'He Looks Away!' Sonia Gandhi Speaks About Her Awkward Encounters With PM Modi In New Memoir

And the big story of the day, beginning here on Breaking Ground. Sonia Gandhi's memoir hits the shelves. Sonia Gandhi opens up about her equation with Prime Minister Narendra Modi in her memoir, Belonging. She says she has had practically no real contact with him, adding that their interactions are limited to semi-official gatherings where they exchange a formal namaste. She also points to their contrasting visions for India, emphasizing inclusiveness, secularism and social justice. Sonia Gandhi even recalls her decision to turn down the Prime Minister's post. She reveals that neither Rahul or Priyanka wanted her to become the Prime Minister. Torn between the personal choice and a sense of duty towards the party, she says she had to search within herself for an answer. Sonia also recounts the events surrounding the 1975 emergency. She reveals that she and Rajiv Gandhi had urged Indira Gandhi to resign after the Allahabad High Court verdict. She also writes that Indira followed Sanjay Gandhi's advice, which eventually led to the imposition of the emergency. Today, Sonia Gandhi ji's book is coming to the market. I would like to congratulate her. See, a memoir or self-story should be based on honesty, for which a lot of moral courage is needed. Is this political courage in Sonia Gandhi ji? This is a big question. She got married in 1968. She came to India in 1968. But in 1983, after 15 years, she became a citizen of India. She became a citizen of India in an official capacity only in 1983. But such information is available on the public domain that in 1980 she had cast a vote in India. How is this possible? I think this is a very important question. Its answer should be in this book. I wish Sonia Gandhi well because story is made by working, not by telling. You call it belonging. We ask, for whom is this belonging? In 1991, in 1984, in 2004, you made the country cry. And here, you call it belonging. Is this vote belonging? And the way in which you rejected the chair, and then you presented it like this. We would like to know the answers to many serious questions. As far as Ram Mandir is concerned, Article 370 is concerned, Hindutva is concerned, you do not come up with tears, you come up with action in the form of one eye. This is not just an ordinary book. It is about the life story of love, sacrifice, resilience. It is a window to the era of contemporary India. And as a woman, Thank you very much. the pain she has gone through, the endurance, the sacrifices, whether it is the This is the... loss of Indira ji, Rajiv ji and how she went through all that tragedies and then she went on to become the longest-serving Thank you very much. The Congress Party's president, Madam Sonia Gandhi herself has said with her life, she has seen a lot of tamashas and a lot of controversies. Let her have the right to say that. Now BJP for them, everything is an agenda. Everything they have narrated. All right, that's a big story developing here on NDTV, the new book by Sonia Gandhi, Belonging. And joining us to tell us more about the book and the controversy it has created are Vasudha Venugopal and Aishwarya Jain from NDTV. Vasudha, coming to you first. This book clearly has created a narrative of sorts because it goes back to about 40 to 45 years of some of the crucial historic events that have taken place, including Operation Blue Star and the days of the emergency. What are you picking up? BJP in some fierce reaction targeting Sonia Gandhi in the Congress. Absolutely. The BJP, like expected, has reacted very fiercely to this and that's part of politics. But if you look at this book, Aditya, a few days ago, Rahul Gandhi in an informal chat with reporters had said that, you know, this is a book that Arjuna would have written from the battlefield of Kurukshetra. This is in some ways a chronicle of our country as well and in some ways a chronicle of the Congress party. Now, if you look at this book, it seems like Sonia Gandhi is a very private person and she has put a great deal of emotions into writing this. Of course, there could be two narratives to this because this is her story. She also talks about Prime Minister Narendra Modi. She talks about a lot of Congress leaders. She talks about Pranab Mukherjee's short temper and says that he would turn purple at times. She talks about Arjun Singh as the wise counsellor who always came to her rescue. She talks about Madhavrao Scindia who would actually recognise when she would feel nervous and would help her out. So she's grateful to a lot of people. At the same time, she also talks about how the Prime Minister Narendra Modi and she have had very different ideological worldview. World view and She is trying to fight for the India that she knows and he is trying to fight for the India that he wants. She says her approach is inclusive and the Prime Minister's approach is based on sectarian divisions and it is hierarchical, it's based on hierarchy and it also looks at resting control. Now, there are some personal aspects to this book as well because she talks about how when she first announced her pregnancy to her mother-in-law, her mother-in-law said a big baby is going to have a small baby. So, you know, she talks about how she was very doubtful and apprehensive. She talks about what she meant and how her behavior was appropriate or not. She talks about how she was really warm towards her mother-in-law and how her mother-in-law ensured that, you know, she was really taken care of. How her life changed after Operation Blue Star because... The schools of her children had to be changed. There was an entirely new world that came into their lives and how she was reluctant to get into politics both for Rajiv Gandhi and for herself and even for Rahul Gandhi. She talks about how Rahul Gandhi had excruciating knee pain for several years before he started the Bharat Jodo Yatra and still he