Congress Parliamentary Party chairperson Sonia Gandhi’s recently published memoir, Belonging: A Journey of Love, offers a deeply personal account of her long association with Kashmir, weaving together memories of family, politics, security concerns, tragedy and nostalgia. Through a series of recollections spanning several decades, she reflects on the Valley’s transformation from a place of extraordinary beauty and personal happiness into a region scarred by conflict, violence and political uncertainty.
One of the most striking revelations in the memoir concerns the final leg of Rahul Gandhi’s ‘Bharat Jodo Yatra’ in Kashmir in January 2023. Sonia Gandhi recounts how her concern for her son’s safety escalated into panic when she noticed an apparent absence of security personnel around him amid massive crowds during the yatra’s culmination in the Valley.
“My nagging worry turned into panic, seeing that in the massive crowd closing in around Rahul there was no sign of his security. For reasons best known to themselves, they had just disappeared,” she writes. Alarmed by the situation, she says she immediately contacted everyone she could reach. “Frantic, I rang up everyone I could. The Kashmir Yatra was held up for a day till security arrangements were restored.” The march resumed only after security measures were reinstated. Recalling the conclusion of the yatra, she writes: “Rahul, along with the Kashmiri leaders Omar Abdullah and Mehbooba Mufti, and Priyanka by his side, walked into Srinagar in the middle of a swirling snowfall for the finale of the Bharat Jodo Yatra. I find it difficult to express what I felt when he finally came back home; relief at having him return safely, amazement at the way he had held on to his resolve. I was proud of him.”
The memoir also revisits an earlier episode involving her late husband, former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, when he was still a commercial pilot with Indian Airlines. Sonia Gandhi recalls that after the 1971 hijacking of an Indian Airlines Fokker Friendship aircraft by two Kashmiri youths Hashim Qureshi and Ashraf Qureshi, Indian security agencies feared a similar attempt could be made on a flight piloted by Rajiv Gandhi. According to her account, these concerns were communicated to Prime Minister Indira Gandhi.
“They internal security forces had warned my mother-in-law that his plane could be hijacked and he could be taken hostage with outrageous demands made in exchange for his safe return, escalating an already tense and dangerous situation,” she writes. Recounting her reaction, she adds: “As she explained to us what she’d been told, and what the consequences could be, I felt sick to my stomach. Rajiv brushed aside my anxieties, but I was relieved when he was removed temporarily from the flight roster.”
Kashmir occupies a special place in Sonia Gandhi’s personal memories, particularly because it was closely associated with her early years of marriage. Recalling a visit to Srinagar in the summer of 2003, she describes the profound sense of loss she felt upon witnessing the Valley under the shadow of militancy and heavy security deployment.
“Memories came rushing back of my first visit to Kashmir with Rajiv on our honeymoon, when I’d fallen in love with its serene beauty and its people. I had gone on later trips to Gulmarg, Dachigam, Pahalgam with my mother-in-law, with my parents, Rajiv and the children, but this time it was to such a different place.”
She vividly contrasts her cherished memories of Kashmir with the reality she encountered in 2003. “Now security forces were everywhere in large number in Srinagar. I stepped out one evening for a brief visit to one of the Mughal gardens and for a quiet walk on the road leading to the old Takht-e-Suleiman above Dal Lake. The air was filled with the chirping of birds preparing to roost for the night in the tall pine trees flanking the road. But I was surrounded by a large police posse, and security pickets dotted the area.”
The sight left her deeply saddened. “I was filled with sorrow at what had become of the beautiful valley I used to know, all the violence and pain that had afflicted Kashmir. How many mistakes, some of them in good faith, had been made for this beloved state to come to this pass? And I wondered if it would ever return to what it had been… not foreseeing that worse was to come in the decades to follow, culminating in Kashmir losing its statehood in 2019.”
The memoir also recounts her visit to Nadimarg in Pulwama district following the massacre of twenty-four Kashmiri Pandits by militants in March 2003. Describing the grief she witnessed among survivors and bereaved families, Sonia Gandhi writes: “Only a few months earlier I had visited Nadimarg, in Pulwama district, where twenty-four members of the Kashmiri Pandit community had been gunned down by terrorists.”
