Just 10 days after US-based publisher Alfred A Knopf, an imprint of Penguin Random House, announced a November 10 release for former Congress president Sonia Gandhi’s long-awaited memoir, the autobiography has triggered a political storm in India.
Penguin Random House India (PRHI), which was to publish and distribute the memoir, titled Belonging: A Journey of Lovein India, has been rebuffed by Sonia for suggesting several changes to the original manuscript as a pre-condition for finalising the book deal. According to a report in The Indian ExpressSonia is now in talks with Harper Collins to publish and distribute her autobiography in India.
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While it isn’t uncommon for book deals between authors and prospective publishers to fall through, the furore in the case of Sonia Gandhi’s memoir is as much over the political insinuations triggered by her refusal to alter her life story as it is about the absurdity of PRHI’s statement confirming the development.
PRHI’s ‘confusing’ clarification
In a statement released on Friday (August 28), PRHI claimed it is “not the publisher of ‘Belonging’ in India and that any suggestion that it “decided not to publish” Sonia’s autobiography “because the author declined editorial changes does not accurately reflect the circumstances”.
PRHI then goes on to practically rebut its own assertion. “As a publisher, it is both our prerogative and our responsibility to fact-check and provide authors recommendations that are in the best interests of their books,” the statement reads, confirming not only that PRHI was indeed in talks with Sonia but that it also “remained willing and keen to publish the book.”
At the time of writing this report, the Congress party had not officially commented on the PRHI statement, although several party leaders had individually slammed the publisher for “cowering under political pressure”, ostensibly from Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ruling dispensation. Sonia has also not commented on the deal going sour or the controversy that has since erupted.
What did Penguin want changed?
Off the record, however, sources in the Congress confirmed to The Federal that PRHI did ask Sonia Gandhi to make “several changes” in her memoir; particularly regarding her recollections of the “political developments of the past decade”, that is, since Narendra Modi became India’s Prime Minister.
Two key portions that PRHI seemingly wanted Sonia to “either tone down or delete completely”, said a senior party leader close to the former Congress president, were her account of the malicious personal comments that Modi had made against her and her family members during political rallies over the years and, more recently, of her recollection of Modi’s response to Chinese transgressions on Indian territory in Ladakh’s Galwan in June 2020.
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The publisher was also keen that Sonia omit several passages about her impressions of the RSS, the BJP’s ideological motherboard, and its perceived role in undermining the country’s syncretism and the idea of India, the sources said.
Sonia, however, “refused to make any changes”, said a Congress functionary who has worked closely with the Nehru-Gandhi family for the last four decades.
Who has seen the manuscript?
Congress sources said the original manuscript of the book had “not been seen by anyone in the party” except, of course, Sonia’s children – Lok Sabha’s Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi and Wayanad MP Priyanka Gandhi – and “a handful of others who have worked very closely with the senior Congress leader over the years, who she consulted through the course of writing the book”.
As such, party insiders claim it is impossible to say with any certainty what the 79-yearold Sonia has written exactly about Modi, the Sangh Pariwar or other political actors and events that her expansive memoir, which covers not just the past three decades of her public life but also the equally eventful decades preceding, including her recollections of her husband Rajiv Gandhi and her mother-in-law Indira Gandhi, both former prime ministers.
Another backlash
What is certain, though, is that PRHI’s statement on the deal with Sonia going sour has triggered outrage reminiscent of earlier this year, when the renowned publisher drew sharp criticism for disowning another memoir it had published (and then withdrawn) – that of former Army chief MM Naravane. The brickbats coming PRHI’s way have been swift and scathing with not just Congress politicians but also public intellectuals, journalists and authors, including those whose works PRHI has published in the past, slamming the publishing house for cowering to political pressure or for its rumoured attempt at persuading Sonia to censor her own life’s story.
Authors, leaders question Penguin’s stand
Journalist and author Vir Sanghvi dubbed the PRHI statement as “very confusing” and said, “Penguin India is owned by the same conglomerate that owns Knopf, the book’s international publisher. Knopf is happy publishing the book without the editorial ‘suggestions’ that Penguin India says are its ‘prerogative’. The problems seem limited to the Indian edition. And to Penguin India. I cannot think of another explanation for Penguin’s behaviour apart from the obvious one. Especially as Penguin India has form in these matters. Am I wrong? Possibly. But this evasive, mealy-mouthed statement does not offer an alternative explanation. Disclosure: I have been a Penguin author for over two decades (sic).
Journalist Saba Naqvi, who has also collaborated with PRHI in the past for publishing books she authored, wrote on X, “This implies that Sonia Gandhi got her facts in her biography wrong and Penguin that also publishes the prime ministerial masterpiece Exam Warriors, knew better. Not a great statement.”
Gaurav Gogoi, the Congress party’s deputy leader in Lok Sabha, slammed Penguin, suggesting that while the publisher was “happy to publish Exam Warriors (by Modi) and several books on RSS”, it wanted Sonia’s book altered. “No doubt there are those in the BJP government who have now become afraid of a book being read by the people of India,” Gogoi said.
Former chief ministers Ashok Gehlot and Kamal Nath too hit out at PRHI. While Gehlot said Penguin’s attempt to suppress Sonia’s story was “tantamount to murder of freedom of expression” and alleged that “pressure was put on Penguin India to remove the portions related to Modi, the RSS, and the occupation of Indian territory by China during Modi’s rule”, Nath questioned, “will the publisher decide what a senior figure like Sonia Gandhi will write and what she will not”.
A Congress veteran and long-standing member of the party’s highest decision-making body, the Congress Working Committee (CWC), pointed out a “stark irony” in the PRHI’s attempt to “suppress Soniaji’s story”. “For years, Penguin, and every other publisher, has told Sonia’s story through books about her or that have extensive references to her but from the perspective of someone else. (Journalist) Rasheed Kidwai’s book on Soniaji (titled Sonia: a biography) was published by Penguin too; did they fact-check everything he wrote about her, which based on the accounts of others… for the first time, she decided to set the record straight about all the stories people have peddled about her for decades, for the first time she decided to tell her side of the story as she saw it and this is what she has to face; its shameful,” the CWC member and a long-time acolyte of the Nehru-Gandhi family, told The Federal.
Congress stays silent
What has, however, been intriguing in this tsunami of criticism directed at PRHI is the deafening silence of the Congress party’s own communications department.
Neither Jairam Ramesh, who is in-charge of the party’s communication and is a prolific writer himself, nor Congress media wing chief Pawan Khera and social media head Supriya Shrinate have, so far, deemed it necessary to comment on the row even after the BJP’s now benched IT Cell chief Amit Malviya waded into it, taunting Sonia Gandhi.
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“It is rather amusing that Penguin Random House India felt the need to fact-check Sonia Gandhi’s memoir… if a publisher has to fact-check a memoir written by its own author, perhaps the obvious question is: what exactly needed fact-checking – the author’s memories, or the blurred line between fact and fiction,” Malviya wrote on X.
With Sonia dumping PRHI, who gets to publish and distribute Belonging in India will be keenly watched. As will revelations, if at all they come, from Sonia on what exactly it was that Penguin wanted her to expunge from her memoir. Internationally, the autobiography is expected to be launched on schedule on November 10 – and ironically enough, the memoir’s distribution in global markets is expected to stay with Penguin Random House or its imprints like Alfred A. Knopf.