Former Congress president Sonia Gandhi has revealed that she confronted her husband, then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, over his government's handling of the Shah Bano case, questioning whether he was sacrificing Muslim women's rights to accommodate conservative religious opinion.
In her memoir, ‘Belonging: A Journey of Love’, published in 2026, Gandhi also discloses that the demolition of the Babri Masjid in 1992 and the growing influence of Hindu nationalist organisations were important factors behind her eventual decision to enter active politics and assume leadership of the Congress Party.
The book offers an unusually personal account of some of India's most contentious Hindu-Muslim controversies, including the Shah Bano legislation, the Ayodhya dispute and the 2002 Gujarat riots, during which Narendra Modi was chief minister.
Gandhi recalls being deeply disturbed by the criticism surrounding the Shah Bano judgment in 1985. The Supreme Court had awarded maintenance to an elderly divorced Muslim woman, but the decision faced opposition from sections of the Muslim religious establishment.
She writes that several women's rights activists, including Muslim women, supported Shah Bano's claim. Newspaper reports accusing the government of abandoning Muslim women's interests prompted her to challenge Rajiv Gandhi.
"The papers are accusing you of sacrificing Muslim women's interests," she recalls telling him.
Rajiv, according to her account, responded with irritation, asking whether she did not know his commitment to defending women's rights.
He explained that he was attempting to protect divorced Muslim women without undermining the broader framework of Muslim Personal Law, whose protection was also linked to constitutional guarantees of religious freedom.
Gandhi acknowledges that the subsequent Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Divorce) Act of 1986 attracted widespread criticism. The BJP accused the government of vote-bank politics, while liberal and progressive critics regarded the legislation as a concession to conservative Muslim opinion.
Nevertheless, she defends her husband's decision, arguing that the legislation attempted to reconcile gender justice with religious freedom and provided divorced Muslim women with financial protections beyond the modest maintenance awarded to Shah Bano.
She cites the Supreme Court's 2001 ruling upholding the legislation as support for Rajiv Gandhi's position.
Her account is significant because it acknowledges that she initially shared concerns expressed by women's rights campaigners, even as she ultimately accepted her husband's explanation.
Babri Masjid Demolition
Gandhi also reveals that the demolition of the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya in December 1992 profoundly affected her political thinking.
After Rajiv Gandhi's assassination in 1991, she had repeatedly resisted appeals to assume a leadership role in the Congress Party. She wanted to remain outside politics, which had already claimed the lives of her husband and mother-in-law, Indira Gandhi.
However, the growing influence of the BJP and Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), coupled with the Congress's declining electoral fortunes, increasingly troubled her.
She describes the demolition as a turning point that exposed the determination of Hindu nationalist organisations to advance their political agenda.
Gandhi writes that the destruction of the mosque and subsequent communal violence convinced her that the BJP and RSS were no longer content to pursue their objectives from behind the scenes.
She believed that the secular and pluralist vision associated with Jawaharlal Nehru, Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi was under growing threat.
The Congress's defeat in the 1996 parliamentary elections intensified her concerns. She feared that the party was losing its ability to resist the ideological advance of Hindu nationalism.
Gandhi recalls experiencing guilt whenever she passed photographs of Rajiv Gandhi and Indira Gandhi in her home.
"How could I sit comfortably at home and let their work and their sacrifices go in vain?" she asks in the memoir.
The question became central to her decision to overcome her reluctance to enter politics.
She describes waking during the night, troubled by the possibility that the political legacy of her husband and mother-in-law could be dismantled while she remained a spectator.
Gandhi had long disliked political life, particularly its rivalries, ambitions and betrayals. Yet she increasingly felt compelled to respond to what she regarded as a threat to India's secular foundations.
Her account suggests that defending India's pluralistic character was an important motivation behind her decision to assume the Congress presidency in 1998.
The memoir also revisits the controversy surrounding the unlocking of the Babri Masjid gates in February 1986, during Rajiv Gandhi's premiership.
Gandhi questions the speed with which the district court's order was implemented, observing that worshippers were allowed inside the premises within an hour.
She maintains that Rajiv Gandhi had sought a negotiated settlement that would permit construction of a Ram temple without destroying the mosque.
