Rajiv Gandhi - Story | Indian National Congress | Prime Minister | Assassination

Rajiv Gandhi was born on August 20, 1944, in Bombay India, and died on May 21, 1991, in Sriperumbudur, near Madras. He was an Indian politician and government official who became the leader of the Congress (I) Party, a faction of the Indian National Congress established in 1981. He served as prime minister of India from 1984 to 1989 after the assassination of his mother, Indira Gandhi. He was assassinated himself in 1991.

Early life 

Rajiv and his younger brother, Sanjay (1946–1980), were the sons of Feroze and Indira Gandhi. They attended the prestigious Doon School in Dehradun. Rajiv later went to Imperial College in London and completed an engineering course at the University of Cambridge in 1965. He met his future wife, Sonia, during this time. Once he returned to India, he got a commercial pilot’s license and worked for Indian Airlines starting in 1968.

Political career 

Rajiv avoided politics while his brother Sanjay was alive. After Sanjay died in a plane crash on June 23, 1980, Indira Gandhi, who was the prime minister at that time, pulled Rajiv into politics. He was elected to the Lok Sabha, the lower house of Parliament, in a by-election in June 1981 and became a member of the Indian Youth Congress, the youth wing of the Congress Party, that same month.

While Sanjay was labeled as politically aggressive and strong-willed, Rajiv was viewed as a thoughtful person who consulted with other party members and avoided rash decisions. After his mother’s assassination on October 31, 1984, Rajiv took the oath of office as prime minister that very day, and a few days later, he became the leader of the Congress (I) Party. He led the party to a significant victory in the December 1984 Lok Sabha elections. During his time, he aimed to reform the government bureaucracy and open up the economy. Rajiv’s efforts to curb separatist movements in Punjab and Kashmir did not succeed. His government became involved in multiple financial scandals, and his authority weakened. He resigned as prime minister in November 1989 after the Congress (I) Party lost in parliamentary elections, but he continued to lead the party.

Rajiv Gandhi’s birth anniversary is recognized every year as Sadbhavana Divas, or “Harmony Day.” The day promotes unity, national integration, and harmony among different religions, languages, and regions. 

In May 1991, while campaigning in Tamil Nadu for the upcoming parliamentary elections, Rajiv and 16 others were killed by a bomb hidden in a basket of flowers carried by a woman linked to the Tamil Tigers. In 1998, an Indian court found 26 people guilty of the conspiracy to assassinate him. The conspirators were Tamil militants from Sri Lanka and their Indian associates, who sought revenge for Rajiv’s decision to send Indian troops to Sri Lanka in 1987 to support a peace agreement, which led to conflict with Tamil guerrillas. After Rajiv’s death, his widow, Sonia Gandhi, took over the Congress Party, dropping the “I” designation in 1996. Their son, Rahul Gandhi, is also a politician and a prominent figure in the Indian National Congress.

The Indian National Congress is a broadly based political party in India. Founded in 1885, it played a key role in the Indian movement for independence from Great Britain. After independence, it formed most of India’s governments and often had a strong presence in state governments. Since 2014, it has not been in power at the national level.

History 

The pre-independence period 

Anti-colonial sentiment in India began during the East India Company’s activities in the 18th century and grew stronger in the mid-19th century. After the British raj was established, organized nationalist groups, like the Indian Association, formed to advocate for more Indian involvement in administration. These groups were forerunners to the Indian National Congress, founded by Indian leaders such as Dadabhai Naoroji and Surendranath Banerjee, along with British civil servant Allan Octavian Hume. The Congress Party first met in December 1885 in Bombay, with 72 members and W.C. Bonnerjee as president.

In its early years, the party passed relatively moderate reform proposals, though many members became increasingly radical due to the growing poverty caused by British rule. The party originally aimed for constitutional changes within the colonial system, using meetings, petitions, and press campaigns to voice its demands. Over time, these methods were seen as insufficient, leading to growing dissatisfaction with the moderates, who were the early leaders of the Congress Party. 

Despite their perceived lack of action, the moderates successfully built a strong economic critique of colonialism based on the socioeconomic conditions of 19th-century India. Exploitative British policies, combined with famines and epidemics, led to widespread poverty. India became mainly a supplier of raw materials to Britain and a consumer of British finished goods. The “drain of wealth” through heavy taxation, depletion of local resources, and income transfer to England were highlighted in the works of Naoroji, Romesh Chunder Dutt, and Dinshaw Wacha.

The “Lal Bal Pal” trio: From left, Lala Lajpat Rai, Bal Gangadhar Tilak, and Bipin Chandra Pal.

