79-year-old Sonia Gandhi gave her first interview in a decade to discuss a forthcoming memoir she says will tell "the truth" about her life, family assassinations and years at the center of Indian politics.
The book is unusually personal and sharply critical of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, whom she calls an authoritarian force bent on changing India, while accusing the BJP of dismantling democratic institutions and marginalizing the opposition.
Penguin Random House India did not publish the memoir after suggested edits that Gandhi says would have softened criticism of the government; the publisher disputed her account, and the book will now appear under another imprint.
Gandhi also revisits Congress's own history, calling Indira Gandhi's 1975 emergency a mistake, while recounting the killings of Indira in 1984 and Rajiv Gandhi in 1991 that pushed her reluctantly toward public leadership.
The interview lands as Congress remains weakened after repeated election losses, yet Gandhi says youth-led street protests and the higher-profile activism of Rahul and Priyanka Gandhi suggest dissent against the BJP is reviving.