Sonia Gandhi’s Memoir: The Personal Story Behind a Political Life

Belonging is released in India and abroad The memoir

What happened: Belonging: A Journey of Love went on sale on 10 November 2026. HarperCollins India publishes the Indian edition, Alfred A. Knopf the US edition and William Collins, a HarperCollins UK imprint, the UK edition. Knopf lists the US hardcover and ebook at 544 pages, a large-print edition on 24 November and an audiobook of almost 21 hours.

Why it matters: It is the first full first-person account of Sonia Gandhi’s life. Her earlier books, Rajiv and Rajiv’s World, were about her husband, and two volumes she edited collected letters between Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira Gandhi.

What release-day reports highlight: According to The Federal’s summary of the book, she writes that Rahul and Priyanka opposed her becoming prime minister in 2004, fearing for her safety, and that she told Rahul the morning after the result that she would stick to her decision; that tears rolled down Indira Gandhi’s face when she was shown photographs of the damage to the Golden Temple after Operation Blue Star; and that she has had “practically no real contact” with Narendra Modi beyond formal events. She also denies interfering in Manmohan Singh’s government, and recalls Pranab Mukherjee suggesting in 2010 that it was “perhaps time for a change at the top”.

Reaction: BJP leaders have criticised the book; spokesperson Pradeep Bhandari accused her of “justifying” the Emergency. Sharmistha Mukherjee defended her father’s ambition as earned on merit. Early opinion pieces split: ThePrint argued it matters for what she refuses rather than what it reveals, while The Pamphlet called it reputation management. Full-length reviews in major outlets had not yet appeared as of 11 November.

“This is not a political book. It is a personal one” The memoir

What she wrote: In an essay published in The Hindu the day before release, Sonia Gandhi said she wanted to show her family as she knew them, including their motivations, struggles and flaws. “Much has been written about my family, but rarely with real insight into who they were,” she wrote.

The thread of the book: She described love, and the loyalty it brought, as what connected the stages of her life: meeting Rajiv in England at 19, joining a new family, raising her children, and losing first her mother-in-law and then her husband to violence.

On privacy: “For most of my life, I kept my inner world to myself. Even after grief pulled me into politics, I held on to whatever privacy I could,” she wrote. She said she had watched India transform “at first from the margins and later from its very centre”.

First interview in a decade, with The Guardian The memoir

What she said: In her first interview in about ten years, given to The Guardian with her daughter Priyanka present, she described meeting Rajiv as “a coup de foudre”, recalled holding Indira Gandhi’s body on the drive to hospital in 1984, and said that after Indira’s death her constant thought was that Rajiv “will be killed next”.

On the Emergency: She said the family was split over the 1975 Emergency, with Rajiv opposed and Sanjay pushing for it, and that she believes Indira was “a democrat at heart” who came to feel uneasy about it. The book says that keeping Sanjay in check “could have prevented much of the damage that followed”.

On the publisher dispute: She told the paper Penguin Random House India had been “uneasy in general with the criticism of the government”. In the same report the publisher repeated that it had not decided against the book because she declined editorial changes.

HarperCollins shares early excerpts The memoir

What the excerpts show: Her first Indian dish was tandoori chicken, “bright red, slightly charred”, which “set her mouth on fire”. She gradually took to family thalis of rice, phulkas, vegetables, meat or fish and arhar dal.

The sari: She found the sari one of the most elegant garments in the world but hard to wear. For her engagement she chose a jade-green and pale-yellow sari held with several safety pins; for her wedding she wore a sari woven from yarn spun by Jawaharlal Nehru in prison.

The publisher’s line: “The unfamiliar becomes familiar. The familiar becomes loved. Love grows into responsibility. And that is belonging.”

Promotional videos: “bound to be some tamasha” The memoir

What she said: In short promotional videos she said there was “bound to be some tamasha” when the book came out, because others had spent decades telling her story and it was now her turn. Captions said she was “totally against” Rajiv becoming prime minister in 1984.

Why it matters: It set expectations that the book would contest “invented or exaggerated” accounts of her life, a reference reporters linked to earlier books about her, including Javier Moro’s novelised biography The Red Sari, which drew a Congress legal notice in 2010.

HarperCollins India confirms the Indian edition The memoir

What happened: HarperCollins India announced it would publish Belonging in India on 10 November 2026, calling it “one of the most anticipated political memoirs of our time”.