In the early 20th century, the party started to change into a nationwide movement in reaction to the partition of Bengal (1905-11). An "extremist" group emerged within the Congress Party, made up of the “Lal Bal Pal” trio (Lala Lajpat Rai, Bal Gangadhar Tilak, and Bipin Chandra Pal) and Annie Besant. This group began to support a policy of swadeshi, which encouraged Indians to boycott British goods and promote local products. The Swadeshi Movement, launched in 1905, was built on this idea of economic self-sufficiency and became the first organized mass action in the fight for independence.

Disputes between the extremists and the moderates, led by Gopal Krishna Gokhale, grew over the next few years and led to a contentious session in Surat (now in Gujarat state) in 1907. The Lal Bal Pal trio insisted on passing resolutions that favored swadeshi and boycotts. They also wanted Tilak to speak before the new moderate president, Rash Behari Ghose. When this demand was rejected, chaos erupted with shoes and chairs being thrown. The session ended before a formal split could happen. The two sides reconciled at the 1915 session in Bombay. By 1917, the extremists had started to gain significant influence by appealing to various social classes in India. Besant, who had launched the Home Rule League in 1916, became the party's first woman president.

In the 1920s and ’30s, the Congress Party, led by Mahatma Gandhi, started promoting nonviolent noncooperation. This shift in strategy came after protests against the weak constitutional reforms introduced in early 1919 (Rowlatt Act) and Britain’s handling of these reforms. The widespread anger among Indians was also fueled by the massacre of civilians at Jallianwala Bagh in Amritsar, Punjab, that April. Many acts of civil disobedience followed, organized through the All India Congress Committee, formed in 1929. This committee called for resistance to paying taxes as a protest against British rule. One of the most notable acts was the Salt March in 1930, led by Gandhi.

Another faction of the Congress Party, which preferred to work within the current system, contested general elections in 1923 and 1937 as the Swaraj Party. Led by Motilal Nehru and Chittaranjan Das, the Swaraj Party achieved notable success in the 1937 elections, winning 7 out of 11 provinces. As the independence movement advanced, the Congress Party shifted its focus from constitutional reform to seeking dominion status. The Nehru Report, released in 1928 and named after Motilal Nehru, first called for dominion status. This demand was later updated to Purna Swaraj (“Complete Self-Rule”) during the Congress session in Lahore in 1929, with the party making this resolution public on January 26, 1930.

Independence for India

When World War II started in 1939, Britain declared India a belligerent without consulting Indian elected councils. This decision angered Indian leaders and led the Congress Party to announce that India would not support the war until it was granted full independence. In 1942, the organization launched a large civil disobedience campaign known as the Quit India Movement, urging the British to leave India. The British responded by jailing all Congress Party leaders, including Gandhi, many of whom remained in prison until 1945. After the war, the new British government, led by Clement Attlee's Labour Party, decided to withdraw from India. The British Parliament passed an independence bill in July 1947, and India gained independence the following month. The Indian subcontinent was divided into two states: a Hindu-majority India and a Muslim-majority Pakistan. In January 1950, India’s status as an independent nation took effect when the Constitution of India was enacted.

Jawaharlal Nehru, Indira Gandhi, and Harry S. Truman

The first prime minister of India, Jawaharlal Nehru (second from right), was welcomed by U.S. President Harry S. Truman when he visited the United States in October 1949. Nehru’s daughter, Indira Gandhi, who later became prime minister, is on the right.

From 1951 until his death in 1964, Nehru dominated the Congress Party. The party achieved significant victories in the elections of 1951-52, 1957, and 1962. In 1964, the party united to elect Lal Bahadur Shastri as leader, and in 1966, Indira Gandhi (Nehru’s daughter) took on that role and became prime minister. However, in 1967, she faced a rebellion within the party. In 1969, a group called the “Syndicate,” led by K. Kamaraj and Morarji Desai, expelled her from the party. They formed a party called Congress (Organisation [O]), made up of the old leaders. Despite this, Gandhi’s New Congress Party, also known as Congress (Requisitionists [R]), achieved a landslide victory in the 1971 elections. For a time, it was unclear which party truly represented the Indian National Congress.

In the mid-1970s, support for the New Congress Party began to decline. From 1975, Gandhi’s government became increasingly authoritarian, leading to more unrest among the opposition. The Emergency, a period lasting 21 months during which the Constitution of India was suspended, was declared in June 1975. This action faced severe criticism for the limitations it placed on civil liberties under Gandhi’s government. In the parliamentary elections in March 1977, the opposition Janata (People’s) Party won a significant victory over the Congress Party, taking 295 out of 544 seats (542 elected, 2 nominated) in the Lok Sabha (the lower chamber of the Indian Parliament), compared to 154 for Congress. Gandhi lost her seat to her Janata Party opponent.

On January 2, 1978, she and her supporters left to form a new opposition party, widely known as Congress (I), with the "I" standing for Indira. Over the next year, her new party gained enough support in the legislature to become the official opposition. In 1981, the national election commission recognized it as the “real” Indian National Congress (the "I" designation was dropped in 1996). In November 1979, Gandhi regained a parliamentary seat, and the next year, she was elected prime minister again. In 1982, her son Rajiv Gandhi became the nominal head of the party. After her assassination in October 1984, he became prime minister. In December of that year, he led the Congress Party to a decisive victory, winning 401 seats in the legislature.

Even though the Congress Party remained the largest party in Parliament in 1989, Rajiv Gandhi was removed from the position of prime minister by a coalition of opposition parties. While campaigning to regain power in May 1991, he was assassinated by a suicide bomber linked to the Tamil Tigers, a separatist group from Sri Lanka. P.V. Narasimha Rao succeeded him as party leader and was elected prime minister in June 1991.

In contrast to its traditional socialist policies, Rao and finance minister Manmohan Singh focused on economic liberalization. By 1996, reports of corruption damaged the party’s image. In that year’s elections, the Congress Party was reduced to 140 seats, its lowest number in the Lok Sabha, and became Parliament’s second-largest party. Rao then resigned as prime minister and as party president in September. Sitaram Kesri became the party’s first non-Brahmin leader.

The United Front (UF) government, a coalition of 13 parties, came to power in 1996 as a minority government with the backing of the Congress Party. However, as the largest single party in opposition after the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP; Indian People’s Party), Congress played a crucial role in both supporting and opposing the UF. In November 1997, the Congress Party withdrew its support from the UF, leading to elections in February 1998. To boost its popularity and improve its performance in the upcoming elections, Congress leaders encouraged Sonia Gandhi—the Italian-born widow of Rajiv Gandhi—to lead the party. Although she had previously declined to take an active role, she agreed to campaign at that time. Even though a BJP-led coalition government was formed, Congress and its partners prevented the BJP from gaining an absolute majority in the Lok Sabha. Many observers credited the party’s better-than-expected electoral performance to Sonia Gandhi’s charisma and active campaigning. After the 1998 elections, Kesri stepped down as party president, and Sonia Gandhi took over leadership of the party.

Sonia Gandhi, Hillary Clinton, Karan Singh, and Rahul Gandhi. President of the Indian National Congress Sonia Gandhi (second from left) is pictured with (from left to right) U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Karan Singh, and All India Congress Committee General Secretary Rahul Gandhi in New Delhi, 2009.

In 1999, national parliamentary elections were held again, after one of the BJP's major allies, the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) party, withdrew its support. Despite strong campaigning by its leaders, the Congress Party performed worse than in 1996 and 1998, winning only 114 seats, while the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance formed the government. However, the Congress Party achieved a surprising victory in the 2004 national elections and returned to power. Gandhi declined an invitation to be prime minister and instead supported Manmohan Singh, who became the country’s first Sikh prime minister in May 2004. In the 2009 parliamentary elections, the Congress Party again surprised analysts by increasing its seats in the Lok Sabha from 153 to 206, marking its best showing since 1991.

By the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, however, the party had lost much of its popular support due to several years of poor economic conditions and growing discontent from multiple corruption scandals involving government officials. The party nominated Sonia Gandhi’s son, Rahul Gandhi, as its candidate for prime minister. Nevertheless, the BJP and its leading candidate, Narendra Modi, won over the electorate. The election results announced in mid-May showed an overwhelming victory for the BJP, while the Congress Party faced a humiliating loss, securing only 44 seats (in 2015, the party won a by-election in Madhya Pradesh, bringing its total to 45). This was the party’s worst performance in national elections. One result of this poor performance was that it could not claim the official opposition role, as it failed to meet the minimum requirement of 55 seats (10 percent of the chamber’s total). Singh left office on May 26, the same day Modi was sworn in as prime minister.

Sonia Gandhi stepped down from leadership in late 2017, and her son Rahul Gandhi became the president of the Congress Party. He faced several criticisms, including accusations that he, as a fourth-generation member of the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty, was elitist and uninspired. Within his party, he was criticized for openly displaying his devotion to Shiva, which some saw as an attempt to connect with the BJP’s appeal to Hindu populism. However, some observers believed that Gandhi’s demonstration of Hindu devotion and his efforts to unite rival factions within the party helped the Congress Party outperform the BJP in the 2018 state elections held in strong Hindu areas like Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, and Chhattisgarh.

Still, the Congress Party performed only slightly better in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections than in 2014, leading Rahul Gandhi to resign. Sonia Gandhi was picked to lead the party until a successor was found, and in 2022 Mallikarjun Kharge took over. The Congress Party and its allies improved their performance in the 2024 general election to the Lok Sabha, winning 234 seats out of 543 and reducing the BJP to 240 seats, below the target of 272. The Congress Party's contribution to the alliance’s tally was 99 seats out of 234. The BJP formed the government with help from its allies.

