Sonia Gandhi has said that the last twelve years of Bharatiya Janata Party rule have done great damage to the fabric of India, its democracy and its institutions, in a wide-ranging interview published ahead of the launch of her memoir, Belonging: A Journey of Love.
The former Congress president spoke in writing to N. Ram of The Hindu, answering a series of questions, personal, historical and political, about the book and about her life in Indian public life.
The interview, published on Saturday, covers her decision to write the story of her belonging, the values she grew up with and came to cherish in India, what she learnt from Rajiv Gandhi and Indira Gandhi, her view of the Emergency of 1975 to 1977, and the major political decisions of her career, including accepting the office of Congress president in 1998 and declining the offer to become Prime Minister in 2004.
Asked about the current political situation, Gandhi was direct. She said that over the last twelve years great damage had been done to the fabric of the country, its democracy and its institutions by the BJP-RSS dispensation, and she warned that even after the government goes, it will take time to restore the country's systems to health, and great effort from political parties.
She added, however, that people were now beginning to be restless and to recognise the damage, and she expressed optimism that the people of India would welcome a return to proper governance.
The remark sets the tone for the political passages of a book that is, by the author's own description, a personal memoir, with politics providing the background, or a kind of framework. Belonging: A Journey of Love, published by HarperCollins India, is scheduled for release on November 10, and it traces a journey that began far from India, in Italy, and led, through her marriage to Rajiv Gandhi, to a life at the centre of Indian politics.
In the interview, Gandhi spoke about how a love story grew into a deep belonging to India, describing the values she grew up with and those she came to learn and cherish after making India her home. She reflected on what she learnt from Rajiv Gandhi and from Indira Gandhi, and on how the two of them shaped her life and her outlook.
She also looked back on the Emergency, the 21-month period between 1975 and 1977 when civil liberties were suspended, a subject on which she has rarely spoken at length in public.
The interview also revisits the decisions that defined her political career. She spoke about accepting the Congress presidency in 1998, when the party was in difficulty, and about continuing in the office after a challenge by some colleagues in 1999.
She recalled the general election of 2004, when the Congress-led coalition won and she was widely expected to become Prime Minister, and her decision to decline the office, a decision that surprised the country and that has remained one of the most discussed moments of her career.
Gandhi also addressed the condition of the Congress and its prospects, and the question of whether the party, which dominated Indian politics for decades after Independence, can reverse its decline and return to power.
The interview comes at a time when the Congress and its coalition partners are seeking to rebuild after a series of electoral setbacks, and her assessment of the political situation, and of the damage she believes has been done to institutions, is likely to be quoted extensively in the coming days.
The book itself has already attracted attention for reasons beyond its contents. It is unusual for a book of such personal and political significance, certain to attract a wide readership in India and abroad, to change publishers just months before its launch. In late August 2026, it emerged that Penguin Random House India would no longer publish Belonging: A Journey of Love.
In early September, HarperCollins India announced that it would publish the book, with a publication date of November 10.
In the interview, Gandhi was asked about the change of publisher, and the circumstances of the change are likely to be one of the most closely read passages of the conversation. The shift from one major publisher to another, so close to publication, is rare for a book of this profile, and it has been the subject of considerable speculation in literary and political circles since it first became public.
The interview also touched on the question of what happens next in Indian politics. Asked about the possibility of the BJP being voted out of power in the 2029 Lok Sabha election, Gandhi returned to her central argument: that the damage done over twelve years would not be undone quickly, and that restoring the country's systems to health would require time and great effort from political parties.
It was a sober assessment, but she paired it with optimism, saying that people were beginning to recognise the damage and that she believed the people of India would welcome a return to proper governance.
The publication of the memoir comes at a moment when the Congress is engaged in a wider argument about the state of Indian democracy, an argument that has been a central theme of the opposition's politics in recent years.
Gandhi's words, delivered in writing and in the measured language of a memoir rather than the heat of a campaign speech, carry a different weight from the daily exchanges of political debate, and they are likely to be read as a considered statement from a figure who has spent more than a quarter of a century at the head of the country's oldest political party.
Whether the book will add new detail to the public understanding of the events it covers remains to be seen. Memoirs by senior political figures are read as much for what they reveal about the author's judgements as for the facts they contain, and Gandhi's reflections on the Emergency, on the decisions of 1998 and 2004, and on the politics of the last twelve years will be examined closely by historians, journalists and political opponents alike.
For the moment, the interview serves as the first substantial public statement from Gandhi about a book she has been writing for years, and about a life that has taken her from a small town in Italy to the centre of Indian politics. Its central claim, that the country's democratic fabric has been damaged and will take time and effort to repair, is a message that she has expressed before in other forms, but never in the context of a personal memoir.
The book's release on November 10 will show whether the memoir itself carries that argument further, and what else Gandhi has chosen, after so many years in public life, to say about the journey that brought her to India and kept her there.
(Reporting based on The Hindu.)