Dad smiles and looks down proudly, says Rahul ahead of the release of Sonia’s memoir
Congress Parliamentary Party President Sonia Gandhi, Lok Sabha LoP and MP Rahul Gandhi, Party MP Priyanka Gandhi. File. | Photo credit: ANI
On his father Rajiv Gandhi’s birth anniversary, senior Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Thursday (August 20, 2026) remembered the loss of his father and paid an emotional tribute to his mother Sonia Gandhi, saying he could imagine “daddy smiling and looking down proudly on his beautiful Sonia”.
Mr Gandhi was referring to the forthcoming memoir of his mother and Congress Parliamentary Party President Sonia Gandhi.
In a message to X, Mr Gandhi said he had last seen his parents together more than 35 years ago and since then had watched his mother “face everything life threw at you with infinite courage and dignity”.
Only he and his sister Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, he said, knew “what you went through and how difficult your life was after your father”.
Mr Gandhi said he was proud that Sonia Gandhi’s memoir, Belonging: A Journey of Love, would be read by “millions of people who love you”, adding that he knew how difficult it was for someone as private as her to tell her story.
The memoir, due out in November, chronicles her journey from Italy to India, her marriage to Rajiv Gandhi, the deaths of Indira Gandhi and Sanjay Gandhi, her entry into politics after her husband’s assassination and her decision to turn down the prime ministership in 2004.
At an event later in the day to mark his father’s birth anniversary, Mr Gandhi shifted from the personal to the political, saying the growing demands of students across the country could no longer be suppressed.
“Students say that we have an expression and we believe in certain things as individuals. I am very proud now that millions of young students have understood this,” he said, adding that “the expression has suddenly appeared and cannot be stopped”.
The challenge, he said, was to transform this awakening into structural change, especially in education. Referring to Mahatma Gandhi’s idea of swaraj, Mr. Gandhi said that it was not merely “freedom” but “government over oneself” and required an environment in which people could assert their own conception of truth.
He asked how swaraj could exist alongside an expensive education system, an unfair examination system and an economy controlled by a handful of people. “How will this term change the education system of our country,” he asked.
Mr Gandhi also sharpened his attack on Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the BJP-RSS, saying the political contest was fundamentally about who has the right to determine what constitutes truth.
“When Mr. Narendra Modi says, ‘I forgive students’, which means, ‘I know everything and you know nothing and I forgive you,’ that is why he is attacking students every day,” he said, referring to the prime minister’s remarks on student protests.
Accusing the BJP-RSS of marginalizing minorities, taking away tribal land and perpetuating caste oppression, he said the political struggle is to ensure that every citizen feels they “belong” to India. “The country should help you walk this path. That is Gandhi’s vision for India and that is the path of swaraj,” he said.
Published – 20 Aug 2026 15:24 IST