attempted and sort of finished it because he also believed in the kind of vision for the country that she had. She says in the last 80 years of being in India, she has learned new lessons. This is a personal memoir, but in some ways also talks about how the Congress party went through a lot of turbulence and she basically was central to that. And she also talks about certain mistakes that she made in 1998, for instance, 1999, when the BJP NDA lost the no confidence motion with Jayalalithaa moving out of the NDA. She said that, you know, she miscalculated the numbers that the opposition UPA had at that point because she was only intent on bringing down the RSS and the BJP and the NDA. And she did not really look at. Look at factions inside her own party, despite Arjun Singh, veteran Congress leader, advising her. So I think in some ways there's a lot of honesty in this book and it makes for a good reading. But yes, there's been a lot of fun. Interest from Congress sectors here, several Congress leaders, several Congress workers have also come by. But most importantly, have you come here to buy a book? You can ask in English, I have not come here with English. Okay, have you brought this book? Yes, I have brought the book. What is most interesting? We haven't read it because it's just launched. What made you buy this book? Because the life story of Sonia Gandhi is inspiring as a coroner's character for me. Because, you know, a person coming from all the way from Italy, adapting to the Indian situation, she's coming to politics. One time she used to say to her husband that, okay, don't go to politics. politics and the same woman has been leading this country so it's always inspiring for the young youth also and especially the women's I think the feminist side of her should be addressed in the new generation. Where are you from? I'm from Kerala and I'm a practicing lawyer in here. So a lot of people have come from different parts of the country and these are mostly Congress karikartas because this is for the first time a private person like Sonia Gandhi has written about herself. She's also talked about her surgery, her medical problems, her family relationships. She's talked about how she got by in India, you know, with the household that Indira Gandhi ran, had, you know, Indian meals in the morning and Western meals in the evening. How her brother-in-law, Sanjay Gandhi's favourite food was mutton. So lots of anecdotes and snippets here. And something clearly that probably will also add to the legacy of Sonia Gandhi. Well, absolutely it does. After years together, Sonia Gandhi has come up with this new memoir belonging. Gargi Rawat also joins us on this broadcast, who in fact secured one of the first books that we have here on NDTV written by Sonia Gandhi. Gargi, take us through some of the important aspects that have been mentioned in the book. Of course, Sonia Gandhi says that My India stands for secularism. It stands for social justice, something that the BJP has now targeted both Sonia Gandhi and Congress for. But there are those anecdotes also where she talks about family life, about the debate within the family and, of course, enjoying Kashmiri food. That's right, Aditya. And you know, a majority of this book, in fact, I'd say around, you know, 70% of it is her, you know, personal account. It says, as Vasudha was saying, a lot of her account of what was taking place at that time and her experiences in India, being a part of the Gandhi family, arriving in India as a young, you know, to be bride and how she stayed with the Bachans during that time. It's only in the last two chapters or so where she really, and in the last chapter where she talks about the BJP and Narendra Modi. Of course there's lots of references to the RSS throughout the book. In fact even there's one chapter where she talks about when Indira Gandhi called the emergency and how initially how Rajiv you know went to Indira Gandhi's study and she asked him what should I do, what should I do Raji v do you think I should resign and she writes that Rajiv answered yes maybe you should elections are just six month say that will clear the air so you know putting it out there that Rajiv Gandhi had advised Indira Gandhi at the time to resign rather than, you know, take take take the step that she finally did where she declared emergency. And then she goes on to talk about how Indira Gandhi was wary of the RSS and how she felt that JP had fallen prey to the designs of the RSS. We do know JP, the big, you know, social activist and somebody who so many of our politicians today, you know, learned from that he was the one who had challenged Indira Gandhi at the time. Sonia Gandhi writes about how it was the RSS's designs that Indira Gandhi felt that J.P. himself had fallen prey to. She also, interestingly, Aditya, since we've been talking about air pollution so much in the country, she talks about the first time that she arrived in India and how she got an asthma attack. So as far back as that, and this is something that we know has been an issue, a health problem for Sonia Gandhi in all her years in Delhi, where she has breathing issues and asthma attack as well. She talks about now, you know, I think that's been one of the most quoted already about how her interactions with the Prime Minister are very terse. She refers to how he did not, he doesn't, you know, meet her eyes but always inquires after her health and after she leaves the hospital as well. And there are some accounts, Aditya, you'll find interesting, all her observations when, you know, foreign dignitaries would come to the country from Bill Clinton to Barack Obama to French leaders, Russian leaders, Putin as well. personal observations and interactions with them, including with Hillary Clinton. So it's going to be, I still haven't read it. I have to admit the whole book. I've managed to skim through certain parts, but I'll get back to you on that, Aditya. Back to you. All right.