Indira Gandhi Assassinated: India Plunges Into Riots

Two of her own bodyguards opened fire on Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi as she walked through the garden of her official residence in New Delhi on the morning of October 31, 1984. Sub-Inspector Beant Singh shot her three times with his sidearm at close range. As she fell, Constable Satwant Singh emptied a Sten gun into her body, firing 30 rounds. Gandhi was rushed to the All India Institute of Medical Sciences but was pronounced dead shortly after arrival. She was 66. The assassination was an act of revenge for Operation Blue Star, the Indian Army's assault on the Golden Temple in Amritsar four months earlier. The Golden Temple, Sikhism's holiest shrine, had been occupied by armed militants loyal to Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale, who was waging a violent campaign for an independent Sikh state called Khalistan. Gandhi ordered the military operation in June 1984, and the assault killed Bhindranwale and several hundred of his followers but also damaged the sacred Akal Takht and killed an unknown number of Sikh pilgrims who were trapped inside the temple complex during the fighting. The desecration of the Golden Temple enraged Sikhs worldwide. Intelligence agencies warned Gandhi that Sikh members of her security detail posed a threat, and senior security officials recommended removing them. Gandhi refused, reportedly telling an advisor, "If I removed the Sikh guards, it would be an act of discrimination." Both Beant Singh and Satwant Singh had been identified as potential risks. Beant Singh was killed by other guards shortly after the shooting; Satwant Singh was captured, tried, and hanged in 1989. The aftermath was catastrophic. Anti-Sikh riots erupted across New Delhi and other cities within hours. Mobs, in many cases organized and directed by members of Gandhi's own Congress Party, attacked Sikh neighborhoods with voter rolls that identified Sikh households by name. Over four days, an estimated 3,000 to 8,000 Sikhs were murdered, their homes and businesses burned, and Sikh women were assaulted. Police in many areas stood by or actively assisted the rioters. The violence was later described by multiple commissions of inquiry as a planned pogrom rather than a spontaneous outbreak. Indira Gandhi's son Rajiv succeeded her as prime minister and won a landslide election victory the following month on a wave of sympathy. Justice for the 1984 riots came slowly and incompletely; the first murder conviction of a Congress Party politician for his role in organizing the violence was not secured until 2018.