October 31, 1984: Prime Minister Indira Gandhi of India is assassinated, in the garden of the official Prime Minister's residence at 1 Safdarjung Road, in the national capital of New Delhi. She was 66 years old.
Indira Priyadarshini Nehru was born on November 19, 1917 in Allahabad, in what was then known as British India. Her father, Jawaharlal Nehru, and his friend, Mohandas K. Gandhi, a.k.a. the Mahatma, were the leaders of India's independence movement, achieved in 1947. Jawaharlal Nehru became the 1st Prime Minister. Gandhi was assassinated just 5 months later.
Nehru's daughter, Indira, married a Member of Parliament, Feroze Gandhi. He was not related to the Mahatma: He had changed the spelling of his surname, Ghandy, in tribute. Indira Gandhi served her father unofficially as a personal assistant during his tenure as Prime Minister. Towards the end of the 1950s, Gandhi served as the President of the Congress.
After her father's death in 1964, she was appointed a member of the upper house of the Indian Congress, the Rajya Sabha, and served in the Cabinet of Prime Minister Lai Bahadur Shastri, as Minister of Information and Broadcasting. When Shastri died in 1966, the Congress Party elected her as Leader on January 24, making her the Prime Minister. Since she was a woman, other party leaders hoped to use her as a puppet, with the Hindi media calling her "Goongi Goodiya": "Dumb Doll."
They were all in for a surprise. Having become an elected leader before nearly any other woman in history, she understood how crucial her role could be. Having served at her father's side and in his successor's Cabinet, she was no political rookie. And, at 48, she was just entering her political prime.
Following some initial setbacks, both in governing and in an election, she was expelled from the Congress Party by its President, Siddavanahalli Nijalingappa. She then formed a new party, and pulled enough members away to gain a new majority, making her again the leader of the Congress Party, and expelled Nijalingappa.
Like the recent American President Lyndon Johnson, she launched a war on poverty, which gained her support throughout the country, and she gained seats in the 1971 election. This was immediately followed with the Indo-Pakistani War, which India won, leading to the separation of East Pakistan as the new nation of Bangladesh.
She maintained good relations with Britain and the other nations of the British Commonwealth, including Canada, Australia, and some of the former British colonies in Africa. And she was opposed to Red China, with whom India had fought a brief war in 1962.
But she was not all on the West's side in the Cold War. She was also seen as friendly to the Soviet Union, and was opposed to America's role in the Vietnam War. And, despite majority-Hindu India's rivalry with all-Muslim Pakistan, she cultivated good relationships with the Muslim nations of the Middle East, and was critical of Israel.
She had gotten along with President John F. Kennedy when they met in 1962 (before she was Prime Minister), and LBJ in 1966. When she met with President Richard Nixon in November 1971, he was publicly cordial to her. But once she left, he let loose in a conversation with his National Security Advisor, Henry Kissinger, recorded on his infamous Oval Office tapes. Nixon said, "This is just the point when she is a bitch." Kissinger, speaking about Pakistan, responded, "Well, the Indians are bastards, anyway. They are starting a war there."
Like most other democracies, India was hit hard by the 1973 oil embargo. On top of the combined inflation and recession striking the world's largest democracy, including the world's largest middle class, she was accused of electoral malpractice. This led to some civil unrest, as both her supporters and her opponents were intense.
She declared an emergency in 1975, assuming greater emergency powers, in which her son, Sanjay Gandhi, began to exercise some power. This led to the contradictory claims of her opponents that she was too powerful, and that she was actually weak and that it was her son who was using the power. Having an opposition to herself was one thing, but having an opposition to her son as well was too far for some people. She called an election for March 24, 1977, hoping to vindicate herself, but the Congress Party lost, and among the seats lost were those of both mother and son.
Indira won a by-election in 1978, getting back into Parliament. And the new government couldn't hold things together, leading to a new election on January 7, 1980, which the Congress Party won. She was back in charge, but tragedy soon struck: On June 23, Sanjay was killed in a plane crash. (It was not suspicious: Witnesses all agreed he was attempting an unnecessary aerobatic maneuver.) He was only 33 years old.
