Sonia Gandhi Reflects on Political Life in New Memoir Belonging

Sonia Gandhi’s newly released memoir, Belonging, offers an intimate and candid examination of her life, tracking her path from a newcomer to India in 1968 to her central role in the nation’s political evolution. The book provides a rare window into the personal costs of her family’s public legacy, including the loss of her first child shortly after birth and the harrowing discovery of hidden grenades in her home following the 1984 military operation at the Golden Temple in Amritsar. The former’s much-awaited political memoir, Belonging, offers a strikingly candid account of her journey from a small town in Italy to the highest echelons of power in India – all for love, she says. In Belonging, she opens up for the first time about the extraordinary twists and turns of a life that has largely unfolded in full public view. (Hannah Ellis-Petersen has a rare in-person interview with Gandhi, and you can read an excerpt from the book here.). Belonging, published today, contains moving glimpses of Gandhi’s private grief. On occasion, she adds, he has asked briefly about her health after a hospital stay. An observation that can be read in the context of US President Donald Trump’s use of personal insults and ridicule against opponents, she adds that similar things are happening elsewhere in the world. Saying that the suggestion it decided not to publish the book because of refused editorial changes “does not accurately reflect the circumstances”, penguin has disputed her account. In June, Penguin had also pulled out of plans to distribute graphic journalist Joe Sacco’s The Once and Future Riot, about the 2013 Muzaffarnagar communal violence.

The narrative revisits pivotal and often dark chapters in India’s history, notably the 1975 Emergency imposed by her mother-in-law, Indira Gandhi. This 21-month period resulted in the widespread suspension of civil liberties and the detention of political rivals. She also documents the profound personal trauma of witnessing the violent assassinations of both Indira Gandhi in 1984 and her own husband, Rajiv Gandhi, in 1991. Including Indira’s imposition of the Emergency in June 1975, a 21-month period during which civil liberties were suspended, political opponents were jailed and the press was gagged, which caused fear and dismay across the country, her book also revisits some of the darker episodes that have dogged the Gandhi family and the Congress party. She shares that, despite wielding authority, Indira could feel besieged and profoundly alone, and this was particularly acute, Gandhi writes, in the months leading up to the declaration of the Emergency by her mother-in-law, in her recollections of Indira.

A significant portion of the memoir addresses the shifting landscape of Indian politics, contrasting the current era of Hindu nationalism under Prime Minister Narendra Modi with the secular, Congress-dominated republic she first encountered. Gandhi notes a stark decline in the civility once shared between opposing political factions. She highlights a personal breakdown in communication with Modi, stating she has had “practically no real contact” with him during his 12-year tenure. She describes instances where they have occupied the same room, yet Modi “tends to look away, avoiding eye contact.” And appeared alongside US presidents at joint press encounters after bilateral meetings, where they took questions from the press, he has sat in on one press briefing at the conclusion of an election campaign. And his media interactions have largely been one-on-one interviews with sympathetic, pro-government news anchors or in one much publicised exchange with a Bollywood actor who asked him how he liked to eat mangoes, modi has consistently avoided facing journalists in an open forum. David Cameron’s 2019 memoir, For the Record, took aim at his former friend, Michael Gove, describing him as “mendacious” and a “foam-flecked Faragist”. According to in another instance, she does not name the political leader she describes as “thoroughly dishonest” and who she, She trusted in 1999, when Congress unsuccessfully attempted to form a coalition government. Art | Art Mumbai runs from 12-15 November at the Mahalaxmi Racecourse. Turning his evocative Urdu couplets into paintings, among the highlights of this year’s edition is artist Baaraan Ijlal’s collaboration with the celebrated lyricist Javed Akhtar.

This lack of interaction, she argues, marks a departure from earlier traditions where leaders “would treat one another with cordiality.” She contrasts this with the aftermath of the 2001 parliament terror attack, when she reached out to then-Prime Minister AB Vajpayee to ensure his safety, a gesture he acknowledged. Gandhi expresses concern over an increasingly authoritarian style of governance, where opponents are subject to efforts to “belittle and torment.” For years, Gandhi’s son, Rahul, has been the subject of BJP’s ridicule, which calls him Pappu, a derisive term intended to portray him as inexperienced and naive.

The memoir also explores the unique pressures faced by female leaders in India. Drawing on a 2012 conversation with Hillary Clinton, Gandhi reflects on the isolating nature of power in a male-dominated environment. She describes how, despite her authority, Indira Gandhi often felt profound loneliness. Sonia Gandhi similarly touches upon her own sense of isolation when she assumed the leadership of the Congress party, driven by a duty to sustain her family’s political heritage. It’s lonely at the top for India’s female politicians. Long before many other democracies, india has an illustrious history of women occupying top leadership positions.

Furthermore, Gandhi critiques the current administration’s relationship with the media, noting a significant erosion of democratic conventions regarding press access.

She contrasts the present environment—where the prime minister has not held a solo press conference during his 12 years in office—with a past where leaders were more directly accountable to journalists.

These concerns about free expression have shadowed the book’s publication; Penguin Random House India withdrew from the project in August, with Gandhi suggesting the publisher was “uneasy in general with the criticism of the government. And the extent to which apprehensions about repercussions may influence what can be said, written and published, the book’s publication has brought renewed attention to concerns about the space for free expression in contemporary India. The publisher cited an inaccurate map of India and unresolved citation issues.

The book is published in the US by Alfred A Knopf and in India by HarperCollins.

While the memoir provides a sharp political record, Gandhi remains restrained in her personal assessments, avoiding the inflammatory naming of adversaries often found in political autobiographies. She speaks warmly of her past closeness with the family of Amitabh Bachchan, yet remains pointed regarding those she perceives as dishonest. The work stands as a vivid, if sobering, account of six decades of transformation in the world’s most populous democracy. She’s had quiet fallouts with the ‘thoroughly dishonest’.