The book by the Italian-born veteran of India\u2019s opposition Congress Party offers new details on the country\u2019s ties with Russia<\/p>\n
The memoir of Sonia Gandhi, one of modern India\u2019s top political figures and long-time president of the opposition Congress Party, has hit the bookshops this week after months of anticipation and a major controversy.
\nPenguin Random House India withdrew from publishing the Indian edition of \u2018Belonging: A Journey of Love\u2019 following reported differences in editorial takes on Prime Minister Narendra Modi and other domestic issues. The memoir was eventually published by HarperCollins in India and Penguin Random House globally.
\nThe 544-page book offers an unique account of Indian politics, which for decades was spearheaded by the Gandhi family, which the now 79-year-old Italian-born Sonia married into back in 1968. The book takes us through Sonia\u2019s most difficult moments, including the assassinations of her mother-in-law Indira Gandhi and then her husband Rajiv Gandhi, some of which were never revealed before.
\nThis includes a hitherto uncelebrated peek into her Soviet and Russian connection, from her own name to her travels to Russia as the wife of Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and later as a political leader.
\nFormative influences
\nThe seeds of Sonia\u2019s Russian connection were sown by her father Stefano Maino\u2019s World War II stint in the USSR, as a member of Benito Mussolini\u2019s Italian forces fighting alongside Hitler\u2019s army. Maino was a sergeant major when he was deployed to Russia. \u201cHe was twenty-six years old at the end of 1943 when the Italian army was defeated and the troops began the… retreat. As has happened many times in history, the Russian cold, \u2018General Winter\u2019 as it\u2019s known, took its toll on the retreating soldiers,\u201d Sonia writes.<\/p>\n
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She recalls stories about those tragic days by her father and his comrades. In one, he offered his \u201cragged blanket\u201d and his \u201clast morsel of bread\u201d to an emaciated Russian child. It was on the front line that he learned the names of two little girls who were among the civilian families that would come and stand by the soldier\u2019s camps to get food. These were Anouchka and Sonia. Stefano later picked the names for his first two daughters, and the third was named Nadia, which was suggested by a nurse.
\nRussian was one of three foreign languages Sonia learned, along with French and English. \u201cIt had fascinated me as a language studied by very few, but more possibly as inspired by my father\u2019s stories.\u201d
\nStefano even moved to place Sonia in an institute in Leningrad where foreign students studied Russian, through her Ukrainian-born Russian language teacher Ludmila. This did not work out due to technicalities \u2013 the Leningrad institute was only meant for students from developing countries. Sonia ended up in Cambridge, where she later met her future husband \u2013 Rajiv Gandhi, the son of then-Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi.
\nThe Kremlin and the Gorbachevs
\nIn 1985, a year after Rajiv became prime minister, the couple was in the Kremlin as guests of Mikhail Gorbachev. The last Soviet leader, known as the architect of Perestroika and Glasnost, is described in the book as an \u201cinformal and jovial personality\u201d who welcomed Rajiv with \u201ca large bouquet of sweet-scented lilac, a warm bear hug, and a long handshake.\u201d<\/p>\n
This is not a political book, it\u2019s a personal one. <\/p>\n
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 wanted to portray them honestly, as people I knew and loved.<\/p>\n
I write in the Hindu about how Belonging came to be.\u2014 Sonia Gandhi (@SoniaGandhi) November 8, 2026<\/p>\n
Since few countries had ties with the USSR as close as India, Sonia notes that Indian leaders and diplomats would often be flooded with queries about the Gorbachevs.
\nGandhi also recalls her interactions with Raisa Gorbacheva, whose \u201ccharm\u201d and \u201cinformal demeanour\u201d helped her overcome her nervousness (this was Rajiv\u2019s first prime ministerial visit abroad).
\nMikhail Gorbachev even offered to host\u00a0the couple\u2019s children,\u00a0Rahul and Priyanka \u2013 now the faces of the Indian opposition \u2013 in Russia for their schooling. This did not work out, but Rahul and Priyanka did go on a month\u2019s holiday at a youth camp in Yalta, Crimea.
\nGandhi describes the atmosphere of lunches and dinners and receptions at the Kremlin, visits to museums, churches, and the Bolshoi Theater, pointing to her interest in the arts as well as a fascination with Russia\u2019s cultural richness.
\n\u201cThe state banquet was held in the Palace of Facets that had been completed in 1492 by two Italian architects \u2013 a plain building but with its inner walls and ceilings covered in beautiful frescoes representing religious themes. It pleased me that the Russian government valued its heritage, although religiosity was then still anathema.\u201d\u00a0
\nBoat ride with Putin
\nSonia also met President Vladimir Putin in 2005 after she became Congress Party president and chairperson of the United Progressive Alliance, which was led by the Congress Party. The meeting took place in St. Petersburg\u2019s 18th century Constantine Palace, a former summer residence of the tsars, which is now the president\u2019s official residence.
\n\u201cI found President Putin an engaging personality: He conversed with our foreign minister and me on many subjects relating to India and Russia,\u201d she said.\u00a0
\nSonia said she was impressed by Putin\u2019s \u201cprofound understanding of geopolitical issues, and his determination to restore Russia to its former powerful status.\u201d Putin, she remembers, took them on a boat ride to the Gulf of Finland as far as the Peterhof Pier, pointing out famous monuments and basilicas on its banks.
\nIndira, Sanjay, and Rajiv
\nSonia\u2019s relationship with Rajiv and the Gandhi family takes center stage in the book. Sonia opens up on her courtship with Rajiv at Cambridge, her life in the prime minister\u2019s residence during Indira Gandhi\u2019s rule, and the two assassinations that shook the country \u2013 that of Indira and Rajiv.<\/p>\n
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In an interview with The Guardian earlier this week, Sonia also mentioned how Rajiv and his younger brother Sanjay were at odds on the issue of imposing the Emergency in 1975, with Sanjay unequivocally supporting it. Though Indira made the decision to impose the law which suspended the constitution, she was never \u201ccomfortable with it,\u201d she said. She also offers her own take on the Emergency, describing it as a mistake.
\nThe book reveals Sonia\u2019s opposition to Rajiv becoming prime minister and how she foresaw tragedy stalking his political career.
\n\u201cHis mother lay there, her body pierced with more than 30 bullet holes. I knew, I knew it then in my heart: Rajiv\u2019s path would lead to the same end,\u201d Sonia said, reminiscing about the day of Indira\u2019s assassination and Rajiv\u2019s swearing-in as prime minister: October 31, 1984.
\nSonia describes her fury when Rajiv was thrust into the top post in the county. \u201cYou can\u2019t do this to us. They will kill you; they will kill you, too!\u201d she said.\u00a0\u201cThey will kill me anyway,\u201d the man who would soon be prime minister replied. Rajiv was assassinated in 1991 during an election campaign rally by a suicide bomber, a member of Sri Lanka\u2019s Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam.
\nDeclining overtures
\nSonia also reveals her sister\u2019s plea to return to Italy after Indira\u2019s assassination. But the thought of leaving India \u201cwas unfathomable.\u201d
\n\u201cIndia was my home, my children\u2019s home,\u201d she says.
\nThe Congress Party leader also recalls her decision not to oblige the party and decline the prime minister\u2019s post in 2004, despite steering it to power in the elections, beating massive odds. \u201cIt was clear in my mind I would never do it,\u201d she says. \u201cIt was just not me.\u201d<\/p>\n
READ MORE: The forgotten hero: How Russia helped launch the decolonial movement in the heart of the British Empire<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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