Congress Parliamentary Party chairperson Sonia Gandhi made her Instagram debut on Thursday (October 22, 2026) by sharing a video of her upcoming memoir, Belonging: A Journey of Love, which she described as a “story of love, duty, loss and finding a place to belong”.

The former Congress president has largely stayed away from social media, using the party’s official X handle to release video statements, letters and other messages she wished to make public.

In a departure from that tradition, she created an Instagram account and followed the accounts of her children, Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, and that of the Congress party. Several senior party leaders, including Mr. Gandhi, followed her account.

In her first post, Ms. Gandhi shared a video of herself receiving copies of the book and sharing sweets with Ms. Priyanka Gandhi Vadra and remarked that the book contained several photographs.

“Hello everyone, I’m truly grateful to share this moment with you all; the first look of Belonging: A Journey of Love. It is a story of love, duty, loss and finding a place to belong. I look forward to sharing it with you,” she said in her post.

Congress communications chief Jairam Ramesh, sharing the video, said the “long-awaited memoir” of Ms. Gandhi would be released on November 10.

“The entire world is awaiting the launch of Sonia ji’s book,”general secretary (organisation) K.C. Venugopal said in a post on X.

Last month, HarperCollins India announced that it would publish the memoir on that date, ending uncertainty over its domestic release after an impasse between Ms. Gandhi’s representatives and Penguin Random House India (PRHI), which had initially been keen to publish it.

The disagreement had triggered a controversy, with some Congress leaders like Ashok Gehlot and Kamal Nath alleging that pressure had been exerted on the publisher to remove references to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and China’s alleged occupation of Indian territory.

PRHI denied any external pressure and declined to disclose details, citing confidentiality obligations. However, it said that though it had been “really keen” to publish the book as a “hard-won acquisition”, but it decided to withdraw following a stalemate over a particular issue.

HarperCollins has described Belonging as a deeply personal account of love, identity, duty and belonging, offering an insider’s perspective on India’s political journey.

The memoir begins with Ms. Gandhi’s childhood in post-war Veneto, Italy, and recounts her move to Cambridge, where she met Rajiv Gandhi in 1965. It traces her marriage to him, her introduction to her mother-in-law, former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, and her efforts to adapt to life in India.

The book also recounts the tragedies that marked the Gandhi family, including Sanjay Gandhi’s death in a plane crash, Indira Gandhi’s assassination in 1984 and Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination in 1991. The book covers the Congress-led alliance’s victory in the 2004 general election, Ms. Gandhi’s decision not to become Prime Minister, and her leadership of the party and the ruling coalition during the subsequent decade.