According to her, the BJP and RSS were unwilling to accept such an arrangement and pursued a course that ultimately resulted in the mosque's demolition.
Her interpretation offers a defence of Rajiv Gandhi's intentions, although his government's handling of the Ayodhya dispute remains a subject of historical and political controversy.
Gujarat Riots: Father's Desperate Appeal
One of the memoir's most disturbing accounts concerns the communal violence in Gujarat in 2002, when Narendra Modi headed the BJP government in the state.
Gandhi recalls watching television reports of the killings and receiving desperate appeals from Congress colleagues who were seeking assistance for victims.
The violence followed the burning of a train at Godhra, in which 59 Hindu passengers died. The subsequent communal attacks spread across Gujarat, with Muslims accounting for the overwhelming majority of victims.
Gandhi alleges that the state administration failed to respond adequately and that members of the Bajrang Dal, associated with the wider Hindu nationalist movement, helped fuel the violence.
As leader of the opposition, she joined an all-party parliamentary delegation that visited Ahmedabad and relief camps housing survivors.
She recalls young men shouting anti-Muslim slogans on the streets and describes the administration's briefing as detached from the suffering of those affected.
The most traumatic encounter occurred inside a crowded relief camp.
A visibly distressed father approached the delegation carrying his young daughter, who appeared severely traumatised. He alleged that she had been repeatedly raped during the violence.
Breaking down, the father pleaded with the visiting politicians to intervene.
"Main kya karun, kya karun? Kuch karo, kuch karo," Gandhi recalls him crying.
The words meant that he did not know what to do and was begging the delegation to help.
Gandhi describes being overwhelmed by the encounter, unable to respond beyond a few words of sympathy.
She recalls that Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee was widely expected to dismiss Modi following the violence but suggests that internal BJP pressure prevented him from taking that step.
She also recounts the international condemnation that followed, and the restrictions Western governments imposed on Modi's travel.
The memoir draws attention to the contrast between Modi's international isolation after the riots and the diplomatic reception he received after becoming prime minister in 2014.
Fear Among Minorities
In her assessment of the years following the BJP's return to national power in 2014, Gandhi alleges that violence against religious minorities and Dalits has increased substantially, with perpetrators frequently escaping punishment.
"Ever since the BJP came to power, brutal attacks on minorities as well as Dalits have increased exponentially and mostly gone unpunished," she writes.
She accuses the government of encouraging propaganda designed to generate hostility and suspicion towards minority communities.
According to Gandhi, videos, social media campaigns and films portraying minorities negatively have received official approval.
She argues that such campaigns are part of a broader political strategy that encourages fear while diverting public attention from unemployment, inflation and rising living costs.
"The message has gone out: Let people dwell in fear," she writes.
Gandhi also criticises restrictions on peaceful demonstrations, including protests involving minority women, and alleges that activists have been imprisoned for extended periods without due process.
She contends that democratic institutions, educational establishments and sections of the media have increasingly come under ideological and political pressure.
The former Congress president argues that these developments threaten the constitutional framework that has enabled India's religious, linguistic and cultural communities to coexist since independence.
She portrays the BJP's political project as an attempt to replace the country's pluralistic constitutional identity with a more explicitly majoritarian order.
Her criticism extends beyond communal violence to the weakening of democratic safeguards, the treatment of political opponents and what she describes as the growing concentration of power.
Political Journey Shaped Minority Question
Taken together, Gandhi's recollections present an account of how the question of minority rights shaped her political journey, from disagreements within her own household during Rajiv Gandhi's premiership to her eventual decision to lead the Congress Party.
The Shah Bano controversy reveals her initial willingness to question her husband's political judgment on Muslim women's rights. The Babri Masjid demolition emerges as a significant influence on her decision to enter politics. The Gujarat riots provide one of the memoir's most painful accounts of communal violence, while her criticism of the Modi government reflects continuing concern about the position of religious minorities.
Although the book defends several controversial decisions taken during Rajiv Gandhi's premiership, it also offers a personal explanation of why Sonia Gandhi came to regard the protection of India's secular and pluralistic character as an obligation she could no longer avoid.
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