Sonia Gandhi details personal losses and political entry in new memoir
The Congress leader describes the assassinations of Indira and Rajiv Gandhi in her book Belonging: A Journey of Love.
Sonia Gandhi has released a new memoir, Belonging: A Journey of Love, which details her personal experiences with loss and her eventual entry into Indian politics, according to BBC News.
The book recounts the morning of 31 October 1984, when the Prime Minister of India, Indira Gandhi, was assassinated by two of her Sikh bodyguards in the garden of the Prime Minister's residence in Delhi.
Gandhi describes the immediate aftermath, noting that her husband, Rajiv Gandhi, was summoned from a rally in West Bengal and sworn in as Prime Minister that same evening.
The memoir also addresses the 1991 assassination of Rajiv Gandhi and the personal grief that followed, including the difficulty of making public appearances.
Gandhi writes that she initially disliked politics, having seen its ambition and hypocrisy through her husband, but eventually felt a duty to lead the Congress party as it lost electoral ground.
She explains that her decision to step into politics was influenced by the Bhagavad Gita, which taught her to perform her dharma, or duty, without attachment to the results.