HarperCollins to publish former Congress chief Sonia Gandhi's memoir

NEW DELHI: So, who does Sonia Gandhi’s controversial memoir ‘Belonging’ belong to? HarperCollins India has stepped in to publish the Congress leader’s memoir, ending weeks of uncertainty over who would carry the domestic edition after Penguin Random House India (PRHI) exited the deal over some changes to the text.

The book will hit Indian shelves on November 10, 2026 — the same day as its international release. Billed as one of the most anticipated political memoirs in recent years, Belonging is described as a personal account of love, identity, duty and belonging, offering an insider's perspective on India's political journey through Gandhi's own eyes.

The HarperCollins announcement comes on the heels of a public controversy over PRHI's departure from the project, which Congress leaders have framed as an act of political censorship. Party leader Ashok Gehlot alleged that pressure had been exerted on Penguin to edit out sections dealing with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the RSS, and China's occupation of Indian territory during Modi's tenure, calling the episode a "murder of democracy."

Penguin pushed back on that framing, maintaining that it retained the right to fact-check manuscripts and suggest edits to authors, and said it remained open to publishing the book. The company had earlier this year also halted distribution of cartoonist Joe Sacco's The Once and Future Riot, about the Muzaffarnagar riots — a decision critics have pointed to as part of a pattern.

Adding a layer of intrigue to the row was the fact that Alfred A. Knopf, the memoir's American publisher, is itself a Penguin Random House imprint — raising the question, as Gehlot put it, of why a version cleared for global release would need alteration for Indian readers. "What is the reason, or what pressure is there that what is being published across the world cannot be published in India?" he asked.