The Congress Party’s presence at the state level has reflected its national performance. It dominated nearly all state governments in the early years after independence, later alternating power with other national parties like the BJP and local parties such as the Telugu Desam Party in Andhra Pradesh. By the early 21st century, however, the Congress Party’s influence in state politics had declined to the point where it controlled only a minority of state governments. The party has generally performed better in the northeastern and northern states while struggling in most southern states.

The Congress Party is organized in a hierarchical manner. Delegates from state and district parties attend an annual national conference, which elects a president and the All India Congress Committee. However, the 20-member Congress Working Committee, mostly appointed by the party president (handpicked by the prime minister when the party is in power), holds significant influence. The party is also structured into various committees and sections, including youth and women’s groups, and publishes a daily newspaper, the National Herald. Reflecting the party’s declining fortunes, its membership dropped from nearly 40 million in the mid-1990s to under 20 million at the beginning of the 21st century.

The party has traditionally supported socialist economic policies within a mixed economy. However, in the 1990s, it backed market reforms, including privatization and deregulation. It has also supported secular policies that promote equal rights for all citizens, including those in lower castes. Throughout much of the Cold War period, the Congress Party followed a nonaligned foreign policy, seeking ties with both the West and communist countries while avoiding formal alliances with either. Nonetheless, American backing for Pakistan led the party to support a friendship treaty with the Soviet Union in 1971.

In 1992, the Rao government introduced a Look East policy aimed at improving ties with Southeast Asian nations like Singapore and Malaysia. This policy was later extended into the Act East policy by the Modi-led BJP government in 2014. Singh’s time as prime minister was marked by a civil nuclear energy agreement with the United States in 2008, which set the stage for increased technological and strategic cooperation between the two nations.

Operation Blue Star Indian Military

Operation Blue Star was an Indian military operation in June 1984. Prime Minister Indira Gandhi ordered it to eliminate a group of militant Sikh separatists who had occupied the Golden Temple, the holiest shrine for Sikhs. The group was led by Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale, a Sikh fundamentalist who aimed to create an independent Sikh-majority country in Punjab called Khalistan. Bhindranwale and many of his followers were killed during the military assault. The Golden Temple complex, particularly the Akal Takht, suffered damage. In retaliation for the operation, Gandhi was assassinated by her Sikh bodyguards.

After India's independence in 1947, the Punjab region experienced significant Sikh agitation for a separate Punjabi-speaking state, led by political leaders Tara Singh and later Fateh Singh. On November 1, 1966, Punjab was divided into the mostly Hindi-speaking state of Haryana and the new, primarily Punjabi-speaking state of Punjab. While Sikhs gained the right to use Punjabi in the state, by the 1980s, militant factions of the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) and the All India Sikh Students’ Federation were demanding an autonomous Sikh homeland, known as Khalistan. To achieve their goal, these groups resorted to terrorism, including targeting Punjabi Hindus and even Sikhs who opposed Khalistan's creation.

Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale was a key figure in the extremist Sikh movement against the central Indian government and in favor of an independent Sikh state. He became prominent in 1978 for his strong opposition to the Nirankari Sikh sect. He passionately advocated for a strict version of Sikhism and spoke out against Hindu dominance in independent India. Bhindranwale’s rise from a religious leader to a political force was partly due to the support of Sanjay Gandhi, Indira Gandhi’s son, and particularly Zail Singh of the Indian National Congress, who saw Bhindranwale as a way to weaken the SAD's influence in Punjab. However, as time went on, Bhindranwale became aware of his potential role in Sikh history. By the early 1980s, he emerged as a militant leader opposing both the SAD's leadership in Punjab and Congress rule in New Delhi. Bhindranwale criticized the SAD’s attempts to negotiate peacefully with the central government and insisted that political power in Punjab was a right for Sikhs, not a favor from Delhi. He convinced many rural Sikhs that SAD politics were humiliating for them. While he did not openly call for an independent Khalistan, he often said, “I am neither for independence nor against it, but if I am offered it I will not refuse it.” He was more focused on securing greater Sikh political autonomy as proposed by the SAD in the 1973 Anandpur Sahib Resolution. The SAD was willing to discuss these demands with the union government, but Bhindranwale insisted on full implementation without negotiation.

