Websites and blogs "maligning” Feroze Gandhi’s reputation seem to have cropped up and his relatives have sought his daughter-in-law Sonia Gandhi’s intervention. The Congress Party is exploring legal options to have these "scurrilous” reports removed, as per a report in The Times of India (October 19, 2006.)
One website has claimed, falsely, that Feroze Gandhi was of Muslim parentage and had concealed the fact to ensure that there was no obstacle to his marriage with Indira Nehru. Another speculates on the nature of his "relationship” with his mother-in-law, Kamala Nehru, towards whom he was known to be sympathetic.
Feroze Gandhi: honest, patriotic Indian
Feroze’s Bombay-based niece, Ratoo Dara Dastur said: "Feroze Gandhi was an honest, great Indian who cannot be maligned in this fashion.” She has appealed to Sonia Gandhi to do something, and the latter has asked the Congress Party spokesman, Abhishek Manu Singhvi, to look into the complaint. The matter is being discussed at the top levels of the Congress, with general secretaries and legal experts roped in to chalk out an appropriate course of action.
On an earlier occasion, when a Bombay tabloid had published a damaging piece on Feroze Gandhi, Dastur had challenged its veracity. In its rejoinder, the tabloid asked her to produce Gandhi’s birth certificate. "Who would have helped me to get a birth certificate issued in 1912? I again requested my cousin (Sonia Gandhi) and with the help of the municipal authorities, we now have a birth certificate,” Dastur states.