‘They Will Kill Me Anyway’: Sonia Gandhi Recalls Rajiv’s Response After Indira’s Assassination

Sonia Gandhi has recalled the emotional turmoil she experienced when Rajiv Gandhi told her he had been asked to take over as Prime Minister following the assassination of his mother, Indira Gandhi, in 1984, saying she felt as though a knife had been plunged into her heart.

In her upcoming memoir, Belonging: A Journey of Love, set to be released on November 10, Sonia describes how she desperately pleaded with Rajiv not to accept the post, fearing that he too could become a target of political violence.

According to an edited extract published by The Guardian, the conversation took place at the hospital where Indira Gandhi was being treated after she was shot by two of her bodyguards at her residence on October 31, 1984.

Recalling the moment Rajiv broke the news, Sonia writes that she was overwhelmed by anger, fear and disbelief. She questioned why he had been asked to take responsibility at such a moment and pleaded with him to refuse.

She warned him that accepting the prime ministerial position could put his life in danger and urged him to think about their children, Rahul and Priyanka. Rajiv, however, responded with a remark that captured the gravity of the situation: “They will kill me anyway.”

The memoir also offers a deeply personal account of the hours surrounding Indira Gandhi's assassination. Sonia recalls hearing gunshots while preparing to take a bath and rushing towards the garden after the children's nanny alerted her.

She describes seeing her mother-in-law being carried into a car, her clothes stained with blood, and accompanying her to the hospital amid confusion and heavy traffic. Despite reaching the emergency department, Sonia said she was kept away while doctors attended to the injured prime minister.

Indira Gandhi was declared dead at around 2 pm. Sonia also recalls the distress of returning home, where her children, Rahul and Priyanka, rushed into her arms, crying and asking what had happened to their grandmother and father.

Rajiv, who was attending a political rally in West Bengal when he received news of the incident, reached Delhi later that afternoon and went directly to the hospital.

The memoir traces Sonia's journey from her marriage to Rajiv and her adjustment to life in India to the successive tragedies that struck the Gandhi family, including the deaths of Sanjay Gandhi in 1980, Indira Gandhi in 1984 and Rajiv Gandhi in 1991.

In a separate interview with The Hindu, Sonia has also reflected on the 1975-77 Emergency, saying democratic rights were curtailed but the measures were imposed constitutionally. She described Indira Gandhi as struggling to deal with widespread unrest and said her mother-in-law eventually recognised the situation and took corrective steps.

Sonia also noted that Rajiv had held a different point of view during that period and that Indira Gandhi later publicly expressed regret and apologised for the excesses committed during the Emergency.