Starting in 1981, Sikh separatist agitation quickly escalated into confrontations with the union government. In September 1981, Bhindranwale was arrested on suspicion of involvement in the murder of Lala Jagat Narain, a Hindu newspaper editor who had often criticized Sikhs and Bhindranwale. He was released due to lack of evidence, but his perceived victory over the government made him a hero. He stated, “The government has done more for me in one week than I could have achieved in years.” The situation in Punjab deteriorated into communal violence between Sikhs and Hindus. In April 1982, heads and other parts of dead cows—sacred to Hindus—were thrown into Hindu temples, and the militant group led by Bhindranwale, the Dal Khalsa, claimed responsibility. In July 1982, Amrik Singh, Bhindranwale’s right-hand man, was arrested. This angered Bhindranwale, who was also worried about his safety. He sought refuge in a hostel near the Golden Temple, which was close enough to deter police action.

As Sikh agitation continued, the situation worsened. Many Sikhs began moving from the relatively moderate SAD to Bhindranwale’s extreme camp. The SAD organized demonstrations at the November 1982 Asian Games. In response, the Indian government tried to stop Sikhs from entering the capital, resulting in the arrest of 1,500 Sikhs. The government's actions only fueled Bhindranwale’s message, as he told his audiences, “You want to know what are the signs that Sikhs are slaves of the Hindus? The first is that Sikhs were prevented from attending the Asian Games in Delhi.” Interreligious violence escalated and reached a breaking point on October 5, 1983, when unidentified militants ambushed a bus and killed six Hindus. The following day, Delhi imposed presidential rule on Punjab. The police struggled to maintain control and became targets of Bhindranwale’s followers. Parliament discussed arresting Bhindranwale. Seeking to avoid arrest and in open conflict with the more moderate Akali Dal leader Harchand Singh Longowal, who also lived in the Golden Temple complex, by the end of 1983, Bhindranwale petitioned religious authorities to let him live and operate from the Akal Takht, the center of religious and political authority in Sikhism.

Indira Gandhi and her government seemed unable to stop the increasing number of politically motivated killings and acts of terror in Punjab, Haryana, and Delhi. Negotiations between Delhi and the Akali Dal fell apart. Bhindranwale, on the other hand, refused to negotiate with Gandhi. He referred to her as a “brahmin woman” or “pandit’s daughter,” pointing out her Hindu heritage. The communal tension worsened as Bhindranwale’s forces eliminated their enemies with apparent impunity. On May 27, 1984, SAD leaders, who had attempted and failed to broker a peace agreement with Bhindranwale but remained committed to their political goals, announced a plan for civil disobedience. They aimed to stop the sale of grain from Punjab to the government’s central reserves, threatening to increase food prices. Meanwhile, militants in the Golden Temple had stockpiled weapons and strengthened the structure in preparation for an attack.

Gandhi understood that nationwide elections would need to be called by January 1985. She recognized that the large Hindu majority of India’s electorate would likely view her government as too weak to keep, especially with the rising Hindu nationalist movement. A decision was made to take action to resolve the Punjab crisis.

On May 31, Maj. Gen. R.S. Brar was called to Punjab and told to lead Operation Blue Star. The first gunfire erupted at the Golden Temple on June 1, 1984. On June 2, Gandhi urged Punjabis on All India Radio to “don’t shed blood, shed hatred,” as the military surrounded the Golden Temple complex and over 40 other gurdwaras in Punjab. The state was under curfew, and transport and communication lines were cut. June 3 was the anniversary of Sikh Guru Arjan's martyrdom. He built the first Harmandir Sahib, which is the predecessor to today’s Golden Temple, in 1604. Thousands of pilgrims gathered in Amritsar for the occasion. The military offensive began on June 4 and continued into June 5 with gun battles and mortar attacks. After midnight on June 6, a full assault began, featuring heavy gunfire and tanks firing shells that destroyed the Akal Takht. The next day, Bhindranwale was found dead with multiple gunshot wounds in the basement of the damaged Akal Takht, although the exact cause of his death was unclear. The complex suffered significant damage; aside from the Akal Takht, there were bullet holes in the Golden Temple, and an important Sikh library and its books were destroyed by fire.

Reports on the total number of deaths in the assault differ. Government officials confirmed that more than 80 soldiers and at least hundreds of pilgrims caught in the crossfire died. However, Sikh sources suggest that the total number of soldiers and civilians killed could have been in the thousands.

Initially, the Indian response outside Punjab was positive. In contrast, Sikhs were enraged by the brutal attack on their sacred shrine. Prominent Sikhs criticized the action, and some Sikh soldiers mutinied. When it came time to rebuild the Akal Takht, Gandhi refused to withdraw the army or allow established Sikhs, who saw the temple's repair and maintenance as a religious duty, to handle the repairs. She also ignored warnings to replace her Sikh bodyguards for her own safety. When asked to change her personal security detail, she replied, “Aren’t we secular?” indicating her concern that changing her guards might make her seem like she was targeting Sikhs, which conflicted with the Indian political ideal of government neutrality. On October 31, 1984, she was assassinated by two of her Sikh guards in her garden in New Delhi. The next day, angry mobs began attacking Sikh neighborhoods in and around Delhi. They set fire to cars, homes, and businesses and carried out a massacre of Sikhs that left around 3,000 dead and many more thousand injured and homeless.

