Memoir revisits the difficult choice behind the 2004 Congress-DMK alliance
November 13 update: leadership, belonging and unanswered questions
A separate the published report review of the memoir describes Gandhi recalling internal Congress doubts about whether she should lead its 2004 election campaign. At the July 2003 Shimla meeting, she says she insisted that leading the campaign was her responsibility as party president. Her account also revisits the 1999 challenge over her foreign birth and the hurt of feeling that colleagues still regarded her as an outsider. These are her reported memories, not a new dispute announced by the party.
The reviewer distinguishes a personal account of loss and duty from a full explanation of political decisions. The review questions how fully the book addresses the 1998 leadership change, accountability for the 1984 anti-Sikh violence, Congress decisions over Shah Bano and Ayodhya, and the party organisation after its later electoral decline. Those are the reviewer's assessments. The book's defence of family members and its interpretation of past events should not be substituted for independently checked historical or legal findings.
Update, November 12: Memoir account revisits Sri Lanka accord and assassination
The published report's newer report on Sonia Gandhi's memoir, Belonging: A Journey of Love, focuses on her account of the LTTE and the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi. It says she directly blames LTTE leader Velupillai Prabhakaran and links the killing to hostility following the 1987 India–Sri Lanka accord and the subsequent fighting involving the Indian Peace Keeping Force. These are her recollections and explanation as reported by the published report, not a new court finding established by publication of the memoir.
Her account describes the accord signed in Colombo on July 29, 1987, plans for provincial autonomy and the surrender of weapons, and the later breakdown into armed conflict between the peacekeeping force and the LTTE. She also recounts threats to her family, letters said to contain explosives and an intercepted radio conversation said to threaten Rajiv Gandhi. Those claimed intelligence episodes are attributed to the memoir; the underlying security records have not been independently inspected for this report.
The published report also discusses her recollection of the 1999 attack on former Sri Lankan president Chandrika Kumaratunga and the lasting injury she suffered. It treats those passages as part of the memoir's account of political violence and family loss, rather than evidence of a new attack or a fresh threat against a current office-holder. No graphic images or detailed instructions for violence are reproduced here.
The published report separately interviewed former politician Suresh Premachandran and journalist A. R. V. Loshan about a past LTTE press conference in Kilinochchi. They recalled an answer describing the assassination as a tragic event to move beyond. Loshan's explanation was that the speakers neither explicitly admitted carrying it out nor denied involvement. Their recollections of that exchange should not be converted into a new public confession. The published report also cites Mark Salter's 2016 book for a separate account of a private admission attributed to Anton Balasingham; it is a second-hand published account, not an interview conducted for this article.
The New Indian Express also reports the memoir's account of the family's security fears and the 1991 assassination. Separately, The Tribune has reported factual errors elsewhere in the memoir. Those criticisms are a reason to keep personal recollection, source quotations and independently established history distinct; they do not by themselves prove or disprove every claim in the LTTE passages. The earlier report on the 2004 alliance, its date, photograph and URL are retained below, rather than creating another article about the same book.
Sonia Gandhi's memoir describes how the Congress-DMK partnership before the 2004 Lok Sabha election emerged from a difficult personal and political choice. In Belonging: A Journey of Love, she recalls weighing painful memories of Rajiv Gandhi's assassination against the need to unite parties opposed to the BJP-led government. The published report's November 12 report and published reporting's November 11 account describe the episode as her recollection, not a new finding about responsibility for the assassination.
A political opening, with a personal barrier
Gandhi regarded the DMK as a major southern partner for an anti-BJP alliance and believed its leader M. Karunanidhi was dissatisfied with the government led by Atal Bihari Vajpayee. She writes that Congress colleagues in Tamil Nadu favoured a partnership but hesitated to raise it with her. Her own concern was whether joining hands with the DMK would betray her late husband's memory.
Her account links that hesitation to allegations and political disputes surrounding the LTTE, the 1991 assassination and the Jain Commission's 1997 report, after which Congress withdrew support from the I.K. Gujral government. Those allegations are presented here as the background Gandhi cites. They should not be treated as a judicial verdict against the DMK. She also considered whether Rajiv himself would have accepted an alliance needed to strengthen the opposition to the BJP.
The first call and the work that followed
Gandhi recalls being nervous when she first telephoned Karunanidhi to begin the talks. Neither shared the other's language, but she describes his response as friendly. Meetings then revealed shared interests in the arts, literature and Tamil heritage. Congress and DMK colleagues worked on seats and campaign coordination, with Gandhi intervening when disagreements arose. Her account also recalls Jyoti Basu proposing her for the alliance leadership and Karunanidhi supporting that proposal after the election victory.
Responses distinguish Tamil rights from support for violence
Responding to the memoir, DMK spokesperson T.K.S. Elangovan said the party had backed the rights of Sri Lankan Tamils, not the LTTE or Rajiv Gandhi's assassination. Published reporting indicates that he pointed to the Tamil Eelam Supporters Organisation and described the DMK's approach as peaceful political advocacy seeking a solution with Indian government support. Congress leader Manickam Tagore defended the 2004 alliance decision as necessary to oppose the BJP-RSS despite differences between the parties.
The published report places the recollection against later changes: the alliance broke in 2013 over the Sri Lankan Tamil issue, the parties contested the 2014 national election separately, and they subsequently reunited. It reports that Congress ended the partnership after the 2026 Tamil Nadu election and supported the government led by Vijay. The memoir therefore revisits the origins of an earlier partnership; it does not announce a new Congress-DMK agreement.
