Template:Infobox civilian attack
Template:Indira Gandhi series Indira Gandhi, Indian prime minister, was assassinated at 9:30 AM on 31 October 1984 at her residence in Safdarjung Road, New Delhi by her two bodyguards, Satwant Singh and Beant Singh, after the Indian Armed Forces carried out Operation Blue Star between 1 and 8 June 1984 on Gandhi's orders. The military operation was to remove Sikh militant Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale and other Sikh separatists from the Golden Temple in Amritsar, the holiest site of Sikhism. The operation resulted in the death of many pilgrims as well as damage to the Akal Takht and the destruction of the Sikh Reference Library.
Gandhi's assassination led to the 1984 anti-Sikh riots which was instigated by nationalist mobs and political figures from the Indian National Congress (INC), Indira Gandhi's party, who orchestrated pogroms against Sikh populations throughout India. Four days of mob violence resulted in the destruction of 40 historic gurdwaras and other important Sikh holy sites. Official Indian government figures put the death toll at 3,350, while other sources have claimed that between 8,000 and over 16,000 Sikhs were killed.
Operation Blue Star
Operation Blue Star was a large Indian military operation carried out between 1 and 8 June 1984, ordered by Indira Gandhi to remove leader Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale and his militant Sikh followers from the buildings of the Golden Temple complex in Amritsar.[1]
229 armed Sikh militants were killed inside the Golden Temple complex during the operation, which also lead to at least 554 civilian deaths.[2][3][4] 717 dead bodies were found inside Golden temple complex, 501 civilians and 216 militants killed between 3 and 9 June.Template:Citation needed Eleven additional people were killed on 1 June by shooting between the Central Reserve Police Force and militants according to then Amritsar District Commissioner Ramesh Inder Singh.[5] Regarding Indian Army personnel deaths, Lt. Gen. Prem Nath Hoon, who became General commanding officer of Western Command (1986-87), revealed that 336 Indian Army and security forces personnel died in the operation fighting with entrenched militants led by former Major General Shabeg Singh.[6][7] In sum, 1119 to 1130 total people died inside the Golden Temple complex and within Amritsar City during the operation.[8]
The Government of India’s 1984 White Paper on Operation Blue Star reported that 83 Indian Army personnel were killed and 249 were wounded during the operation.[9].Some contemporary journalistic accounts, however, suggested higher casualties. Journalist Shekhar Gupta, who was present in Amritsar during the operation, stated that 136 army personnel were killed and around 220 injured, describing it as “the highest casualties suffered by our armed forces in a domestic operation in 24 hours.”[10] In sum, 919 to 930 total people died inside the Golden Temple complex and within Amritsar City during the operation.[5]
Other sources estimate around 5,000 civilian and 700 military personnel deaths in around the complex and in Amritsar during the operation.[11][12]Template:Rp[13][14][15][16]Template:Sfn[17][15]Template:Rp The Operation also caused serious damage to two of the holiest Sikh shrines, the Golden Temple and Akal Takht, as well as the destruction of the Sikh Reference Library.[18]
The perceived threat to Gandhi's life increased after the operation.[19] Accordingly, Sikhs were removed from her personal bodyguard detail by the Intelligence Bureau for fear of assassination. Gandhi feared that this would reinforce her anti-Sikh image among the public, however, she ordered the Delhi Police to reinstate her Sikh bodyguards,[20] including Beant Singh, reportedly her personal favourite.[21]
Assassination
Attack
At about 9:20 a.m. Indian Standard Time on 31 October 1984, Gandhi was on her way to be interviewed by British actor Peter Ustinov, who was filming a documentary for Irish television. She was accompanied by her personal secretary R. K. Dhawan, personal security officer Rameshwar Dayal, and Constable Narayan Singh.[22] She was walking through the garden of the Prime Minister's Residence at No. 1 Safdarjung Road in New Delhi towards the neighbouring 1 Akbar Road office.[23] Gandhi was not wearing her bulletproof vest that day, which she had been advised to wear at all times after Operation Blue Star.[24]