Rather than putting an end to the Khalistan movement, the events of Operation Blue Star actually fueled its growth for many Sikhs. The deaths of Bhindranwale, his associates, and pilgrims in the Golden Temple during the attack created the movement's first martyrs. Supporters of Khalistan abroad in the Sikh diaspora became more committed to the cause. In 1986, fundamentalist Sikhs regained control of the Golden Temple, destroyed the Akhal Takht that the government had rebuilt because they saw its construction as impure, and rebuilt it themselves. Since 2013, the Golden Temple complex has included a memorial where pilgrims can honor those killed in the raid. Each year, members of the Sikh community remember Operation Blue Star and the martyrs of the Khalistan cause.

The partition of India refers to the division of British India into the independent countries of India and Pakistan, following the Indian Independence Act passed by the British Parliament on July 18, 1947. Set to take effect on August 15, the quick partition caused an unprecedented population transfer, leading to horrific communal violence. Around 15,000,000 Hindus, Sikhs, and Muslims rushed to cross the hastily drawn borders before the partition was finalized. Estimates of the death toll during the partition range from 200,000 to 2,000,000. The partition left a lasting impact on the national consciousness of India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh, and its legacy still affects the citizens of these countries today.

Direct British rule in India began in 1858 after the Indian Mutiny, a rebellion against the East India Company's dominance. Direct rule aimed to improve Indian representation while safeguarding British imperial interests, but ongoing issues and injustices in the following decades intensified the call for independence. By the 1920s, movements of noncooperation and civil disobedience pressured the British to grant self-governance to India. In 1930, the Indian National Congress, led by Jawaharlal Nehru, announced the Purna Swaraj resolution, which called for complete independence.

By 1930, some Indian Muslims began to envision statehood for their community, separate from a predominantly Hindu state. However, many key leaders, like Mohammed Ali Jinnah and the Aga Khan III, still imagined a single federation for all Indian provinces. Jinnah, the secular leader of the All India Muslim League, hoped that the Congress Party's leadership would address Muslims' worries about a Hindu bias in its ranks. The league aimed to document incidents in reports published in 1939 to show how Congress ministries neglected Muslim requests for jobs and ignored their grievances. They argued that the Congress Party favored the Hindu majority.

The divide deepened when Lord Linlithgow, the viceroy from 1936 to 1943, informed India’s political leaders and citizens that the country was at war with Germany. Hindu and Muslim leaders disagreed on supporting the war effort. The first Muslim League meeting after World War II began took place in March 1940 in Lahore, Punjab. The Lahore Resolution, later known as the Pakistan Resolution, was passed by a large group of league delegates just one day after Jinnah stated that “the problem of India is not of an inter-communal but manifestly of an international character.” The league declared that any future constitutional plan from the British would not be “acceptable to the Muslims” unless the Muslim-majority “areas” of India’s “North-Western and Eastern Zones” formed “independent States” with autonomous and sovereign units. The rift widened when the Congress Party launched the Quit India movement in 1942, demanding immediate independence and British withdrawal. The Muslim League opposed this call, as immediate independence would eliminate autonomy for Muslims.

After World War II, the push for independence grew stronger. Clement Attlee’s victory in the 1945 British Parliament, where he promised to grant India independence, increased certainty about British withdrawal from the region. As tensions between Hindus and Muslims escalated, Jinnah called for a “direct action day” on August 16, 1946. This event resulted in communal riots, leaving thousands dead in what later became known as the “Great Calcutta Killing.” Soon after, violence erupted in a divided Bengal and spread to other provinces.

In March 1947, Louis Mountbatten arrived in India as the last British viceroy. He was tasked with overseeing the country’s decolonization and had the freedom to end British rule as he saw fit. Mountbatten soon believed that the differences between the Muslim League and the Congress Party were too great to resolve quickly. He felt that acting swiftly was crucial due to the risk of mutiny among Indian troops or civil war. He concluded that partition was the only viable option for independence. Mountbatten announced his plan for India's partition on June 3, 1947.

Britain’s Parliament passed the Indian Independence Act on July 18, 1947. This act required the dominions of India and Pakistan to be established by midnight of August 14-15, 1947, and directed the division of the assets of the British Empire within a month. Racing against the deadline, the Boundary Commission, appointed by Mountbatten, worked tirelessly to partition Punjab and Bengal, aiming to keep as many Muslims as possible on the western side of Punjab’s new boundary and the eastern side of Bengal’s. The commission included four members from the Congress Party and four from the Muslim League, chaired by Cyril Radcliffe, who had never visited India. With little agreement between the two factions and the deadline approaching, Radcliffe made the final decision on the borders. The resulting boundary, known as the Radcliffe Line, disappointed everyone and angered many.

