A tale of 2 photos on Sonia Gandhi’s book – and a ‘what if’ note at end | Political Pulse News
The front cover photograph of Congress Parliamentary Party chairperson Sonia Gandhi’s memoir, Belonging: A Journey of Love, was taken in Italy’s Turin in 1966. She was 20 at the time. Rajiv Gandhi, her future husband and India’s future Prime Minister, took the photo. The back cover photo was taken in 2026 in Delhi by Gandhi’s grandson Raihan Vadra and his partner Aviva Baig. Between the pictures, separated by 60 years and 6,000 km, lies her story.
In the prologue, Gandhi writes that friends and family asked her to write about her experiences. “They pressed me, arguing that mine was an unusual story: of a girl from a small town in Italy transplanting herself to India, witnessing and later being part of landmark events and changes in the country.”
The memoir begins in Cambridge, where she met Rajiv, whom she would later marry and move to India. Gandhi writes how her father, despite his doubts and reservations, bought her a return ticket to India. “If I didn’t like the place, or if people weren’t kind to me, I shouldn’t hesitate to fly straight back home,” she writes. She would spend her life in India.
When she married Rajiv, however, the couple had no clue what twists and turns fate had in store.
Rajiv did not have plans to join politics and started working as a commercial pilot in 1968, the year they married. Rajiv’s younger brother, Sanjay, was seen as the political heir of their mother, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. But destiny had other plans. Sanjay’s untimely death in a plane crash and Indira Gandhi’s assassination in 1984 brought Rajiv into the world of politics. He would become Prime Minister.
Seven years later, Rajiv would be assassinated in a suicide blast plotted by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam in Tamil Nadu’s Sriperumbudur, in retaliation for his decision to send the Indian Peace Keeping Force to Sri Lanka amid the civil war. His death would push Gandhi onto the centre stage of Indian politics, a world alien to her, and she would go on to lead the Congress for two decades and the ruling United Progressive Alliance (UPA) through its 10-year rule from 2004 to 2014.
Gandhi’s memoir touches on key historical events, including the Emergency, Operation Blue Star, Indira Gandhi’s assassination, Rajiv Gandhi’s prime ministership, the Bofors scandal, Rajiv’s assassination, the demolition of Babri Masjid, the UPA’s years in power, the NDA’s comeback with Narendra Modi at its helm, and demonetisation, among others.
The BJP has criticised the memoir, saying the “underlying thinking throughout the book revolves around the Babri (Masjid) vote bank”. It has accused her of trying to “justify” the Emergency, being “silent” on the Bofors scam, and making “claims completely contrary to the actual facts” on the 1984 anti-Sikh riots. The ruling party has said the book seeks to “sugar-coat the historical wrongs perpetrated by the Nehru-Gandhi family”.
“Sonia Gandhi’s book has made it clear that the underlying thinking throughout the book revolves around the Babri vote bank. She has revealed that vote-bank politics associated with Babri is deeply rooted in her thinking,” said BJP national spokesperson Pradeep Bhandari.
Hitting back, Congress’s Rajya Sabha member Rajeev Shukla said the party was trying to give the book a “political spin”. “She is perhaps the first person in the family after (Jawaharlal) Nehru ji who has written an autobiography. She has penned down all her thoughts. So, I think people should respect her thoughts, respect the sentiments that she has expressed. This should not be turned into a controversy,” he said.
Sonia Gandhi describes this photo as “my most cherished picture” with Rajiv Gandhi. Photo is from the Priyanka Gandhi’s personal collection, from Sonia’s memoir published by HarperCollins India
A ‘what if…’ question
The book’s epilogue has a sombre note. “I sometimes think of how our lives might have turned out if fate had allowed Rajiv to remain in his profession as an airline pilot. In my dream we’d have grown old together in the house he’d built for his mother, enjoyed our grandchildren, travelled in India and abroad to places I longed to see, to gaze at the treasures nature and humankind have created.”
Gandhi adds, “But that was my own fantasy of personal happiness; his was a destiny of greater challenges, higher loyalties. He led the country. He was killed. I was propelled into a life I’d disliked and resisted. But I couldn’t back out of my commitment to Rajiv’s vision for India. And through trying to fulfil that pledge, I came to see for myself the truth of what he used to say to me – how deep a satisfaction lay in bringing about change and improvement in people’s lives.”