Gandhi passed a wicket gate guarded by Constable Satwant and Sub-Inspector Beant Singh, and the two men opened fire.[24][25] Beant fired three rounds into her abdomen from his .38 (Template:Convert) revolver;[21] then Satwant fired 30 rounds from his Sterling sub-machine gun after she had said “ouch” and fallen to the ground.[21] Both men then threw down their weapons and Beant said, "I have done what I had to do. You do what you want to do." In the next six minutes, Border Police officers Tarsem Singh Jamwal and Ram Saran captured and killed Beant, while Satwant was arrested by Gandhi's other bodyguards along with an accomplice trying to escape; he was seriously wounded.[26] Satwant Singh was tried, convicted, and sentenced to death for killing Gandhi. He was hanged in 1989, along with accomplice Kehar Singh.[27]
Salma Sultan gave the first news of the assassination of Gandhi on Doordarshan's evening news on 31 October 1984, more than ten hours after she was killed.[28][29] It is alleged by the Indian government that Gandhi's secretary R. K. Dhawan overruled intelligence and security officials who had ordered the removal of policemen as a security threat, including her assassins.[30]
Beant was one of Gandhi's favourite guards, whom she had known for ten years.[21] Because he was a Sikh, he had been taken off her staff after Operation Blue Star, yet Gandhi had made sure that he was reinstated.[31] Satwant was 22 years old at the time of the assassination, and had been assigned to Gandhi's guard just five months earlier.[21]
Declared death
Gandhi was taken to the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi (AIIMS) at 9:30 a.m. AIIMS director-designate Sneh Bhargava wrote that though Gandhi was clinically dead upon arrival, doctors had to keep up appearances and continue to operate on her until her son Rajiv Gandhi could be sworn in as prime minister.[32] She was declared dead at 2:20 p.m. The postmortem examination was conducted by a team of doctors headed by Tirath Das Dogra, who stated that 30 bullets had struck Gandhi from a Sterling sub-machine gun and a revolver. The assailants had fired 33 bullets at her, of which 30 had hit; 23 had passed through her body, while seven remained inside. Dogra extracted bullets to establish the identity of the weapons and to correlate each weapon with the bullets recovered by ballistic examination. The bullets were matched to the weapons at CFSL Delhi.
National mourning
The Indian government ordered a national mourning from 1 to 12 November with flags half-masted and cancelled entertainment and cultural events and closed offices for several days.[33][34] Tanzania declared seven days of mourning,[35] Uganda five,[36] and Cuba four.[37] Pakistan, Vietnam, Brazil, Nicaragua and Gabon each declared three days of mourning.[38][39][40][41][42][43] Portugal declared two days of mourning,[44] Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Mongolian People's Republic and Mauritius declared a day of national mourning.[45][46][47][48][49]
Funeral
Gandhi's body was taken in a gun carriage through Delhi roads on the morning of 1 November to Teen Murti Bhavan, where her father stayed and where she lay in state.[23] She was cremated with full state honours on 3 November near Raj Ghat, a memorial to Mahatma Gandhi, at an area named Shakti Sthal. Her elder son and successor, Rajiv Gandhi, lit the pyre.
Among the foreign dignitaries who attended the state funeral were:[50][51]
Aftermath
Over the next four days, 8,000 Sikhs were killed in retaliatory violence.[54][55] Other sources record well over 25,000 deaths of Sikhs.[56]
The Justice Thakkar Commission of Inquiry, headed by Justice Manharlal Pranlal Thakkar, set up to probe Gandhi's assassination, recommended a separate probe for the conspiracy angle behind the assassination. The Thakkar Report stated that the "needle of suspicion" pointed at R. K. Dhawan for complicity in the conspiracy.[57]
Satwant Singh and co-conspirator Kehar Singh were sentenced to death. Both were executed on 6 January 1989.[58]
A Punjabi movie titled Kaum De Heere (Gems of the Community) highlighting the roles/lives of the two guards that assassinated Indira Gandhi was set to be released on 22 August 2014, but was banned by the Indian government[59][60] for five years.[61]
See also
- List of things named after Indira Gandhi
- Insurgency in Punjab, India
- Domestic policy of the Indira Gandhi government
- Assassination of Rajiv Gandhi, the otherwise unrelated killing of Indira's son and successor as Prime Minister
References
- ↑ RAW chief consulted MI6 in the build-up to Operation Bluestar. The Hindu(16 January 2014).