Dividing Punjab and Bengal, regions with a slim Muslim majority, created significant issues because their demographic distributions were complex and varied. The new borders cut through villages, towns, and fields. When Pakistan was formed, East and West Pakistan were about 1,000 miles (1,600 km) apart.

The commission also divided the large Sikh population in Punjab. Many Sikhs in the western region were worried about the possibility of Muslim rule. The Mughal emperors had persecuted the Sikh Gurus in the 17th century, leaving a lasting legacy of fear. Although the commission designated Amritsar, the Sikhs’ holiest city, as part of India, many important Sikh shrines and estates fell under Pakistan’s jurisdiction. Some Sikhs in western Punjab initially tried to remove local Muslims from their estates, but this led to violent backlash. Ultimately, most of the Sikh community fled to areas that would become part of India.

The transfer of power was finalized on August 14 for Pakistan and August 15 for India, scheduled a day apart so that Lord Mountbatten could attend both ceremonies. With the creation of the two independent nations, British rule officially ended on August 15, 1947.

The borders of the new countries were not published until August 17, two days after British rule ended. This led to an immediate rise in communal violence around the new borders. Many people did not grasp what partition meant until they found themselves caught up in it, sometimes literally. If a border village was nearly evenly split between Hindus and Muslims, one community could claim the village belonged to India or Pakistan by driving out or killing members of the other community.

Once the new borders were announced, about 15 million Hindus, Muslims, and Sikhs fled from their homes on one side of the newly drawn borders to what they thought would be safe havens on the other side. Some were able to take trains or buses, but most had to escape on foot, joining refugee lines that stretched for miles. These groups were often ambushed, as were the trains carrying refugees across the new borders. In this tragic exodus, as many as 2 million people were killed in communal massacres, though limited records resulted in varying estimates. Sikhs, who were located along Punjab’s new division, faced the highest proportion of casualties compared to their numbers.

Although the worst violence occurred in the first six weeks after partition, the effects lasted for decades. Even provinces that initially avoided violence later experienced outbreaks of conflict. For instance, Sindh had trouble accommodating large numbers of refugees (muhajirs) from India, who, despite being Muslim, came from different ethnolinguistic groups than the local population. Issues stemming from the rushed creation of Pakistan eventually led to a devastating war in 1971 between the eastern and western provinces, resulting in East Pakistan gaining independence as Bangladesh. Territorial disputes between India and Pakistan, especially concerning the Kashmir region, have also led to multiple wars. Additionally, tensions over Sikh rights and the preservation of their communal integrity sparked violent confrontations in India, most notably with the storming of the Golden Temple in 1984 and the assassination of Indira Gandhi shortly thereafter.

 Indira Gandhi (born November 19, 1917, in Allahabad, India; died October 31, 1984, in New Delhi) was an Indian politician who became the first female prime minister of India. She served three consecutive terms from 1966 to 1977 and a fourth term from 1980 until her assassination in 1984.

Jawaharlal Nehru, Indira Gandhi, and Harry S. TrumanThe first Indian prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru (second from right), is greeted by U.S. President Harry S. Truman during Nehru's visit to the United States in October 1949. Nehru's daughter, Indira Gandhi, who later served as prime minister, is on the right. Indira Nehru was the only child of Jawaharlal Nehru, a key figure in India’s fight for independence from Britain, a top leader in the influential Indian National Congress (Congress Party), and the first prime minister of independent India from 1947 to 1964. Her grandfather, Motilal Nehru, was a pioneer of the independence movement and a close associate of Mohandas (“Mahatma”) Gandhi. Indira attended Visva-Bharati University in Shantiniketan for one year, followed by a year at the University of Oxford in England. She joined the Congress Party in 1938.

In 1942, she married Feroze Gandhi (died 1960), a fellow party member. They had two children, Sanjay and Rajiv Gandhi. However, the couple was estranged for much of their marriage. Indira Gandhi’s mother, Kamala Nehru, passed away in the mid-1930s, and from then on, Indira often acted as her father’s hostess for events and accompanied him on his travels.

The Congress Party came to power when her father took office in 1947, and Gandhi joined its working committee in 1955. In 1959, she was elected to the largely honorary position of party president. She became a member of the Rajya Sabha (the upper chamber of the Indian parliament) in 1964. That same year, Lal Bahadur Shastri, who succeeded Nehru as prime minister, appointed her as minister of information and broadcasting in his government.

