‘Heartbreak and loss threw me into the world of politics’: Sonia Gandhi on her book, ‘Belonging’

Much has been written about her and the Gandhi family, but few have been able to reach the truth, said Sonia Gandhi, whose memoir ‘Belonging: A Journey of Love’ will come out this fall. Alfred A Knopf announced that the book will be published on November 10.

“Much has been written about my family, but few narratives were able to reach into the truth of their motivations, their actions and even their very human failings,” Sonia Gandhi said in a statement through Knopf. “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.”

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

MUST READ | ‘Bogus crusade has come to an end’: Sonia Gandhi calls out witch hunt against Dr Manmohan Singh after CBI clean chit

Gandhi, 79, said her story included 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.”

SONIA GANDHI’S ‘BELONGING’

As per Penguin Random House, the memoir begins in Cambridge, England in 1965, when 19-year old student Sonia Maino falls in love with the grandson of India’s first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru, Rajiv Gandhi.

The reticent Sonia Gandhi speaks about her life from her childhood in post-war Italy to the romance that brought her to India, and the subsequent losses – assassination of her mother-in-law, India first female prime minister, Indira Gandhi, and seven years later the assassination of her husband, Rajiv Gandhi – that would go on to reshape her life.

The description says Gandhi resisted the pressure to join politics before accepting the challenge to become the longest-serving president of the Indian National Congress.