Sonia Gandhi, Congress Parliamentary Party chairperson, has revealed the driving force behind writing her upcoming memoir, Belonging: A Journey of Love, emphasising that she wanted to offer an honest account of her family.
Even when grief drew her into politics, she tried to preserve her privacy and found the idea of openly sharing her life difficult. “This is not a political book. It is a personal one. Much has been written about my family, but rarely with real insight into who they were, their motivations, their struggles, their very human flaws. “I also hoped to share what I witnessed over more than five decades in India.
Writing in The Hindu ahead of the release of her book, Gandhi said that it is not a political book but a personal one. She said that she had largely kept her personal thoughts private throughout her life. “Only after stepping back from the daily churn of public life could I see my own story clearly,” Gandhi said. Looking back, she said love and the loyalty that comes from it had been the defining themes of her life. Gandhi said what remained to sustain her was her love for her husband and for India, the country where she felt she truly belonged. “It also came with a sense of duty strong enough to lead her into public life, against every instinct I had,” Gandhi said. I wanted to portray them honestly, as people I knew and loved,” the former Congress president said. I watched a country transform, at first from the margins and later from its very centre,” she said.
