From Sonia Gandhi to LK Advani: Political memoirs you won't want to put down

Seven works by Indian political figures revisit Partition, the Emergency, Kashmir and party power. Their memoirs, arguments and fiction present personal, sometimes conflicting, records of the Republic.

In Short

• Advani traces six decades, including Partition, BJP's rise and Ram Rath Yatra
• Rao's political novel explores ambition, intrigue, factionalism and personal loyalties
• Prasad challenges the two-nation theory through historical, political and economic arguments

In the first week of November when India was discussing protests, pollution and politics, a book made its presence felt across bookstores and online platforms. Copies began flying off the shelves, and even quick-commerce platforms such as Blinkit displayed the title as out of stock within days of the launch of the book. The book in question? Belonging: A Journey of Love, the memoir of Sonia Gandhi, which marked her much-anticipated debut as an author.

The memoir takes readers through nearly five decades of India's political life, beginning with a time when Rajiv Gandhi was yet to enter the highest office in the country and his mother, former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, remained one of the most consequential figures in Indian politics.

Its pages revisit the family's private world, the upheavals within the Congress, moments of national crisis and the events that shaped Sonia Gandhi's own journey into public life.

But hers is not the only account to open a window into India's political past. From BJP veteran LK Advani to former Prime Minister PV Narasimha Rao, several of the country's leading political figures have taken to writing to record their experiences, convictions and encounters with power.

Their works speak of the triumphs and setbacks, the trials of public life, the political battles and the moments that altered the course of the nation.

Indian politics has rarely suffered from a shortage of speeches, controversies, scandals or grand declarations.

But when its leading figures turn to the written word, the reader is offered something rather different: recollections of power, accounts of political upheaval, arguments over the country's future and, occasionally, a glimpse of the person behind the public office.

From the Emergency to Partition, from Kashmir to the inner workings of the Congress party, these books take readers through chapters of India's political history as seen by those who occupied its front rows.

Some are personal memoirs, others political reflections and historical accounts. Each, in its own way, offers a story of India that deserves to be read.

1. MY COUNTRY, MY LIFE – LK ADVANI

Few political careers have travelled through as many turning points as that of LK Advani's.

In My Country, My Life, the former Deputy Prime Minister sets down the story of his political journey, beginning with his childhood in Sindh, his displacement following Partition and his subsequent rise through the ranks of Indian politics.

Published in 2008, the book runs through six decades of India's political evolution. Advani recounts the Emergency, the rise of the Bharatiya Janata Party, the Ram Rath Yatra and his years in government alongside Atal Bihari Vajpayee.

It is an account of a man who was not merely a spectator to the making of modern India, but one of its principal political actors.

At over a thousand pages, this is no hurried recollection. Advani offers his version of events, his political convictions and his understanding of a country whose fortunes he helped shape.

2. THE INSIDER - PV NARASIMHA RAO

What happens when a Prime Minister turns novelist and decides to take the reader behind the political curtain? PV Narasimha Rao offers an answer in The Insider, published in 1998.

The book is not a conventional memoir, but a political novel drawing upon Rao's considerable experience in public life.

Its protagonist, Anand, enters politics with the intention of reforming the system, only to discover that ambition, intrigue, factionalism and personal loyalties often determine the course of public affairs.

Set against the political landscape of post-Independence India, the novel moves through the rise of Indira Gandhi, the shifting fortunes of political parties and the workings of power in New Delhi.

The fictional setting does little to conceal the political realities that inform its pages.

For readers curious about the mind of a Prime Minister who presided over India's economic liberalisation, *The Insider* offers an unusual literary detour into the business of politics.

3. INDIA DIVIDED – DR RAJENDRA PRASAD

Written at a time when the very idea of an undivided India was under severe strain, India Divided is among the most consequential political works on this list.

First published in 1946, the book was largely written during Rajendra Prasad's imprisonment. The future President of India examined the demand for Partition, the two-nation theory and the political arguments surrounding the division of British India.

Prasad did not approach the question as a distant observer.

A participant in the freedom struggle and a close associate of Mahatma Gandhi, he brought the urgency of the period into his examination of the country's future.

The book considers the historical, political and economic arguments surrounding Partition and challenges the proposition that Hindus and Muslims constituted two separate nations.

