History can be uncomfortable, but that is precisely why it must be confronted, not sanitised through memoirs, selective recollections and convenient explanations.
In her memoir, Belonging: A Journey of Love, Sonia Gandhi has offered an account of the delay in deploying the Army during the anti-Sikh massacre of November 1984 that deserves to be challenged against the official documentary record. Her suggestion that General AS Vaidya, the then Chief of Army Staff, refrained from mobilising the nearest Army units because they were manned by Sikh soldiers is a particularly troubling attempt to shift attention away from the failure of the Congress government.
She writes: "Although the Chief of Army Staff General A. S. Vaidya had received his orders the same night as the assassination, we heard later that he decided not to mobilise the nearest units because they were manned by Sikh soldiers, a factor that might have exacerbated the situation."
The phrase "we heard later" is revealing. An allegation of such consequence, implicating the professional judgement of the Army Chief during one of independent India's darkest chapters, is being advanced on the basis of what the author says was heard subsequently. There is no reference to a contemporaneous order, official communication or finding of an inquiry establishing that General Vaidya withheld Sikh-manned units for the reason suggested.
There is, however, an official inquiry that examined precisely the question Sonia Gandhi is now attempting to explain away: the Justice Ranganath Misra Commission of Inquiry. Its findings tell a very different story.
At approximately 10.30 am on 31 October 1984, General AS Vaidya directed a brigade from Meerut to move to Delhi. That brigade reached the capital before midnight.
The Commission examined the evidence of Major General JS Jamwal, the General Officer Commanding, Delhi Area. It recorded that the Army's available strength was approximately 6,100 personnel. Of these, 3,000 jawans were available for field duty, while 3,100 were deployed for security arrangements at Teen Murti Bhavan and along the route to Shakti Sthal for the funeral of Indira Gandhi.
The Commission's conclusion was unequivocal: "Thus, at least 5000 fighting Armymen were available by October 31 midnight."
Five thousand fighting Army personnel were available in Delhi by midnight on the very day Indira Gandhi was assassinated. General Vaidya had already ordered the movement of a brigade from Meerut. The Army was neither absent nor waiting helplessly for reinforcements. Its personnel were available to be deployed.
The Commission also recorded that, after assuming office on 31 October, Rajiv Gandhi directed that the Army be alerted and called in if necessary. The Army had been alerted, and its leadership had given clearance for assistance.
Yet, as the situation deteriorated, the decision to requisition the Army was delayed.
On the morning of 1 November, Police Commissioner SC Tandon and Lieutenant Governor P.G. Gavai discussed the deteriorating situation. At approximately 10 am, the Police Commissioner informed the Lieutenant Governor that Army assistance was required. A meeting with the General Officer Commanding, Delhi Area, followed at around 1 pm The Army became operational in South and Central Delhi only by the evening. Its deployment expanded to almost every area of Delhi by the evening of 2 November.
The significance of this delay cannot be overstated. While the administration deliberated, thousands of innocent Sikhs remained exposed to murderous violence.
The Justice Misra Commission made the consequences of this failure devastatingly clear. It observed: "If the Army had been called in in the morning of November 1, 1984"
The Commission then explained what timely intervention could have prevented: "5,000 Army jawans divided into columns and moving into the streets properly armed would not have brought about the death of at least 2,000 people."
These are not political allegations or retrospective interpretations. They are the Commission's own observations about the consequences of delaying the deployment of troops that were already available.
It went further and expressly identified where the responsibility for the delay lay: "The Government as also the Chief of the Army Staff had already given clearance for the Army being called and the delay in taking the decision and making the requisition was of the Delhi Administration - squarely of the Lt. Governor and the Commissioner of Police."
This is the central finding that Sonia Gandhi's account fails to confront. The Army Chief had given clearance. The Army had been alerted. Thousands of fighting personnel were available. The delay occurred in the Delhi Administration's decision to requisition and deploy them.
Her reference to units from Dehradun taking time to reach Delhi also needs to be seen in the correct chronology. The Commission records that the Meerut brigade had reached Delhi before midnight on 31 October. It subsequently records the arrival of five brigades from Meerut, Roorkee, Shahjahanpur, Alwar and Punjab on 2 November. The movement of additional formations cannot be confused with the availability of troops already present in the capital.
There is, of course, a distinction between the Commission's specific attribution of administrative responsibility and the larger political responsibility of the government. The Commission identified the Lieutenant Governor and Police Commissioner as responsible for the delay in taking the decision and making the requisition. But that does not absolve the political leadership of the government headed by Rajiv Gandhi. The protection of citizens is the most fundamental responsibility of any government. The failure of the administrative machinery to act decisively, despite the availability of the Army and the gravity of the situation, was a failure of governance for which the political executive cannot disclaim responsibility.
And then there are Rajiv Gandhi's own words, which remain among the most disturbing aspects of the entire episode.
On 19 November 1984, barely three weeks after the massacre, Rajiv Gandhi addressed a gathering at the Boat Club in Delhi on the occasion of Indira Gandhi's birth anniversary. Referring to the violence following his mother's assassination, he made the infamous observation: "जब बड़ा पेड़ गिरता है तो धरती थोड़ी हिलती है।"
"When a big tree falls, the earth shakes a little."
The remark was profoundly insensitive to the suffering of a community whose members had been systematically hunted and killed. It appeared to portray the slaughter of innocent citizens as an almost natural consequence of the fall of a political giant.
A Prime Minister's responsibility in such circumstances is to unequivocally condemn the violence, reassure citizens that the State will protect them and demand the strictest accountability from those responsible. Instead, the country heard an analogy that has since become an enduring symbol of the Congress leadership's moral failure in the aftermath of the massacre.
The anti-Sikh massacre was not an unavoidable consequence of Indira Gandhi's assassination. It was not a natural tremor of public anger. It was a catastrophic failure of the State to protect its citizens at a moment when they were most vulnerable.
Thousands of Sikhs were killed. Families were destroyed, women widowed, children orphaned and entire neighbourhoods devastated. For many survivors, the trauma was compounded by decades of delayed justice.
It is against this history that Sonia Gandhi's memoir must be judged. A personal recollection cannot displace the findings of an official Commission. Nor can an allegation introduced through the words "we heard later" be allowed to obscure the documented chronology of Army mobilisation and administrative inaction.
The question she should have confronted is a much more fundamental one: when thousands of Sikhs were being attacked, why did a government that had already alerted the Army, and an administration that had thousands of fighting personnel available, fail to ensure their timely deployment?
Instead, her account invites readers to look towards the Army Chief.
That is not an honest reckoning with 1984. It is an attempt to redirect accountability and whitewash the blood-soaked legacy of the Congress party.
The victims of 1984 deserve more than selective recollections. Their families deserve more than retrospective explanations. They deserve an honest acknowledgement of how the State failed them and why.
The Army was ready. The troops were available. The State failed to act in time. No memoir can change that historical record.
Amit Malviya is the Sah Prabhari of BJP Maharashtra and memeber of the national executive.
