From 1 November, while Mrs Gandhi’s body lay-in state, the owned Doordarshan TV station continuous named the assassins and, significantly, an emphasis on their faith. In a suggested incitement, the predetermined chilling phrase, ‘blood for blood’, was aired and repeated over state-controlled airwaves.1

At one point during the day a forty-second segment of footage showed the ‘blood for blood’ slogan being repeated eighteen times.2 This was reminiscent of the broadcasting of anti-Tutsi propaganda via the television and radio station during the Rwanda genocide a decade later.3

When retired chief justice of the Punjab and Haryana High Court, Ranjit Singh Narula turned on the television on the morning of 1 November of the live scenes outside Teen Murti House where the former prime minister lay in state, he noticed the clamouring crowds spewing hate-filled slogans:

‘We will take blood for blood!’, ‘Sikhs are the nation’s traitors!’4 – as high-ranking government and police officials looked on.5
At one point during the day a forty-second segment of footage showed the ‘blood for blood’ slogan being repeated eighteen times. These highly-charged scenes seemed to continue to be aired throughout the day.6

The potential impact of this kind of skewed reporting by the state-owned television station was significant. Audiences nationally for Doordarshan was around 35 million.7 What it transmitted as news to a population with a high rate of illiteracy was hugely significant. They held the power to shape the nation’s mood, particularly when wielded as a tool of propaganda.8

Senior Advocate in the Supreme Court, Shanti Bhushan also witnessed the telecast on 1 November and was shocked at what was allowed to be aired in a sensitive moment for the country:

That when I watched the T.V. broadcast of the place where Mrs. Gandhi’s body was lying in state to enable members of the public pay their respect to the departed leader, I also heard slogan on the T.V. “KHOON KA BADLA KHOON SE LENGE” [we shall avenge murder by murder]. When these slogans were being shouted, I noted that Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi was present at that place and was bound to have heard these slogans.

Affidavit of Shanti Bhushan submitted to Nanavati Commission.4

Journalist Tavleen Singh had a similar reaction when she watched the broadcast of Rajiv Gandhi’s first speech as prime minister:

In a calm, emotionless voice, he said India had lost a great leader. Someone who was not just his mother but the mother of the country, or words to that effect. Then he stopped and stared sadly at the camera while Doordarshan showed shots of H. K. L. Bhagat and his supporters beating their breasts and shouting, ‘Khoon ka badla khoon se lenge.’ Blood will be avenged with blood.

Tavleen Singh, Durbar10
  1. Lionel Baixas, ‘The Anti-Sikh Pogrom of October 31 to November 4, 1984, in New Delhi’, SciencesPo, 9 June, 2009. ↩︎
  2. Misra Commission of Inquiry, Misra Commission Report,1987, p 43. ↩︎
  3. Gérard Prunier, The Rwanda Crisis: History of a Genocide, 1999, p 189. ↩︎
  4. Ranjit Singh Narula, Defence Colony, ‘Affidavit of Prominent Persons’, Nanavati Commission. ↩︎
  5. Manoj Mitta and Harvinder Phoolka, When a Tree Shook Delhi, 2007, p 13. ↩︎
  6. Misra Commission Report, 1987, p 43. ↩︎
  7. Keval J. Kumar, Mass Communication in India, 2010. ↩︎
  8. Maya Ranganathan and Usha M. Rodrigues, Indian Media in a Globalised World, 2010, p 189. ↩︎
  9. Affidavit of Shanti Bhushan submitted to Nanavati Commission. ↩︎
  10. Tavleen Singh, Durbar, 2012, Chapter 12: Rajiv. ↩︎

Hate slogans aired on national Indian TV paved way for the 1984 Sikh Genocide.