She recalls encountering anger and anguish among local residents. “Angry slogans against the BJP government assailed us as we walked along the narrow path to the homes of the bereaved families. Some women beckoned me to their homes where, beating their chests and weeping aloud, they narrated the trauma they had undergone. They must have somehow known I’d understand their feelings.”
Notably, the Nadimarg massacre took place in March 2003 when the Bharatiya Janata Party-led NDA was in power at the Centre while the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir was being governed by a coalition of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the Congress under Chief Minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed.
Sonia Gandhi also addresses the February 14, 2019 Pulwama terror attack, in which 40 CRPF personnel were killed and dozens injured. Calling the attack a national tragedy, she alleges that the Narendra Modi government failed to adequately act on intelligence warnings regarding a possible terrorist strike.
She writes that the attack “was a catastrophe that shocked and stunned the country” and alleges that the government had ignored several intelligence inputs warning of a potential attack and had “inexplicably” failed to provide the safer air transport requested for the movement of security personnel. “To this day it has not come forward with a clarification,” she writes. Reflecting on the aftermath, she adds, “However, when the government launched a retaliatory air strike on a terrorist camp in Pakistan, the mood of the election came to be overwhelmed by patriotic fervour. The Congress party was defeated once again, though we increased our seats marginally and remained the largest opposition party in Parliament.”
The memoir contains several observations on international perceptions of Kashmir as well. Recalling a meeting with former US President Bill Clinton during his India visit, Sonia Gandhi says he appeared more interested in offering his own assessment of the Kashmir issue than listening to the Indian perspective. She notes that Clinton described Kashmir as “a nuclear flashpoint” and “one of the most dangerous places on the earth.”
In a lighter but characteristically candid aside, she also takes a dig at the former American President, writing, “The Monica Lewinsky scandal had subsided a little by then, but old habits die hard; at the reception held by Prime Minister Vajpayee in his honour, I noticed him every now and then surreptitiously sizing up the more striking women present.”
Among the memoir’s most evocative passages are Sonia Gandhi’s recollections of her family’s visits to Srinagar during Rajiv Gandhi’s years as an airline pilot. Those journeys, she writes, became treasured family experiences. She recalls walking along the Bund, taking evening shikara rides on the Dal Lake, revisiting places associated with her early married life, and admiring the Valley’s architectural and artistic heritage.
“Walking along the Bund or going for a Shikara ride as the light was fading, revisiting places where we’d been soon after we were married: the charming Mughal-era gardens; the wooden Zero Bridge across the Jhelum, a marvel of architecture and workmanship; gliding in a boat down the river as the sun was setting on the layered wood-tiled roofs of the old-style mosques; walking in the narrow lanes of the old city, admiring the stone and wood houses, some in the Persianate style.”
She goes on to celebrate the extraordinary craftsmanship of Kashmiri artisans, describing carpets, shawls, copperware, samovars, papier-mâché crafts, dry fruits and spices that created “a riot of colours.” She writes with admiration about “the skill and craftsmanship of Kashmiri men and women,” while recalling that Rajiv Gandhi would spend hours photographing people and engaging them in conversation.
The memoir also revisits Indira Gandhi’s emotional bond with Kashmir. Sonia Gandhi recounts that only days before her assassination, the former Prime Minister had shared unusually reflective thoughts with Rajiv Gandhi. “She had given us instructions about her funeral. She didn’t want to be cremated, she said. Her body should instead be released on a glacier up in the Kashmir snow peaks. It was as if she was expecting her end.”
According to Sonia Gandhi, Indira Gandhi’s final visit to Kashmir carried a deeper significance that became apparent only in hindsight. She writes that her mother-in-law enjoyed her brief stay in Srinagar with her grandchildren but regretted that the leaves of the Kashmiri chinar trees had not yet turned their characteristic shades of gold and auburn, a sight she had treasured since childhood.
“It had been the main reason for her trip there, she told her colleagues. To us it was clear: that sudden urge to return to Kashmir came from deep inside; later we thought she must have felt it would be for the last time.”
Through these recollections, Belonging: A Journey of Love presents Kashmir not merely as a political issue but as a deeply personal landscape intertwined with the Gandhi family’s most intimate memories. From honeymoon journeys and family vacations to insurgency, political conflict, personal fears and national tragedies, Sonia Gandhi’s narrative traces an enduring emotional connection to the Valley while offering her reflections on some of the most consequential developments in Kashmir’s recent history.
Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: deccanchronicle.com
