Sonia Gandhi accused of whitewashing India's history in memoir

NEW DELHI: India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party has accused opposition leader Sonia Gandhi of whitewashing historical wrongs by her Congress party in a memoir, sparking a new faceoff between the two sides ahead of key state elections.

Congress party leaders have in turn accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s BJP of trying to create a spectacle and give the book a “political spin”.

Titled “Belonging” and released on Tuesday, the memoir captures Italian-born Gandhi’s journey from her student days in England, where she met her husband and Nehru-Gandhi dynasty scion Rajiv, to her integration into India’s most powerful political family that gave the country three prime ministers.

Gandhi, 79, herself turned down the prime minister’s job in 2004, but her family continues to control the party that has ruled India for periods totalling nearly 55 years since independence from British colonial rule in 1947.

“Sonia Gandhi could have titled her memoir ‘Whitewashing’, instead of ‘Belonging’ because the motive of this book appears to be sugar-coating the historical wrongs perpetrated by the Nehru-Gandhi family, and camouflaging the cardinal sins committed by the Congress party,” BJP spokesperson C.R. Kesavan said in a video statement.

Kesavan cited the anti-Sikh riots of 1984 which erupted after then-prime minister and Sonia’s mother-in-law Indira Gandhi was assassinated by Sikh bodyguards. Nearly 3,000 people were killed.

Rights activists accuse Congress of turning a blind eye and say that some party leaders helped orchestrate the carnage.

Book is personal memoir, Sonia writes

In the book, Sonia describes the riots as a “tragic and shameful chapter”, accusing some officials of looking the other way or even fuelling the violence.

She defends husband Rajiv — who succeeded his mother as prime minister — against allegations of complicity, while acknowledging failures of governance and delayed justice.

Kesavan accused Sonia of trying to “normalise and justify” the notorious Emergency imposed by Indira.

The 21-month state of Emergency in 1975 involved suspending civil liberties, censoring the press and jailing opposition leaders in one of the most controversial periods of India’s history.

Sonia writes that Indira felt increasingly isolated and politically cornered before imposing the Emergency. She says Indira was never entirely comfortable with it but felt compelled to continue it amid the prevailing political turmoil.

Although Sonia has herself not responded to the accusations, she said in the book’s prologue that it is a “personal memoir, one for which politics is the background, a kind of framework”.

A Congress spokesperson did not respond to a Reuters request seeking Sonia’s comment.

Book tops Amazon India bestseller list

The release comes at a time when Congress is leading the charge against Modi’s government over a controversial revision of voter lists, with Sonia’s son Rahul at the helm.

The street protests have emerged as the worst political crisis for Modi since he came to power in 2014, and ahead of elections in the key states of Uttar Pradesh and Sikh-majority Punjab early next year.

The book has dominated social media conversations with posts praising and criticising it in equal measure, mirroring the country’s political divide.

The book has also been covered extensively by newspapers, with many publishing excerpts about major events over the last half a century.

HarperCollins India, which agreed to publish the book after discussions failed between Sonia’s team and Penguin Random House India, did not respond to a request from Reuters seeking comment on how the book had been received.

On Wednesday, the book — considered expensive at 1,299 rupees ($14) — topped Amazon India’s bestseller list.