Senior Congress leader Sonia Gandhi‘s recently released memoir Belonging: A Journey of Love is making headlines, but for the wrong reasons. The book, which chronicles her life journey, is full of distortions, lies and even factual inaccuracies, reflecting poorly on the editorial rigour and fact-checking standards. India Today pointed out as many as 55 errors spotted in the book authored by the 6 time member of Parliament. Some of the major errors are highlighted here:
Indian Parliamentary System
Sonia Gandhi reportedly made a rather embarrassing mistake in explaining India’s parliamentary system. She stated that the Lok Sabha members are elected while Rajya Sabha members are nominated. This statement by Gandhi, who has been active in politics and in Parliament for over two decades, is factually incorrect. Members of the Rajya Sabha are indirectly elected, and 12 of these members are nominated by the President of India.
RSS founding year
The veteran politician got the date of the establishment of her ideological rival, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), wrong. In her book, she wrote that the RSS was founded in 1921. A plain Google search could have informed her that the RSS was founded in 1925 by K. B. Hedgewar in Nagpur.
Death of Gandhi family-loyalist leader Ahmed Patel
Sonia Gandhi, who has been at the helm of affairs in the Congress Party, even got the date of demise of senior Congress politician and Gandhi family loyalist, Ahmed Patel, wrong. In the book, Gandhi cites the year of Patel’s death as 2022, while the politician, who was a close confidante of hers, actually died in 2020 after getting a COVID-19 infection.
The capital of Gujarat and the Sabarmati Express
In an account relating to the 2002 Gujarat riots, Sonia Gandhi got the capital of Gujarat wrong. She stated Ahmedabad as the state capital instead of Gandhinagar, which was declared as the state capital in 1970. Furthermore, while describing the burning of the Sabarmati Express by Muslims as ‘disputed’, she claimed that four coaches of the train were set on fire, while coach S-6 of the train was set on fire by a mob of 2000 Islamists, in which 59 Hindu Karsevaks were charred to death.
Election result mix-up
While mentioning the 2014 Lok Sabha election results, Sonia Gandhi wrongly stated the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) total seats at 353 while it was 336. The NDA got 353 seats in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. Gandhi mixed up the results of the two general elections. Besides, she also stated the seats won by the Congress Party in the 1984 elections as 405 in one place in the book and 404 in another place.
The Kargil war timeline
The errors in the book extend to major historical events like the 1999 Kargil war. In her book, Sonia Gandhi writes that Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif was hosting Indian PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee in Islamabad when Ladakhi shepherd Tashi Namgyal spotted Pakistani infiltrators along the Line of Control. This is also a wrong description of events. PM Vajpayee was on his peace visit to Pakistan on February 20–21, 1999, while Namgyal spotted the intruders on May 3, 1999, over two months later.
She further got the timeline of the conflict wrong. Gandhi stated that the Indian forces regained control over the Pakistani-occupied territory over a period of 10 months. In reality, the Kargil conflict lasted 84 days, starting on May 3 and ending on July 26, 1999, which was marked as Kargil Vijay Diwas by India.
In the same description, Sonia Gandhi writes that the Vajpayee-led NDA government collapsed in April 1999 as a defeat on a no-confidence motion. This description is slightly misleading, as the NDA government had itself sought the House’s confidence and lost the confidence motion by 269 votes to 270.
Rahul Gandhi’s defamation case
In her memoir, Sonia Gandhi misstated the details relating to her son and the Leader of the Opposition Rahul Gandhi’s defamation case. She writes that the defamation case against Rahul Gandhi was filed in 2023. This is a clear error of fact, as the complaint against him was filed in 2019 after he made defamatory remarks against the Modi community during a campaign speech in April that year. He was convicted on March 23, 2023. The Gujarat High Court later declined to stay his conviction.
Rahul Gandhi’s conviction was stayed by the Supreme Court on August 4, 2023, and his Lok Sabha membership was restored three days later. The restoration of his membership happened in less than 5 months since his disqualification. However, Sonia Gandhi wrongly failed to distinguish between suspension of sentence and stay of conviction by the court. She wrongly stated that the Supreme Court suspended Rahu Gandhi’s sentence and a year later his Lok Sabha membership was restored.
Misleading interpretation of a Supreme Court’s ruling
The book gives a misleading interpretation of the Supreme Court ruling in relation to the Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Divorce) Act of 1986. Sonia Gandhi states that the Supreme Court upheld the Rajiv Gandhi government’s position on the Act, which was passed to overturn the Apex Court verdict recognising Muslim divorced women’s maintenance right.
While the Supreme Court did uphold the constitutionality of the Act, it interpreted the law to require a reasonable and fair provision for a divorced woman’s future extending beyond the iddat period. Gandhi failed to point out the distinction.
International slips
Sonia Gandhi’s errors are not limited to national events; she also committed factual slips in stating timelines of international events. She states that Nelson Mandela’s visited India in 1991 to receive the Bharat Ratna, but the visit actually happened in October 1990.
In another blunder, she wrongly referred to Vice-President K.R. Narayanan as “President R.K. Narayan”, stating that he led India’s delegation to Mandela’s 1994 presidential inauguration. Furthermore, the 1985 Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Nassau was described as the 49th such summit in her memoir, while it was the 8th summit.
Describing Rajiv Gandhi’s 1988 visit to China, Gandhi wrongly names Deng Xiaoping as the then Chinese President. Actually, Yang Shangkun was the President of China at the time, and Deng was China’s paramount leader and chairman of the Central Military Commission.
Errors in her own love story
While the errors mentioned so far relate to national and international political events, Sonia Gandhi commits similar errors while recalling her love story with Rajiv Gandhi. In the memoir, she writes that she met Rajiv Gandhi for the first time in Cambridge sometime around January 1965 and at that time, she was 19, and he was 21.
If January 1965 is taken to be the accurate time of the meeting, Sonia, who was born in December 1946, would have been 18 and Rajiv Gandhi, born in August 1944, would have been 20. So either one of their stated ages or the time of their first meeting must be wrongly stated.
These are some of the prominent errors and factual slips highlighted in Sonia Gandhi’s memoir. The errors reflect both the author’s poor recollection of major historical events and the publisher’s basic fact-checking.
