India’s Prime Minister, Mrs. Indira Gandhi, had a typically busy agenda on October 31, 1984. In the morning, she was to be interviewed by renowned British actor, comedian, and writer Peter Ustinov. In the afternoon, she was due to host the former British prime minister, James Callaghan, for tea. The evening was reserved for a private dinner with Her Royal Highness Princess Anne, who was in India in her capacity as the president of the Save the Children charity. Elsewhere, the England cricket team, led by its captain David Gower, was landing at the airport for a hotly anticipated cricket series with India.

09.12 am

Peter Ustinov sits waiting for the Prime Minister in her New Delhi office at 1 Akbar Road, adjacent to her official residence at 1 Safdarjung Road. With the camera set up on the lawns of the extensive garden, the film crew was ready to record the interview for a new series entitled Peter Ustinov’s People.

Prime minister Indira Gandhi greeting the public at her residence in New Delhi. on February 25, 1983. Photographer Sondeep Shankar

09.16 am

The serene morning atmosphere was abruptly shattered by what one of the Indian cameramen at first dismissed as firecrackers. The sound of birdsong gave way to a deafening burst of machine gun fire. Struck by over thirty rounds, the Prime Minister drops to the ground, where she lies, bleeding profusely. The two assassins, security policemen Beant Singh and Satwant Singh, stand over her. The killing was in retaliation for Mrs. Gandhi’s decision to send the Indian Army into the Sikhs’ holiest shrine, the Harmandir Sahib, popularly known as the Golden Temple in Amritsar, in June 1984.

“Our cameras were locked into position, ready for her, and the cushions were ready as she [Mrs. Gandhi] wanted them on her chair. I was already miked up; the tea was on the table, and we were all ready for a much more static show than what we got. You live with the moment and you’re aware of everything, and if the whole garden is bristling with trigger-happy soldiers looking for something to move, not sure how many assassins there are, you’re absolutely on your guard and all your senses are woken. It’s only later that the shock waves come.” – Peter Ustinov, actor

09.30 am

Mrs. Gandhi is rushed to the All-India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) hospital, four kilometres away. She is accompanied by her Italian daughter-in-law, Sonia Gandhi.

10.00 am

People wait in anticipation for news of the Prime Minister at the AIIMS hospital in the capital, New Delhi. The hospital reports Mrs. Indira Gandhi’s condition as ‘very grave’, as she undergoes an emergency operation to remove the bullets. The BBC announced news of the attack. All-India Radio follows an hour later. All senior defence officers are informed in anticipation of trouble. Photographer Ashok Vahie.

11.00 am

The crowds begin to swell at the hospital, awaiting further news of the prime minister’s condition. A lone Sikh policeman, visible by his turban, is seen in the centre of the crowd, unaware of what was in store for his community in the coming hours and days. Photographer Ashok Vahie.

2.20 pm

The road to and from the hospital has people lining both sides of the pavement while the doctors declare the Prime Minister dead. Radio Australia had already announced the death an hour ago. Photographer Ashok Vahie.

3.30 pm

Delhi’s senior Congress leadership, comprising H. K. L. Bhagat, Lalit Maken, Sajjan Kumar, Dharam Dass Shastri, and Arjan Dass, who had earlier arrived to pay their respects to their fallen leader, left the hospital. According to information collected by President Zail Singh, they had decided on a chilling slogan to underpin their plans: ‘Blood for blood’. Attacks on Sikhs began immediately outside the hospital.

A mob vented their anger on Sikh-owned taxis on the wide boulevards of the capital. Some in the crowds are still carrying their workplace briefcases and bags. Photographer Ashok Vahie.

4.30 pm

A group of young Sikhs take shelter within the AIIMS hospital after being attacked by mobs outside. Photographer Ashok Vahie.

5.00 pm

President Zail Singh (right) arrives at the hospital, accompanied by Arun Nehru MP (left) and a distant cousin of Rajiv Gandhi, who is alleged to have given the green light to his party and police to ‘teach the Sikhs a lesson’. Photographer Ashok Vahie.

5.45 pm

After leaving the hospital, en route to his residence, Rashtrapati Bhavan, President Zail Singh’s cavalcade is greeted by an angry mob of Congress Party workers chanting anti-Sikh slogans and being pelted with stones. Although his bulletproof car was relatively unscathed, a bodyguard’s turban was forcibly removed. In a second vehicle, his press officer fended off a vicious attack by staff-wielding thugs with a seat that had been ripped out of his car. Photographer Ashok Vahie.

6.00 pm

All India Radio announces Mrs. Gandhi’s death. India’s national newspapers publish special bulletins reporting the assassins as ‘two Sikhs and one clean-shaven Sikh’. Courtesy of The Wire.

6.30 pm

As news of the assassination spread, a group of distinguished Sikh military veterans hurriedly convened a meeting. They included Lieutenant-General Jagjit Singh Aurora, the hero of Mrs. Gandhi’s war of liberation in East Pakistan—the region that would become Bangladesh. In an attempt to prevent retaliation against the minority Sikh populace, the group issues the following condemnation of the assassination, though it fails to make the news:

“No society, least of all a society like ours with its long traditions of spiritualism, scholarship, and humanism, can allow black deeds of murderous folly to destroy its civilised fabric. We condemn in unequivocal terms the dastardly attempt on the life of the Prime Minister, Mrs. Indira Gandhi, to which she tragically fell victim. We consider such an act, and what it is likely to trigger off, a grave threat to the country’s integrity and unity.”
Lt. Gen. J.S. Arora (Retd), Gurbachan Singh, Ex. Ambassador; Air Chief Marshall Arjan Singh; Ex. Chief of Air Staff; Brig. Sukhjit Singh (Retd); Patwant Singh, author

7.00 pm

Mrs. Gandhi’s son, Rajiv, is hurriedly installed as the country’s sixth and youngest Prime Minister. President Zail Singh (left) swears in Rajiv Gandhi (right) during the ceremony at Rashtrapati Bhavan.

9.00 pm

A secret meeting takes place at the home of H.K.L. Bhagat, MP and Minister of Information and Broadcasting, and is attended by senior police officers, reportedly among them the additional commissioner of police, Hukum Chand Jatav, who had command over the capital’s Central, East, and North districts. Shoorveer Singh Tyagi, station house officer in charge of Kalyanpuri police station, made the claim to a lawyer years later that it was decided that officials ‘down the line [were] to let the killings take place and then erase all traces of the crime’.

At another meeting near the Trilokpuri colony, this time at the home of the local Congress Party pardhan (leader) Rampal Saroj, instructions were reportedly given verbally to party members present that ‘the entire Sikh community had to be taught a lesson’.

A senior bureaucrat in the government is warned of the impending carnage, alleging that ‘clearance has been given by Arun Nehru MP [cousin of Rajiv Gandhi] for the killings in Delhi, and the killings have started’. He went on to describe how the gruesome plan was to be implemented:

“The strategy is to catch Sikh youth, fling a tyre over their heads, douse them with kerosene and set them on fire. This will calm the anger of the Hindus.”
Former Petroleum Secretary Avtar Singh Gill, who was forewarned of the plan by Lalit Suri, a hotelier and friend of Rajiv Gandhi’s, Quoted by Hartosh Singh Bal. The Caravan. November 3, 2017.

During the evening

Sikh homes are marked with the letter ‘S’
False rumours begin to be spread targeting Sikhs
Blood for blood chants broadcast on national tv

Mrs. Gandhi’s Legacy

1 November 1984

Hour-by-hour accounts of the events in India following the assassination of Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi.