The 1984 anti-Sikh riots, also known as the 1984 Sikh massacre, were a series of organised pogroms against Sikhs in India following the assassination of Indira Gandhi by her Sikh bodyguards. Government estimates were that about 2,800 Sikhs were killed in Delhi and 3,350 nationwide, whilst other sources estimate the number of deaths at about 8,000–17,000.
The assassination of Indira Gandhi had taken place after she had ordered Operation Blue Star, a military action in June 1984 to secure the Golden Temple, a Sikh temple complex in Amritsar, Punjab, which is one of the holiest sites in Sikhism. The operation led to a deadly battle with armed Sikh groups demanding greater rights and autonomy for Punjab, resulting in the deaths of many pilgrims. Sikhs worldwide had criticised the army action and many saw it as an assault on their religion and identity.
In the aftermath of the pogroms, the government reported that 20,000 Sikhs had fled the city; the People's Union for Civil Liberties reported "at least" 1,000 displaced persons. The most-affected regions were the Sikh neighborhoods of Delhi. Human rights organisations and newspapers across India believed that the massacre was organised. The collusion of political officials connected to the Indian National Congress in the violence and judicial failure to penalize the perpetrators alienated Sikhs and increased support for the Khalistan movement. The Akal Takht, Sikhism's governing body, considers the killings a genocide. The Central Bureau of Investigation believes that the violence was organised with support from the Delhi police and some central-government officials.
After 34 years of delay, in December 2018, the first high-profile conviction for the 1984 anti-Sikh riots took place with the arrest of Congress leader Sajjan Kumar, who was sentenced to life imprisonment by the Delhi High Court. Very few convictions have taken place in the pending 1984 cases, with only one death penalty conviction for an accused, Yashpal in the case of murdering Sikhs in the Mahipalpur area of Delhi.
Background
In the 1972 Punjab state elections, Congress won and Akali Dal was defeated. In 1973, Akali Dal put forward the Anandpur Sahib Resolution to demand more autonomy to Punjab. It demanded that power be generally devolved from the Central to state governments. The Congress government considered the resolution a secessionist document and rejected it. Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale, a prominent Sikh leader of Damdami Taksal, then joined the Akali Dal to launch the Dharam Yudh Morcha in 1982 to implement the Anandpur Sahib resolution. Bhindranwale had risen to prominence in the Sikh political circle with his policy of getting the Anandpur Resolution passed. Others demanded an autonomous state in India, based on the Anandpur Sahib Resolution.
As high-handed police methods were used on protesters during the Dharam Yudh Morcha, creating state repression affecting a very large segment of Punjab's population, retaliatory violence came from a section of the Sikh population, widening the scope of the conflict by the use of violence of the state on its own people, creating fresh motives for Sikh youth to turn to insurgency. The concept of a separate Sikh state (the Khalistan movement) was still vague even while the complex was fortified under the influence of former Sikh army officials alienated by government actions who now advised Bhindranwale, Major General Shabeg Singh and retired Major General and Brigadier Mohinder Singh, and at that point the concept was still not directly connected with the movement he headed. In other parts of Punjab, a "state of chaos and repressive police methods" combined to create "a mood of overwhelming anger and resentment in the Sikh masses against the authorities," making Bhindranwale even more popular, and demands of independence gain currency, even amongst moderates and Sikh intellectuals.
By 1983, the situation in Punjab was volatile. In October, Sikh militants stopped a bus and shot six Hindu passengers. On the same day, another group killed two officials on a train. The Congress-led central government dismissed the Punjab state government (led by their party), invoking the president's rule. During the five months before Operation Blue Star, from 1 January to 3 June 1984, 298 people were killed in violent incidents across Punjab. In the five days preceding the operation, 48 people were killed by violence. According to government estimates, the number of civilians, police, and militants killed was 27 in 1981, 22 in 1982, and 99 in 1983. By June 1984, the total number of deaths was 410 in violent incidents and riots while 1,180 people were injured.
