New Delhi: Congress Parliamentary Party (CPP) Chairperson Sonia Gandhi on Tuesday spoke about her upcoming biography, ‘Belonging: A Journey of Love’, saying she decided to write her story to correct inaccuracies and exaggerations about her life and that the book could lead to a change in how people perceive her.
In a post on X, the CPP Chairperson shared a video in which she spoke about her decision to write the memoir. The post was captioned, “There’s bound to be some tamasha when this book comes out. After all, others have spent decades telling my “story”, now it’s my turn.”
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In the video, Gandhi recalled that she had been against her husband, former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, becoming Prime Minister.
She said that a lot had been written about her over the years, but much of it was either incorrect, invented or exaggerated.
“When... when then my husband was asked to become Prime Minister, which I was totally against. Well, I felt that since a lot had been written about me, and a lot of it was not quite correct, or you know, it was either invented or exaggerated. So, it gave me a feel of being able to now put down my story and describe facts and things as they were—as they really were. Or let us say my, not version, I wouldn't say version, but my story,” she said.
She also acknowledged that the memoir could lead readers to reassess their opinions of her, saying that reactions were part of writing a book or being in public life.
“People have different views. Some people may change their view about me, some people's view may become worse. But that's, uh, what it is. That's what happens when you write a book, or when you are in public life. There's bound to be a tamasha,” she further said.
The memoir, titled Belonging: A Journey of Love, chronicles Sonia Gandhi's journey, from her childhood in post-war Italy and her romance that brought her to India to the personal losses that profoundly shaped her life and her relationship with her adopted country.
In the book, the 79-year-old Congress veteran, who holds the distinction of being the party's longest-serving president, revisits her childhood in Italy, her relationship with Rajiv Gandhi during their time at Cambridge, and the assassinations of her mother-in-law, former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, and her husband, Rajiv Gandhi.
Publisher Alfred A Knopf announced on August 18 that Belonging: A Journey of Love would be published on November 10. Alfred A Knopf is an imprint of the Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House, LLC, whose parent company is Bertelsmann AG, an international media company.
Born in Italy, Sonia Gandhi was a 19-year-old student in Cambridge, England, when she met Rajiv Gandhi in 1965. The couple exchanged vows on February 25, 1968.
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