Kashmir in Sonia Gandhi’s Memoir: Family Roots, Memories and Political Regrets

Former Congress president Sonia Gandhi has revisited her family's deep Kashmiri roots, its enduring cultural traditions and the political decisions that transformed the Valley, while recalling the warmth of ordinary Pakistanis and an unusual encounter with former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto.

In her memoir, “Belonging: A Journey of Love”, Gandhi moves between intimate memories of Kashmir as a place of family holidays, weddings and personal friendships, and her later encounters with a region engulfed by insurgency, violence and political uncertainty.

One of the most striking passages concerns her visit to Kashmir in 2003, when she reflected on the decisions that had brought the region to its troubled condition.

Walking near Dal Lake under heavy security, she found herself contemplating the contrast between the Kashmir she had known as a young bride and the atmosphere of suspicion and violence that subsequently engulfed it.

"How many mistakes, some of them in good faith, had been made for this beloved state to come to this pass?" she asks in the memoir.

Looking back, she also refers to the developments "culminating in Kashmir losing its statehood in 2019."

The observation carries particular significance because it comes from a former Congress president whose family occupied the centre of Indian political power during much of the period in which Kashmir's relationship with New Delhi underwent profound changes.

Yet Gandhi's Kashmir narrative begins not with politics but with family ancestry, marriage ceremonies, food, festivals and the Valley's place in the emotional life of the Nehru-Gandhi household.

Family's Ancestry and Wedding Rituals

Gandhi recalls that her mother-in-law, Indira Gandhi, was born in Allahabad but belonged to a Kashmiri Pandit family. The Nehrus and Kauls formed part of an extended family whose ancestral identity continued to shape domestic ceremonies even after generations of residence outside Kashmir.

When Sonia married Rajiv Gandhi on February 25, 1968, Indira made a conscious effort to involve the Kashmiri and Parsi branches of the family in the preparations.

"Mrs. Gandhi had taken care to involve relatives from each branch of the family," she writes, referring to the Parsis, Kauls and Nehrus.

Relatives were assigned responsibility for invitations, decorations, floral jewellery and Sanskrit hymns. The wedding sari carried its own history. It was made from khadi woven out of thread spun by Jawaharlal Nehru during his imprisonment in the struggle against British rule.

Describing the family's customs, Gandhi writes that Indira came from "a family of Pandits, Brahmins originating in Kashmir."

Before the marriage, Sonia underwent the traditional ceremony in which women from the groom's family adorn the bride with jewellery fashioned from flowers.

The ceremony was performed at the Bachchan family residence by Indira's cousin, the writer Nayantara Sahgal. It was followed by mehendi, with henna applied to the bride's hands and feet.

During the wedding, Kashmiri women and girls chanted Vedic hymns chosen by Indira. Sonia describes the exchange of garlands, floral decorations, and the participation of relatives representing the family's different religious and cultural backgrounds.

She also recounts a moment of unexpected drama when Rajiv, who wanted a private wedding, became furious at the number of photographers gathered for the ceremony.

He tore open his achkan, scattering its buttons, and briefly threatened to halt the proceedings. A family tailor was hurriedly summoned to repair the garment before the ceremony resumed.

The memoir returns to Kashmiri wedding traditions nearly three decades later, when Sonia's daughter Priyanka Gandhi married businessman Robert Vadra in 1997.

"Priyanka was keen that it be celebrated as a full Kashmiri Hindu ceremony," Gandhi writes.

The family arranged the phoolon-ka-gehna and mehendi ceremonies, followed by Ganesh puja, the principal marriage rituals, and the concluding Posh puja.

The family priest, Reu Guru, had stopped officiating at weddings but agreed to make an exception for Priyanka.

Gandhi relied on a booklet prepared for Indira Gandhi's wedding in 1942 to ensure that the ceremonies followed family custom.

During the Posh puja, a shawl was held over the bride and groom while relatives showered them with flower petals and elders recited Sanskrit blessings.

The occasion was particularly emotional because Rajiv Gandhi, assassinated in 1991, was absent.

Rahul Gandhi performed the kanyadaan, a ceremony ordinarily conducted by the bride's father.

Sonia recalls being overcome by grief as Rahul performed the ritual. She writes that "everyone's eyes were moist during the concluding Posh puja."

The wedding concluded with another family custom: the newlyweds released two doves before departing.

These recollections show how Kashmiri customs survived in the Nehru-Gandhi household through successive generations, despite the family's long separation from its ancestral homeland.

Indira's Kashmiri New Year

Another passage describes Sonia's introduction to the Kashmiri Pandit New Year, which she calls Nauroz, generally known in Kashmir as Navreh.