On 1 June, Operation Blue Star was launched to remove Bhindranwale and armed militants from the Golden Temple complex. On 6 June Bhindranwale died in the operation. Casualty figures for the Army were 83 dead and 249 injured. According to the official estimate presented by the Indian government, 1592 were apprehended and there were 493 combined militant and civilian casualties. Later operations by Indian paramilitary forces were conducted to clear the separatists from the state of Punjab.
The operation carried out in the temple caused outrage among the Sikhs and increased the support for Sikh separatism. Four months after the operation, on 31 October 1984, Indira Gandhi was assassinated by her two Sikh bodyguards, Satwant Singh and Beant Singh. One of the assassins was fatally shot by Gandhi's other bodyguards while the other was convicted of Gandhi's murder and then executed. Public outcry over Gandhi's death led to the killings of Sikhs in the ensuing 1984 anti-Sikh riots.
Geopolitical context
Before British colonisation, Punjab was a region dominated by Sikh states known as Misls, which were later unified into the Sikh Empire by Maharaja Ranjit Singh. Following the British victory in the Second Anglo-Sikh War of 1849, the Sikh Empire was dissolved and integrated into the Punjab Province. This period saw the emergence of religio-nationalist movements as a response to British colonial policies and socio-political changes. The concept of a Sikh homeland, Khalistan, emerged in the 1930s as British rule in India began to weaken. This idea gained momentum in response to the Muslim League's demand for a Muslim state, with the Sikhs viewing it as an encroachment on historically Sikh territory. The Akali Dal, a Sikh political party, envisioned Khalistan as a theocratic state, comprising parts of what is today Punjab in both India and Pakistan.
Post-independence, the Akali Dal led the Punjabi Suba movement, advocating for the creation of a Punjabi-majority state within India. The movement's demands ranged from autonomous statehood within India to a fully sovereign state (Khalistan). Initially, the Indian government resisted these demands, wary of creating another state based on religious grounds. By the late 1970s and 1980s, the Khalistan movement began to militarize, marked by a shift in Sikh nationalism and the rise of armed militancy. This period, especially leading up to and following Operation Blue Star in 1984, saw increased Sikh militancy as a response to perceived injustices and political marginalization.
Violence
After the assassination of Indira Gandhi on 31 October 1984 by two of her Sikh bodyguards, anti-Sikh riots erupted the following day. They continued in some areas for several days, in which 3,000–17,000 people were killed. At least 50,000 Sikhs were displaced. Sultanpuri, Mangolpuri, Trilokpuri, and other Trans-Yamuna areas of Delhi were the worst affected. Perpetrators carried iron rods, knives, clubs, and combustible material (including kerosene and petrol). They entered Sikh neighbourhoods, killing Sikhs indiscriminately and destroying shops and houses. Armed mobs stopped buses and trains in and near Delhi, pulling off Sikh passengers for lynching; some were burnt alive. Others were dragged from their homes and hacked to death, and Sikh women were reportedly gang-raped and Sikhs also had acid thrown on them.
Such wide-scale violence cannot take place without police help. Delhi Police, whose paramount duty was to upkeep law and order situation and protect innocent lives, gave full help to rioters who were in fact working under able guidance of sycophant leaders like Jagdish Tytler and H K L Bhagat. It is a known fact that many jails, sub-jails and lock-ups were opened for three days and prisoners, for the most part hardened criminals, were provided fullest provisions, means and instruction to "teach the Sikhs a lesson". But it will be wrong to say that Delhi Police did nothing, for it took full and keen action against Sikhs who tried to defend themselves. The Sikhs who opened fire to save their lives and property had to spend months dragging heels in courts after-wards.
The grief, trauma, and survival of Sikh victims and witnesses is an important human perspective missing in much factual coverage of the riots. In interviews with Manoj Mitta and H.S. Phoolka for their book "When a Tree Shook Delhi," survivors recount harrowing tales of watching loved ones burned alive, raped, and dismembered. One Hindu woman describes her family sheltering over 70 Sikhs from murderous mobs who were targeting Sikh homes marked with an "S."Ensaaf's 2006 report "Twenty years of impunity" contains dozens of eyewitness statements accusing police and government officials of enabling and even participating in the violence. Personal stories help convey the true horrors endured by the Sikh community.
