Sonia Gandhi to tell all in memoir of her personal, political life

New Delhi: Congress leader Sonia Gandhi will come out with her memoir this November in which she will be sharing her intimate story of marrying into one of India's most powerful political families, the tragedy of losing Rajiv Gandhi that threw her into the "public world of politics" and turning down prime ministership in 2004 among other things.

"Belonging: A Journey of Love" will hit stands on November 10, publisher Alfred A Knopf, an American imprint of Penguin Random House, announced on Tuesday.

Penguin Random House India, however, has not confirmed the date of release of the book in India.


According to the Knopf website, the memoir begins in Cambridge, England, where in 1965, 19-year-old student Sonia Maino "falls in love at first sight with the handsome young man she's destined to marry: Rajiv Gandhi".

Sonia Gandhi, 79, who has rarely shared her private life in public forums, narrates her life, "from her childhood in post-war Italy, to the romance that brings her to India, to the shattering losses that will reshape not only her own future but also that of her adopted home".

The book also mentions how Sonia Gandhi declined to become prime minister after the Congress-led alliance won 2004 elections and instead chose Manmohan Singh to lead the government.

Among other things, she writes about her introduction to her "formidable mother-in-law" and India's first female prime minister, Indira Gandhi.

She recalls learning to speak Hindi, wearing saris and relishing Indian cuisine. In her early years as the wife of Rajiv Gandhi, then a commercial airline pilot, and the mother of two young children, Sonia Gandhi witnessed the death of brother-in-law Sanjay Gandhi in a plane crash, followed by the assassination of Indira Gandhi.

"In the wake of his mother's death, despite Sonia's fears, Rajiv steps into the role of prime minister. In Sonia's vivid, wrenching retelling, we feel the full force of the tragedy when seven years later Rajiv, too, while on his campaign trail, is assassinated, by a suicide bomber," the publisher's note about the book says.

According to a statement by Knopf quoted by the Associated Press, Sonia Gandhi noted that even though much has been written about her family, "few narratives were able to reach into the truth of their motivations, their actions and even their very human failings".

"In many ways, this book is a homage to their humanness. My story also offers readers a unique perspective of the social and political changes I have witnessed for six decades in the beautiful country of my belonging," she said.

After Rajiv Gandhi's assassination, she resisted the pressure to join politics for many years. Eventually, Sonia Gandhi became the longest-serving president of the Congress from 1998-2022.

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

"Writing about my life did not come easily to me. It meant opening myself up, sharing moments and experiences I had always held deep inside," she said.

The book aims to offer an insider's perspective on the country's economic and social changes over 60 years.

"Yet as I gradually removed myself from the political sphere and looked back at all I had seen, the thread of love and loyalty that wove through my story began to define itself, from the simplicity of my childhood in small-town Italy, to the complexity of my years in India as the wife of Rajiv Gandhi and the daughter-in-law of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi," AP quoted her as saying.