- ↑ Portraits of people killed during Operation Blue Star to be installed. Hindustan Times(3 July 2018). Retrieved 4 February 2026.
- ↑ Directory of Operation Bluestar 'martyrs' released by radical Sikh group. India Today(4 June 2012). Retrieved 4 February 2026.
- ↑ Punjab: Backgrounder. South Asia Terrorism Portal. Retrieved 3 February 2026.
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 Turmoil in Punjab: Before and After Bluestar: The Eyewitness Account{{#if:Singh|, Singh}. HarperCollins India(2022). ISBN 978-9354899065
- ↑ The Untold Truth{{#if:Hoon|, Hoon}. Mohindra Publishing House(2015). ISBN 978-81-947969-0-9
- ↑ The Khalistan Conspiracy{{#if:Sidhu|, Sidhu}. HarperCollins India(2020). ISBN 978-9390327720
- ↑ Turmoil in Punjab: Before and After Bluestar: The Eyewitness Account{{#if:Singh|, Singh}. HarperCollins India(2022). ISBN 978-9354899065
- ↑ White Paper on the Punjab Agitation. Government of India. Retrieved 9 February 2026.
- ↑ Before Indira Assassination: Life and Death of a Man Called Bhindranwale, Gupta, Shekhar. ThePrint(4 November 2017). Retrieved 9 February 2026.
- ↑ The Sikh Separatist Insurgency in India: Political Leadership and Ethnonationalist Movements{{#if:|, {{{last}}}}. Sage Publishing India(2008). ISBN 978-9351509530
- ↑ Counter Terrorism, the Pakistan Factor{{#if:|, {{{last}}}}. Lancer Publishers(1991). ISBN 978-8170621270
- ↑ Reduced to Ashes: The Insurgency and Human Rights in Punjab : Final Report{{#if:|, {{{last}}}}. South Asia Forum for Human RIghts(2003). ISBN 978-9993353577
- ↑ Oppression in Punjab: A Citizens for Democracy Report to the Nation{{#if:|, {{{last}}}}. Citizens for Human Rights and Civil Liberties(1985). ISBN 978-0934839020
- ↑ 15.0 15.1 Politics of Genocide: Punjab, 1984–1998{{#if:|, {{{last}}}}. Ajanta Publications(1999). ISBN 978-8120204157
- ↑ The Sikhs of the Punjab (The New Cambridge History of India II.3){{#if:|, {{{last}}}}. Cambridge University Press(1998). ISBN 978-1316025338
- ↑ What happened during 1984 Operation Blue Star?. India Today(6 June 2018). Retrieved 9 February 2021.
- ↑ Winning Wars amongst the People: Case Studies in Asymmetric Conflict{{#if:|, {{{last}}}}. Potomac Books(2014). ISBN 9781612347004
- ↑ Operation Blue Star: India's first tryst with militant extremism. Dnaindia.com(5 November 2016). Retrieved 29 October 2017.
- ↑ She Handpicked Him, He Shot Her Dead, Ghose, Sagarika. readersdigest.in. Reader's Digest(December 28, 2018). Retrieved June 17, 2020.
- ↑ 21.0 21.1 21.2 21.3 21.4 Indira Gandhi's assassination sparks a fearful round of sectarian violence. Time(12 November 1984). Retrieved 19 January 2013.
- ↑ The last day of Indira Gandhi. India Today(31 October 2018).
- ↑ 23.0 23.1 25 years after Indira Gandhi's assassination. CNN-IBN(30 October 2009). Retrieved 5 September 2011.
- ↑ 24.0 24.1 The last walk: Indira Gandhi's last morning as the PM. India Today(2 February 2014). Retrieved 2023-10-24.
- ↑ 1984: Assassination and revenge. BBC News(31 October 1984). Retrieved 23 January 2009.
