Satwant Singh
Satwant Singh was a Sikh individual born and raised in the village of Agwaan Kurd, India. He served as a police officer after joining the force in 1981 and later became a member of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi's personal bodyguard. His life took a dramatic turn during the politically fraught period of Operation Blue Star in June 1984, which aimed to remove separatist Sikhs from the Golden Temple, a sacred site for Sikhs. This operation profoundly radicalized Singh, leading him to participate in the assassination of Indira Gandhi on October 31, 1984, alongside Beant Singh. Following the assassination, Singh was arrested and later tried for his involvement in her murder. He was found guilty and executed by hanging on January 6, 1989. The aftermath of the assassination sparked widespread violence against Sikhs in India, resulting in thousands of deaths and significant communal strife. Singh's actions and their repercussions continue to resonate in discussions about religious tensions and political violence in India.
Subject Terms
Satwant Singh
Sikh assassin
- Born: 1962
- Birthplace: Gurdaspur, Punjab, India
- Died: January 6, 1989
- Place of death: New Delhi, India
Major offense: Assassination of Indian prime minister Indira Gandhi
Active: October 31, 1984
Locale: The prime minister’s house, New Delhi
Sentence: Death by hanging
Early Life
Satwant Singh (SAT-wahnt sihng) was raised in the Sikh village of Agwaan Kurd and educated to the high school level at Dera Baba Nanak School.
Law Enforcement Career
On December 5, 1981, Singh became a policeman. After completing his training on December 31, 1983, he was stationed in Uttar Pradesh, north India. In July, 1983, he was transferred to New Delhi, where he served as one of the uniformed members of the personal bodyguard of the prime minister with the rank of police constable. He was engaged to be married to Surinder Kaur, but their marriage was postponed in 1984 because Singh could not get leave from his duties.
In June, 1984, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi ordered Operation Blue Star, an army action designed to oust separatist Sikhs from the Golden Temple Complex, the most sacred site of the Sikh religion. The attack left the complex badly damaged. This act radicalized Singh, as it did many Sikhs, and Singh came under the influence of the conspirators Beant Singh and his uncle Kehar Singh. The three men visited the complex to see for themselves the damage caused by troops. On October 24, Satwant Singh and Beant Singh took part in a Sikh religious service, Amrit, at a temple in Delhi.
On October 31, 1984, Gandhi, with staff members, left her house to walk along the path of her garden to her office next door to be interviewed for a British Broadcasting Company documentary. She stopped at the gate dividing the two properties to greet Beant Singh and Satwant Singh, who were on security duty. It was 9:12 a.m. Beant Singh pulled out his .38-bore service revolver and fired five bullets into Gandhi. Satwant Singh was stunned into inaction at first, but Beant Singh told him to shoot. Satwant Singh then opened fire, emptying twenty-five bullets into Gandhi from his Sten gun. The assassins then dropped their weapons as other security personnel ran to the scene. Beant Singh told them, “I have done what I had to do. Now you do what you have to do.” Beant Singh and Satwant Singh were taken to the guardhouse, where they were shot ten minutes later as they attempted to escape. Beant Singh was killed, but Satwant Singh survived. At 2:23 p.m. Indira Gandhi was pronounced dead at a nearby hospital.
Legal Action and Outcome
Justice M. P. Thakkar was appointed to hold an enquiry into the assassination to examine whether there was a security lapse and if foreign powers were involved. He submitted his report on February 27, 1986. The conspiracy involved several people, the report said, but there was no foreign involvement. Satwant Singh was tried for his crime, found guilty, and, along with fellow conspirator Kehar Singh, hanged on January 6, 1989.
Impact
Immediately after news reached the streets that Sikhs had killed Gandhi, Hindus went on a campaign of revenge, hunting down Sikhs in an orgy of bloodshed. The carnage lasted three days before law and order was restored. More than twenty-five hundred Sikhs died in Delhi, and thousands more were killed in other cities. The total death toll is unknown. Within hours of Indira Gandhi’s death, her son Rajiv Gandhi (1944-1991) was sworn in as prime minister of India.
Bibliography
Anandaram, S. Assassination of a Prime Minister: As It Happened. New Delhi: Vision Books, 1994. This study offers good details of the assassination by the person in charge of the investigation.
Frank, Kathleen. Indira: The Life of Indira Gandhi. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2002. In this easy-to-read biography of Gandhi by the biographer who has written books on such renowned women as Mary Kingsley, Emily Brontë, and Lucie Duff Gordon, Frank offers a summary of Operation Blue Star and the assassination in chapter 20, “Another Amritsar,” and chapter 21, “31 October 1984.”
Singh, Anurag, ed. Giani Kirpal Singh’s Eye-Witness Account of Operation Blue-Star: Mighty Murderous Army Attack on the Golden Temple Complex. Amritsar: B. Chattar Singh Jiwan Singh, 1999. Useful for an understanding of the outrage felt by many Sikhs at Operation Blue Star and the damage caused to the Golden Temple complex. The attack was interpreted as an assault on Sikhism itself in a holy war waged by Hindus.