This led Indira to do the same thing that Joseph P. Kennedy Sr. did when his eldest son was killed in World War II: Elevate the next son, in spite of his reluctance to enter the family business, to be the hope of the family's political future. But the move from Sanjay to Rajiv Gandhi, who at 36 was actually older, was less a move from Joe Kennedy Jr. to John F. Kennedy, and more a move from the hotheaded Sonny Corleone to the cooler, but ultimately more ruthless, Michael.
She did not meet with either Gerald Ford or Jimmy Carter while they were President, the latter being a problem because she was out of office for most of his Presidency. Having regained the Premiership, she met with President Ronald Reagan twice, and they got along well, giving America hope for improved relations with the only more populous nation on Earth that was a democracy.
In the Summer of 1982, a Sikh separatist movement gained momentum, led by Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale. He based his forces in the Golden Temple, the holiest site in the Sikh faith, in Amritsar, less than 20 miles east of the Pakistan border.
On June 6, 1984, after nearly 2 years of negotiations refused to get Bhindranwale to stand down, the Prime Minister launched Operation Blue Star. Heavy artillery caused heavy damage to the Temple, and the death toll, including Bhindranwale, is disputed, but has been described as "many hundreds to many thousands." Opponents said she was using the attack to shore up support for the Congress Party in elections set for the end of the year.
But it was her own bodyguards she had to watch out for. Since Sikhs have a reputation as warriors, they are assigned as protective detail for the Prime Minister. On October 31, 1984, she was walking through the garden (backyard) of her official residence, about to give an interview with British actor Peter Ustinov for a documentary. She never made it, because 2 bodyguards, Satwant Singh and Beant Singh, not related to each other ("Singh" is as common as "Smith" among Sikhs), drew their service weapons, and fired 33 shots at her. Doctors worked on her for 5 hours, but she never had a chance.
They were taken to another room, where Beant Singh was immediately shot. He was 25. Satwant Singh was tried, was convicted, and was executed at the Tihar Jail in New Delhi on January 6, 1989. He was 26.
After the assassination, the Congress Party immediately elected Rajiv Gandhi as Prime Minister. At 40, he was, and remains, the youngest in the country's history. He was defeated for re-election in 1989. On May 21, 1991, running to regain the office, he was campaigning in Chennai when he, too, was assassinated.
In 2022, Rahul Gandhi, son of Rajiv, is out of office, but has been President of the Congress Party. His sister, Priyanka Gandhi, is the Party's General Secretary. Varun Gandhi, son of Sanjay, is a member of the other major party, the Bharatiya Janata Party, led by the current Prime Minister, the right-wing and Hindu nationalist Narendra Modi. If Modi should ever give up power willingly, it could lead to a civil war within the family -- and, perhaps, in the country.
*
October 31, 1984 was a Wednesday. Baseball season was over. Football was in midweek. There were 3 NBA games that night:
* The New Jersey Nets lost to the Boston Celtics, 116-105 at the Boston Garden.
* The Dallas Mavericks beat the Indiana Pacers, 101-100 at the Market Square Arena in Indianapolis.
* And the Milwaukee Bucks beat the Washington Bullets, 105-79 at the Milwaukee Exposition, Convention Center and Arena, or "The MECCA." Since 2014, it has been named the UW-Panther Arena.
And there were 6 games in the NHL:
* The New Jersey Devils lost to the Pittsburgh Penguins, 7-6 at the Brendan Byrne Arena in the Meadowlands. Uli Heimer scored a hat trick for the Devils. But Wayne Babych and Warren Young each scored 2 goals for the Penguins, and rookie Mario Lemieux added 1.
* The Quebec Nordiques beat the Hartford Whalers, 5-3 at the Hartford Civic Center (now the PeoplesBank Arena).
* The Washington Capitals beat the Calgary Flames, 4-3 at the Capital Centre in the Washington suburb of Landover, Maryland. Mike Gartner scored the winning goal, with 3:02 left in overtime.
* The Philadelphia Flyers and the Buffalo Sabres played to a tie, 3-3 at the Buffalo Memorial Auditorium.
* The St. Louis Blues beat the Toronto Maple Leafs, 6-5 at the St. Louis Arena. Brian Sutter scored the winning goal with 3:52 left in overtime.
* And the Los Angeles Kings beat the Vancouver Canucks, 10-3 at the Pacific Coliseum in Vancouver. Dave Taylor had a hat trick.