Its pages reveal the anxieties of a country standing at the edge of a momentous decision.

Though not an autobiography, *India Divided* deserves a place among the writings of India's political leaders. It is, in many ways, a record of a nation arguing over its own fate.

4. THE DRAMATIC DECADE: THE INDIRA GANDHI YEARS – PRANAB MUKHERJEE

The 1970s were not a decade for the faint-hearted in Indian politics. There was war, political confrontation, the Emergency and a dramatic change in the country's electoral fortunes. Pranab Mukherjee's The Dramatic Decade: The Indira Gandhi Years, published in 2014, revisits this turbulent chapter.

Drawing upon personal diary entries, conversations with political figures and historical material, Mukherjee recounts events from a period in which he was both a witness and a participant.

The book examines Indira Gandhi's political leadership, the Bangladesh Liberation War, the imposition of the Emergency between 1975 and 1977 and the Congress party's electoral defeat in 1977.

Mukherjee's position within the Congress establishment gives the narrative its particular significance. He writes of a political era in which loyalty, authority and dissent were tested, sometimes with consequences that would shape the Republic for years to come.

For anyone wishing to understand the political temper of the Indira Gandhi years, this is a volume worth opening.

5. PRISON DIARY – JAYAPRAKASH NARAYAN

There are few settings less suited to political reflection than a prison cell. Yet it was during his detention in the Emergency that Jayaprakash Narayan kept the diary that would later be published as Prison Diary in 1977.

Narayan, popularly known as JP, had emerged as one of the most prominent opponents of Indira Gandhi's government. \

His call for Total Revolution had brought thousands into the political movement, and his opposition to the Emergency made him one of its most prominent detainees.

The diary records his thoughts and observations during his imprisonment in 1975. Rather than being a retrospective account written after the political storm had passed, it preserves the immediacy of a man confronting the suspension of democratic freedoms while himself deprived of liberty.

The book is particularly valuable for readers seeking to understand the Emergency through the writings of one of its most determined opponents. It is a prisoner's record, but its concerns extend well beyond prison walls.

6. BELONGING: A JOURNEY OF LOVE – SONIA GANDHI

In Belonging: A Journey of Love, Sonia Gandhi turns towards a life that has often been discussed in public but seldom narrated at such length in her own voice.

Published internationally in November 2026 by Harper Collins, the memoir traces her journey from her childhood in Italy to Cambridge, where she met Rajiv Gandhi, and eventually to India, where she became part of one of the country's most closely watched political families.

The narrative takes readers through her marriage, her relationship with Indira Gandhi, the assassinations of her mother-in-law and husband, and her eventual entry into public life.

It also examines her years at the helm of the Congress party and her decision to decline the office of Prime Minister after the party's victory in the 2004 general election.

For a figure who has guarded her private life for much of her political career, the memoir marks a significant departure. Its pages bring together personal loss, family history and the burdens of political responsibility.

7. MY FROZEN TURBULANCE IN KASHMIR - JAGMOHAN

Few political and administrative assignments in India have been as contentious as the governance of Jammu and Kashmir. In My Frozen Turbulence in Kashmir, Jagmohan offers his account of the events that unfolded during his two terms as Governor of the state.

First published in 1991, the book examines the political and administrative circumstances surrounding Kashmir, drawing upon Jagmohan's experience in public office.

He discusses the deterioration of the situation in the Valley, the challenges confronting the administration and the relationship between the Centre and the state. The work also sets out his assessment of the political decisions and administrative failures that, in his view, contributed to the crisis.

It is an intensely political account, written from the perspective of a former Governor who was directly involved in the affairs he describes. Readers should approach it as Jagmohan's own interpretation of a deeply contested period, rather than as a neutral history of Kashmir.

For those seeking to examine the politics of the Valley through the eyes of one of its former administrators, this volume offers considerable material for reflection.

Political power is usually recorded in election results, government orders and parliamentary proceedings. Memoirs and political writings offer another kind of record: one shaped by recollection, conviction, experience and, at times, disagreement.

These seven books do not tell one story of India.

They tell several, sometimes conflicting, accounts of the same Republic. And therein lies their value.

For the reader, the pleasure is not merely in discovering what these leaders remember, but in examining what they choose to remember, and what their pages reveal about the politics of their times.

- Ends