Sonia Gandhi Memoir To Chronicle Six Decades Of Love, Loss And Life In India

India-West News Desk

NEW YORK, NY – Sonia Gandhi, one of the most prominent figures in India’s Congress party, will revisit the personal tragedies, political upheavals and family ties that shaped her life in a memoir due out this fall, including her decades inside the Nehru-Gandhi political dynasty and her own reluctant path into public life.

Alfred A. Knopf announced August 18 that ‘Belonging: A Journey of Love’ will be published November 10. In the book, Gandhi reflects on how her marriage to Rajiv Gandhi brought her from a small town in Italy into one of India’s most powerful political families, and how the assassinations of her mother-in-law, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, and her husband transformed her life.

“Much has been written about my family,” Gandhi said in a statement released by Knopf, “but few narratives were able to reach into the truth of their motivations, their actions and even their very human failings.” She described the memoir as a tribute to the humanity of the family and said it offers her perspective on six decades of social and political change in India.

Gandhi was 19 and studying English in Cambridge, England, in 1965 when she met Rajiv Gandhi. He was the grandson of Jawaharlal Nehru, India’s first prime minister, and the son of Indira Gandhi, who would become the country’s first woman prime minister. Sonia Gandhi moved to India in 1968 after marrying Rajiv.

Knopf describes the memoir as an account of her adjustment to a new country and family, including learning Hindi, wearing saris and raising her two children with Rajiv in New Delhi. Rajiv was working as a commercial airline pilot when they married and initially had no plans to enter politics.

That changed after a series of family tragedies. Rajiv’s younger brother, Sanjay Gandhi, died in a plane crash in 1980. Four years later, Indira Gandhi was assassinated by two of her security guards. Rajiv succeeded his mother as prime minister despite Sonia Gandhi’s concerns about his entering politics.

Seven years later, Rajiv was assassinated by a suicide bomber while campaigning for a return to power. The loss ultimately contributed to Sonia Gandhi’s own entry into politics, although she initially resisted repeated calls for her to take on a public role.

“It was heartbreak and loss that threw me into the public world of politics,” she said. “Up till then I had guarded my privacy fiercely.”

Gandhi eventually became president of the Indian National Congress, holding the position longer than any other person. After the Congress-led coalition won the 2004 general election, she declined the party’s offer to become prime minister and instead led the Congress through the coalition government that remained in power for a decade.

Her party was defeated in the 2014 general election, when Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party came to power.

In the memoir, Gandhi also writes about the difficulty of revisiting a life she had largely kept private. She said that stepping back from politics allowed her to look at her experiences differently, with themes of “love and loyalty” emerging from her childhood in Italy through her years as Rajiv Gandhi’s wife and Indira Gandhi’s daughter-in-law.

The Nehru-Gandhi family remains active in Indian politics. Gandhi’s son, Rahul Gandhi, is the leader of the opposition in the Lok Sabha, while her daughter, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, is also a Congress member of the lower house. Sonia Gandhi is currently a member of the Rajya Sabha, Parliament’s upper house.

Knopf describes ‘Belonging’ as both a personal account and a perspective on India’s political and social transformation since independence, with Gandhi drawing on more than six decades of experiences in the country she ultimately came to call home.