Background: The Indian Express reported that several Indian publishers had approached the author’s agent, David Godwin, but were told the deal had already been finalised with HarperCollins. The Indian release date matches the US one.

The Penguin Random House India dispute The memoir

The report: The Indian Express reported that Penguin Random House India (PRHI) would not publish the memoir after Sonia Gandhi declined some suggested “editorial changes and deletions”. Its sources said passages questioned included references to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the RSS, communal riots, the position of minorities and the Galwan stand-off with China, and that the author’s side did not want an Indian edition that differed from the global one.

The publisher’s response: On Friday 28 August PRHI said it was “not the publisher of Belonging in India” and that any suggestion it decided not to publish because the author declined editorial changes “does not accurately reflect the circumstances”. It said it had remained “willing and keen” to publish, that fact-checking and editorial suggestions are normal, and that it would not discuss confidential talks. On 31 August it said there had been “no external pressure whatsoever” and that the talks reached an impasse over “a particular issue”.

Reaction: Congress leaders called the episode an attack on free expression; Gaurav Gogoi called the publisher’s statement “weak”.

Knopf announces the memoir The memoir

What was announced: Knopf announced Belonging: A Journey of Love for 10 November 2026, in hardcover and ebook, with an audio edition from Penguin Random House and a first printing of 100,000 copies. It said the book begins in Cambridge in 1965, when 19-year-old Sonia Maino falls in love with Rajiv Gandhi.

In her words: “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. “Writing about my life did not come easily to me.”

Moves to the Rajya Sabha from Rajasthan Politics

What happened: Sonia Gandhi was elected unopposed to the Rajya Sabha from Rajasthan in February 2024 and did not contest Rae Bareli in the 2024 general election. The seat stayed with the family: Rahul Gandhi won Rae Bareli in 2024.

Her role now: She chairs the Congress Parliamentary Party and, by her own account, has stepped back from the party’s day-to-day running.

Mallikarjun Kharge succeeds her as Congress president Politics

What happened: Mallikarjun Kharge won the Congress presidential election in October 2022, ending Sonia Gandhi’s second spell, as interim president, which began in August 2019.

Why it matters: It made Kharge the first non-Gandhi party president since Sitaram Kesri, whom she replaced in 1998.

Returns as interim Congress president Politics

What happened: After Rahul Gandhi resigned following the 2019 Lok Sabha defeat, the Congress Working Committee asked Sonia Gandhi to return as interim president in August 2019.

Why it matters: She steered the party through a period of electoral losses and internal dissent until the 2022 election.

Steps down; Rahul Gandhi becomes president Politics

What happened: Rahul Gandhi took over as Congress president in December 2017, ending her first, nearly two-decade term.

Context: The party had lost power at the Centre in 2014, when the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance won a majority.

Office-of-profit row: resigns, then wins back Rae Bareli Politics

What happened: Amid a controversy over whether chairing the National Advisory Council (NAC) was an “office of profit” incompatible with being an MP, she resigned her Lok Sabha seat in March 2006 and gave up the NAC chair, then won the Rae Bareli by-election with a larger margin.

The NAC: The NAC made recommendations that fed into the rural jobs guarantee (MGNREGA), the Right to Information Act and other programmes. It was reconstituted under her chairmanship on 29 May 2010.

Declines the prime minister’s post Politics

What happened: The Congress emerged as the largest party in the 2004 Lok Sabha election and formed the United Progressive Alliance government. Its MPs elected Sonia Gandhi as their leader, but she declined to become prime minister and backed Manmohan Singh, who led the government for ten years.

In her words: “It was clear in my mind I would never do it,” she told The Guardian in 2026. “It was just not me.”

Why it matters: It is one of the most debated decisions in modern Indian politics. In the memoir, per release-day reports, she says Rahul and Priyanka opposed her taking the post out of fear for her safety, and that she told Rahul the next morning she would not change her mind despite pressure from party leaders.

Enters Parliament amid a row over her foreign origin Politics

The split: In May 1999 Sharad Pawar, P.A. Sangma and Tariq Anwar challenged her leadership on the ground of her foreign birth. They were expelled and formed the Nationalist Congress Party. She offered to resign as party president and withdrew after the party rallied behind her.

