live up to his responsibilities that’s why he abandoned your mother after having sex with her, maybe repeatedly, and left her with an unwanted pregnancy. Generally mothers love their babies from the time they conceive but your mother cursed every minute that you were growing in her.”

“I am sure she must have desperately tried to get rid of you, would have cursed you after every failure. She must have felt greatly relieved when she found the Drs (doctors) at Parle Hospital who let her get rid of the curse which was growing inside her,” the email adds.

Reached for his comments, Gandhi said: “It (the emails) may have been insensitive on my part but I was at my wits’ end.

She would just not listen to logic. I had tried to explain to her rationally but she remained persistent. How can one produce a woman after 30 years?”

Gandhi said that he had learnt from other Swedish families known to him that Arnes had had troubled teen years. “My tone may have been cruel but my intent was to avoid further trauma to her and not scare or subdue her,” he said.

He added that in 1977-78, abortion was an option but if Arnes’s biological mother carried her through the pregnancy and then surrendered her, it was a “thought-out process” of “severing” the child.

After Arnes approached Dr K T Shah of Parle Nursing Home, who she says helped deliver her on October 18, 1977, Gandhi wrote to her saying her repeated calls had caused great stress to the doctor.

Another email written by Gandhi said: “I feel concerned about him (the doctor) and I hate you for the trouble you are causing for him. I would never wish for something like this but today I sincerely wish that your mother could have aborted you.”

In yet another email dated January 28, 2010, Gandhi wrote: “You may have a lot of money to hire a private investigator... but if anybody from Sweden ever visits Parle hospital and questions the doctor there I will have them arrested on charges of harassment and intimidation.”

“It hurts me to have to write such a cruel letter but you leave me no option. Some people do not deserve any kindness...,” Gandhi concluded.

Arnes’s petition, however, does not name Gandhi as a respondent. The petition filed jointly with her adoptive mother Eva Lindgren (60) seeks a court direction to the police to take action against Shraddhanand Mahilashram for not disclosing information about her biological mother. She has contended that it is her “legitimate and constitutional right to know about her origin and roots in India”.

Her petition adds that the reluctance of Shraddhanand Mahilashram had given her reason to believe she was kidnapped and given in adoption. She has also cited discrepancies in her vaccination certificate obtained from the BMC and an affidavit filed by the adoption centre in the Bombay High Court that allowed the adoption in 1978. She has claimed her mother’s name had been scribbled over on the vaccination certificate.

The petition is likely to be heard on November 21.

In an email to The Indian Express, Arnes wrote, “Blood is stronger than water and my time in India will always stay inside me... I am very grateful for my adoptive parents and the life in Sweden. But I feel very strongly that I am missing something important in my life, my origin and my identity.”

“Tushar Gandhi has told me to stop this search and has treated us very badly,” she wrote. “Sunanda and Arun Gandhi (Tushar’s parents) visited me in Sweden after I was adopted. I know now that Sunanda gave me the name Saudamini...”