From Bachchans to Modi: What Sonia Gandhi says (and leaves out) in her book

Former Congress President Sonia Gandhi’s much-awaited memoirs, Belonging: A Journey of Love, hit the stands on Tuesday, instantly setting off political debates on social media and on television channels. However, contrary to the buzz, the book has few big revelations.

Most of it, in fact, is about her life before she became a politician. The period after 2004, the year she led the grand old party to victory in the Lok Sabha elections, is covered only in passing.

Political geeks will have to strain themselves to find passages that satiate their curiosity. But there is a lot in the memoirs for discerning readers willing to read between the lines. The omissions by the author speak volumes too.

For example, the name of actor Amitabh Bachchan, once a close friend of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, appears just three times in the book. His wife, Jaya Bachchan, is not mentioned at all. The Bachchans are said to have fallen out with the Gandhis after the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi.

The other Bachchans

Notably, though, Sonia Gandhi makes several references to Amitabh Bachchan’s parents, the Hindi poet Harivansh Rai Bachchan and Teji Bachchan, in whose home she stayed when she first came to India from Italy in 1968.

The couple were friends of her mother-in-law,...

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