The election: In the 1999 Lok Sabha election she won both Amethi in Uttar Pradesh and Bellary in Karnataka, kept Amethi, and became Leader of the Opposition.

Joins the Congress, then leads it Politics

What happened: She took primary membership of the Congress in 1997, campaigned for the party before the 1998 general election and became its president in 1998, replacing Sitaram Kesri. The party biography dates her presidency to April 1998.

In her words: She told The Guardian she took the post out of a sense of duty to her husband, campaigning in Hindi, her third language, and describes politics in the memoir as driven by “ambition, greed and hypocrisy”.

Rajiv Gandhi is assassinated at Sriperumbudur Loss

What happened: Rajiv Gandhi was killed by an LTTE suicide bomber at an election rally in Sriperumbudur, Tamil Nadu. Sonia Gandhi heard the news at the Delhi bungalow where she still lives.

Her response: She declined the Congress presidency offered to her after his death, set up the Rajiv Gandhi Foundation and stayed out of party politics for six years. Her sister urged her to return to Italy; “India was my home, my children’s home,” she said in 2026.

Still unresolved, in her view: She told The Guardian she believes the full truth of a wider conspiracy has not come out. That is her view; the courts convicted LTTE members and associates in the assassination case.

Indira Gandhi is assassinated Loss

What happened: Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was shot by two of her bodyguards months after Operation Blue Star at the Golden Temple. Sonia Gandhi, hearing what sounded like fireworks, ran to the spot and held her mother-in-law in the car to the hospital.

What followed: Rajiv Gandhi was sworn in as prime minister the same day. Sonia had begged him to stay out of politics and described the moment as a “knife going into my heart”. Anti-Sikh violence followed in Delhi and elsewhere.

Her account: She told The Guardian that Indira had prepared the family for her death and told Rahul to be brave.

Sanjay Gandhi dies in a plane crash Loss

What happened: Rajiv’s younger brother Sanjay Gandhi died when the aircraft he was flying crashed in Delhi.

What followed: Rajiv, then an Indian Airlines pilot, was persuaded to enter politics and won Sanjay’s Amethi seat in 1981, against Sonia’s wishes.

Becomes an Indian citizen Private life

What happened: Sonia Gandhi took Indian citizenship in 1983, fifteen years after moving to India.

Why it matters: The timing was later used by opponents, including the 1999 rebels, to question her eligibility to lead, a theme the memoir’s title, Belonging, addresses directly.

The Emergency splits the family Private life

Her account: Sonia Gandhi says Rajiv urged his mother to wait for the next election, while Sanjay pushed for the Emergency, telling her at a family dinner that the opposition “must be stopped”. She calls the Emergency a mistake.

Why it matters: It is one of the few places where the memoir is known to criticise a family decision, and it gives a private view of the period behind the Shah Commission findings.

Rahul and Priyanka are born Private life

What happened: Rahul was born in 1970 and Priyanka in 1972, after what she has described as a traumatic miscarriage. The family lived with Indira Gandhi, then prime minister.

Her life then: She redecorated the austere bungalow, learned Kashmiri cooking and, by her account, lived a “carefree” private life. She later took a diploma in conservation of oil paintings from the National Museum in New Delhi.

Marries Rajiv Gandhi and moves to India Private life

What happened: Sonia Maino moved to India and married Rajiv Gandhi in New Delhi in 1968. She lived with him in the home of his mother, Indira Gandhi, then two years into her first term as prime minister.

Her account: She was intimidated at first by Indira’s public image but found her “just like any other mother” at home. “For this man, I was ready to do everything, to lose even my Italian identity,” she said.

Meets Rajiv Gandhi in Cambridge Private life

What happened: While studying English at a language school in Cambridge, Sonia Maino met Rajiv Gandhi, then a student in England, at a Greek restaurant. Knopf dates the meeting to 1965.

In her words: “It was a coup de foudre,” she said. She did not know at first that he was Nehru’s grandson and Indira Gandhi’s son.

Born in post-war Italy Private life

Early life: Sonia Maino was born on 9 December 1946 into a working-class family. Her publisher’s author note says she grew up in the Piedmontese village of Sangano and the town of Orbassano near Turin and studied foreign languages in Turin before going to Cambridge.

Why it matters: The memoir starts from that “small-town Italy” and asks how a place far away became home.