The riots have also been described as pogroms, massacres or genocide.
Meetings and weapons distribution
On 31 October, a crowd around the All India Institute of Medical Sciences began shouting vengeance slogans such as "Blood for blood!" and became an unruly mob. At 17:20, President Zail Singh arrived at the hospital and the mob stoned his car. The mob began assaulting Sikhs, stopping cars and buses to pull Sikhs out and burn them. The violence on 31 October, restricted to the area around the AIIMS, resulted in many Sikh deaths. Residents of other parts of Delhi reported that their neighbourhoods were peaceful.
During the night of 31 October and the morning of 1 November, Congress Party leaders met with local supporters to distribute money and weapons. Congress MP Sajjan Kumar and trade-union leader Lalit Maken handed out ₹100 notes and bottles of liquor to the assailants. On the morning of 1 November, Sajjan Kumar was observed holding rallies in the Delhi neighbourhoods of Palam Colony (from 06:30 to 07:00), Kiran Gardens (08:00 to 08:30), and Sultanpuri (about 08:30 to 09:00). In Kiran Gardens at 8:00 am, Kumar was observed distributing iron rods from a parked truck to a group of 120 people and ordering them to "attack Sikhs, kill them, and loot and burn their properties". During the morning he led a mob along the Palam railway road to Mangolpuri, where the crowd chanted: "Kill the Sardars" and "Indira Gandhi is our mother and these people have killed her". In Sultanpuri, Moti Singh (a Sikh Congress Party member for 20 years) heard Kumar make the following speech:
Whoever kills the sons of the snakes, I will reward them. Whoever kills Roshan Singh and Bagh Singh will get 5,000 rupees each and 1,000 rupees each for killing any other Sikhs. You can collect these prizes on 3 November from my personal assistant Jai Chand Jamadar.
The Central Bureau of Investigation told the court that during the riot, Kumar said that "not a single Sikh should survive". The bureau accused Delhi Police of keeping its "eyes closed" during the riot, which was planned.
In the Shakarpur neighbourhood, Congress Party leader Shyam Tyagi's home was used as a meeting place for an undetermined number of people. According to a local Hindu witness, Minister of Information and Broadcasting H. K. L. Bhagat, gave money to Boop Tyagi (Tyagi's brother), saying: "Keep these two thousand rupees for liquor and do as I have told you ... You need not worry at all. I will look after everything."
During the night of 31 October, Balwan Khokhar (a local Congress Party leader who was implicated in the massacre) held a meeting at Pandit Harkesh's ration shop in Palam. Congress Party supporter Shankar Lal Sharma held a meeting, where he assembled a mob which swore to kill Sikhs, in his shop at 08:30 on 1 November.
Kerosene, the primary mob weapon, was supplied by a group of Congress Party leaders who owned filling stations. In Sultanpuri, Congress Party A-4 block president Brahmanand Gupta distributed oil while Sajjan Kumar "instructed the crowd to kill Sikhs, and to loot and burn their properties" (as he had done at other meetings throughout New Delhi). Similar meetings were held at locations such as Cooperative Colony in Bokaro, where local Congress president and gas-station owner P. K. Tripathi distributed kerosene to mobs. Aseem Shrivastava, a graduate student at the Delhi School of Economics, described the mobs' organised nature in an affidavit submitted to the Misra Commission:
The attack on Sikhs and their property in our locality appeared to be an extremely organised affair ... There were also some young men on motorcycles, who were instructing the mobs and supplying them with kerosene oil from time to time. On more than a few occasions we saw auto-rickshaw arriving with several tins of kerosene oil and other inflammable material, such as jute sacks.
A senior official at the Ministry of Home Affairs told journalist Ivan Fera that an arson investigation of several businesses burned in the riots had found an unnamed combustible chemical "whose provision required large-scale coordination". Eyewitness reports confirmed the use of a combustible chemical in addition to kerosene. The Delhi Sikh Gurdwara Management Committee later cited 70 affidavits noting the use of a highly-flammable chemical in its written reports to the Misra Commission.