Early one morning, Indira knocked on Sonia's bedroom door carrying a ceremonial tray covered with rice.

On it were a mirror, yoghurt, sweets, rock salt, almonds, a pen, a gold coin, a red thread, a Hindu calendar, kumkum and a rose.

Indira asked her daughter-in-law to look first into the mirror and then at the objects arranged on the tray.

She touched Sonia's eyes with the rose, placed a mark on her forehead, kissed her and presented her with a sari and family jewellery.

"The pen signified the family profession, the gold coin, prosperity," Gandhi explains.

The family celebrated with a traditional Kashmiri meal featuring mutton koftas, haak, rice, lentils and meetha chawal.

Sonia's account also describes Indira's fondness for Kashmiri embroidered shawls and her continuing attachment to the food, clothing and ceremonies of her ancestors.

For a family whose public identity became inseparable from Indian national politics, these domestic practices remained a private expression of its Kashmiri heritage.

Honeymoon on Nagin Lake

Sonia's earliest personal encounter with Kashmir came during her honeymoon with Rajiv Gandhi.

The couple stayed in a wooden houseboat on Nagin Lake and visited Srinagar's celebrated Mughal gardens, including Shalimar, Nishat and Chashma Shahi.

They explored the old city and travelled to Pahalgam, a place Rajiv remembered fondly from childhood holidays.

Among the people they met was Ramzana, a pony owner who had known Rajiv since he was a boy.

Ramzana welcomed the couple into his home, where his family served them a meal and offered gifts of walnuts, almonds, honey, saffron and a locally woven shawl.

Gandhi remembers his "friendliness and generosity," a recollection that captures the warmth of the family's relationship with ordinary Kashmiris.

Her memories also include Indira's holidays in the Valley with her sons and grandchildren.

In one episode, Indira took Rahul, then nearly two years old, on an official visit to Kashmir despite Sonia's reluctance to be separated from him.

The grandmother later telephoned to report that Rahul was crying for his mother and asked Sonia to speak to him.

Indira's Last Journey to Kashmir

The memoir contains a particularly poignant account of Indira Gandhi's final visit to Kashmir in October 1984, just days before her assassination.

Indira wanted to see the chinar leaves turn gold and auburn in autumn, a sight she cherished from childhood.

During the visit, she went to the Sharika Devi temple on Hari Parbat and the Makhdoom Sahib Sufi shrine in Srinagar.

She had also intended to visit the Kashmiri Shaivite sage Lakshman Joo.

Gandhi recalls that Indira returned disappointed because the chinar leaves had not yet acquired their autumn colours.

"That sudden urge to return to Kashmir came from deep inside," Sonia writes, recalling how the family later interpreted the visit.

She also reveals that her mother-in-law had expressed a wish that, after her death, her body be left on a glacier high in Kashmir's snow-covered mountains rather than cremated.

The account gives Indira's last Kashmir journey a deeply personal character, connecting her affection for the Valley's landscape with its Hindu and Muslim spiritual traditions.

Insurgency and Statehood

The memoir's tone changes when Sonia describes Kashmir in the years of armed conflict.

During a Congress chief ministers' meeting in Srinagar in 2003, she visited Nadimarg, where 24 Kashmiri Pandits had been massacred earlier that year.

She describes the growth of militancy, demands for independence, and the Indian state's security response.

According to her account, cross-border militancy involving Pakistani-trained youths and the demands of various Kashmiri groups developed into an insurgency, while the Indian government's crackdown made the atmosphere increasingly oppressive.

Her description recognises both the violence of armed groups and the consequences of the state's response.

It is against this background that she raises her question about the accumulated mistakes that had brought Kashmir to such a condition.

Her retrospective reference to the removal of Jammu and Kashmir's statehood in August 2019 adds another dimension to that assessment.

The memoir also recalls her meeting with former US President Bill Clinton in 2000, when he described Kashmir as "a nuclear flashpoint" and "one of the most dangerous places on earth."

Sonia, however, remembers Clinton as more inclined to speak than to listen.

She also recounts the 1999 Kargil conflict, criticising the government of Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee over what she regarded as inadequate border surveillance before Pakistani forces occupied strategic positions across the Line of Control.

The 2019 Pulwama attack, which killed 40 Indian paramilitary personnel, figures in her account of the subsequent Indian airstrike inside Pakistan and the political atmosphere surrounding that year's general election.

She questions the government's handling of security warnings and transport arrangements before the attack.

Her later Kashmir memories include Rahul Gandhi's Bharat Jodo Yatra, which concluded in Srinagar in January 2023. Sonia recalls her anxiety over his safety and the participation of regional political leaders, including Omar Abdullah and Mehbooba Mufti.