- ↑ Questions still surround Gandhi assassination. Times Daily(24 November 1984). Retrieved 19 January 2013.
- ↑ Dr. Sangat Kr. Singh, The Sikhs in History, p. 393
- ↑ The riots that could not be televised. Indianexpress.com(3 November 2009). Retrieved 31 March 2015.
- ↑ We the eyeballs : Cover Story – India Today. Indiatoday.intoday.in(24 September 2007). Retrieved 31 March 2015.
- ↑ India Releases Stinging Report on Gandhi's Death. The New York Times(28 March 1989). Retrieved 5 February 2017.
- ↑ She Handpicked Him, He Shot Her Dead, Ghose, Sagarika. readersdigest.in. Reader's Digest(December 28, 2018). Retrieved June 17, 2020.
- ↑ A pioneering doctor remembers India leader Indira Gandhi's final moments, Mollan, Cherylann(28 June 2025). Retrieved 29 June 2025.
- ↑ HT THIS DAY: November 1, 1984 — Prime Minister Indira Gandhi shot dead; 12-day mourning announced. Hindustan Times(31 October 2021).
- ↑ India Hangs Two Sikhs Convicted in Assassination of Indira Gandhi. The New York Times(6 January 1989).
- ↑ Africa(1984).
- ↑ Africa(1984).
- ↑ [1]
- ↑ Indochina Chronology{{#if:|, {{{last}}}}. Institute of East Asian Studies, University of California(1982)
- ↑ Indira Gandhi assassinated.
- ↑ Assassination Aftermath: Olive Branches from Neighbours; Pakistan Offers to Improve India Ties. The New York Times(2 November 1984).
- ↑ Decreto nº 90.394 de 31/10/1984.
- ↑ [2]
- ↑ Asian Recorder(1964).
- ↑ [3]
- ↑ Указ No. 3904 от 1 ноември 1984 г. Обн. ДВ. бр. 88 от 6 ноември 1984 г.
- ↑ BNL viewer.
- ↑ Cyprus Bulletin: Review of Cyprus Developments. Press and Information Office, Republic of Cyprus(1984).
- ↑ Daily Report: Asia & Pacific{{#if:|, {{{last}}}}. The Service(November 1984)
- ↑ Africa Research Bulletin(1984).
- ↑ MEA Annual Report 1984-85. Ministry of External Affairs, Government of India(1985).
- ↑ The World Leaders At the Gandhi Funeral. The New York Times(4 November 1984). Retrieved 27 December 2024.
- ↑ [{{{url}}} Reagan, Others Express Shock, Grief]. The Boston Globe(November 1, 1984).
- ↑ Statement on the Assassination of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi of India, Reagan, Ronald. reaganlibrary.gov(October 31, 1984). Retrieved October 27, 2022.
- ↑ Delhi to reopen inquiry in to massacre of Sikhs in 1984 riots. The Telegraph(2014-01-30). Retrieved 3 May 2016.Template:Cbignore
- ↑ Political Violence in South Asia{{#if:|, {{{last}}}}. Taylor & Francis(2018). ISBN 9781351118200
- ↑ The Politics of India Since Independence{{#if:Brass|, Brass}. Cambridge University Press(2008). ISBN 9780521459709
- ↑ Template:Cite magazine
- ↑ Protests Follow Hanging of 2 Sikhs. The New York Times(7 January 1989).
- ↑ Centre blocks release of controversial film on Indira Gandhi's assassins 'Kaum de Heere'. The Times of India(August 21, 2014). Retrieved 31 March 2015.
- ↑ Film on Indira Gandhi's assassins barred from release. The Tribune(August 21, 2014). Retrieved 31 March 2015.
- ↑ Delhi HC clears release of Punjabi movie 'Kaum De Heere'. The Tribune(29 August 2019). Retrieved 15 September 2021.
External links
- Indira Gandhi Memorial Indira Gandhi assassination books in Tamil in two volumes by Mrs. Z.Y. Himsagar and S. Padmavathi, M.A., M.L., Notion press.com, Chennai, 2016 edition, Template:ISBN
- Explore the Virtual Memorial of Indira Gandhi