Belonging

Belonging

A SURPRISING, RICHLY TOLD MEMOIR THAT TELLS A RIVETING STORY: OF LOVE, OF FAMILY, AND OF THE ENDLESSLY FASCINATING COUNTRY THAT IS INDIA

How did a girl from a small village in Italy rise as a politician in India and become known around the world?

Belonging begins in Cambridge, England, where in 1965 Sonia Maino, a nineteen-year-old student, falls in love at first sight with the handsome young man she’s destined to marry: Rajiv Gandhi, grandson of Jawaharlal Nehru, independent India’s first Prime Minister.

In this book, the once famously reticent Sonia Gandhi opens up with warmth and candour to narrate the story of her remarkable life, from her childhood in post-war Italy to the romance that brings her to India and the shattering losses that will reshape not only her own future but also that of her adopted home.

We witness Sonia’s introduction to her formidable mother-in-law, Nehru’s daughter, Indira Gandhi, India’s first female Prime Minister. We see Sonia gain confidence by Rajiv’s side as she adjusts to the sounds and sights of her new home — learning to speak Hindi, to wear saris, to relish spicy cuisine.

Rajiv Gandhi begins work as a commercial airline pilot, and they raise their two children in the Prime Minister’s house in New Delhi. But everything changes when Rajiv’s brother, Sanjay, also a pilot, is killed in a plane crash, and when, in 1984, Indira Gandhi is brutally assassinated by her security guards in the garden of her home. In the wake of his mother’s death, and despite Sonia’s fears, Rajiv steps into the role of Prime Minister. Then, through Sonia’s wrenching retelling, we feel the full force of the tragedy when seven years later Rajiv, too, is assassinated by a suicide bomber while on the campaign trail.

For several years Sonia resists the pressure to join politics, but ultimately accepts the challenge, becoming the longest-serving president of the Indian National Congress. We see how, though once regarded as a foreign-born outsider, she comes to earn the trust and affection of millions. Yet, when after a key election, the Congress Party selects her to become Prime Minister, she makes the surprising decision to decline the country’s highest office, and chooses instead to lead her party in an alliance that will govern India for a decade.

This dramatic account, epic and intimate, gives readers a unique lens on India — its tumultuous post-Independence history and its present political struggles — offering an insider’s keen perspective on the country’s enormous political, economic and social changes over sixty years. Most moving of all is the portrait of Sonia herself that emerges as she invites readers into her private joys and travails, and offers glimpses of the people and events that have shaped her. In a voice at once perceptive and modest, she shares her insights into identity, duty and the meaning of home. Belonging is at heart one courageous woman’s story of falling in love with a man and a country, and of finding the place where she belongs.