When Shastri died suddenly in January 1966, Gandhi was chosen as leader of the Congress Party, and she also became prime minister through a compromise between the party’s factions. However, her leadership faced continual challenges from the right wing of the party, led by former finance minister Morarji Desai. She won a seat in the 1967 elections to the Lok Sabha (the lower chamber of the Indian parliament), but the Congress Party secured only a slim majority, forcing Gandhi to accept Desai as deputy prime minister.

Tensions within the party escalated, and in 1969, Desai and other party members expelled Gandhi. Undeterred, she formed a new faction called the “New” Congress Party. In the 1971 Lok Sabha elections, this group won a significant victory over a coalition of conservative parties. Gandhi strongly supported East Pakistan in its struggle with Pakistan in late 1971. India's armed forces quickly defeated Pakistan, leading to the formation of Bangladesh. She was the first government leader to recognize the new country.

In March 1972, buoyed by India’s success against Pakistan, Gandhi led her New Congress Party to overwhelming victories in numerous state elections. However, Raj Narain, her defeated opponent from the 1971 national election, accused her of breaking election laws. In June 1975, the High Court of Allahabad ruled against her, which meant she would lose her parliamentary seat and be barred from politics for six years. She appealed the ruling to the Supreme Court but did not get a favorable outcome. She could remain prime minister, but she would lose her privileges as a parliament member and could not vote.

The Emergency 

On June 25, 1975, Indian President Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed declared a state of emergency across the country on Gandhi’s advice. There had been two previous emergency declarations, both during wars: the 1962 war with China and the 1971 war that created Bangladesh. This third emergency, known as “The Emergency” in India, lasted 21 months. During this time, Gandhi imprisoned her political opponents and took on emergency powers. Many new laws were passed that restricted personal freedoms. Preventive detention laws were used to imprison political figures like Desai and Raj Narain, along with leaders such as Jayaprakash Narayan and George Fernandes, who organized student movements and labor strikes. Gandhi also enacted several unpopular policies, including large-scale sterilization as a method of birth control. The government carried out a major crackdown on trade unions and workers’ rights, and a demolition campaign in Delhi displaced thousands. Police fired on civilian crowds on two occasions: during a demolition at Delhi’s Turkman Gate in April 1976 and at an anti-sterilization protest in Muzaffarnagar, Uttar Pradesh, in October that year. While the exact number of deaths is disputed, it is clear that many people were killed.

The period was marked by strict censorship of the press, which largely criticized Gandhi’s emergency powers and her policies. Censorship also affected cultural depictions of the Emergency; many films about the topic were banned, including Aandhi (1975; “Storm”), Kissa Kursi Ka (1977; “Tale of a Throne”), and Nasbandi (1978; “Vasectomy”). Later regime changes lifted these bans. Some contemporary films have sparked controversy over their representations of the Emergency. These include a 2012 adaptation of Salman Rushdie’s book Midnight’s Children, which was banned after its release, Indu Sarkar (2017; “Indira’s Government”), which was released with edits and deletions mandated by the national film censor, and the 2025 film Emergency, which came out only after necessary edits had been made.

Indira Gandhi 

Indira Gandhi served three consecutive terms as prime minister of India and was in her fourth term when she was assassinated. Public opposition to her two years of emergency rule was strong and widespread. After the Emergency ended in early 1977, her released political rivals were eager to remove her and the New Congress Party from power. When national parliamentary elections were finally held later that year, she and her party faced a major defeat and she left office. The Janata Party, which later became the Bharatiya Janata Party, took control, with Desai as prime minister.

In early 1978, Gandhi and her supporters separated from the Congress Party to form the Congress (I) Party, with the “I” signifying Indira. She was briefly imprisoned in October 1977 and December 1978 on charges of corruption. Despite these issues, she won a new seat in the Lok Sabha in November 1978, and her Congress (I) Party began to gain strength. Disagreements within the ruling Janata Party led to the collapse of its government in August 1979. Following new Lok Sabha elections in January 1980, Gandhi and Congress (I) secured a landslide victory to return to power. Her son Sanjay Gandhi, who had become her chief political adviser, also won a seat in the Lok Sabha. All legal cases against both of them were dropped.

Sanjay Gandhi's death in a plane crash in June 1980 removed Indira Gandhi’s chosen successor from Indian politics. After his death, she prepared her other son, Rajiv Gandhi, for leadership in her party. She continued the quasi-socialist policies of industrial development started by her father. Additionally, she built closer ties with the Soviet Union, relying on it for support in India’s long-standing conflict with Pakistan.

During the early 1980s, Indira Gandhi faced threats to India's political stability. Several states sought greater independence from the central government, and Sikh separatists in Punjab used violence to pursue their demands for an independent state. In 1982, many Sikhs, led by Sant Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale, occupied the Harmandir Sahib (Golden Temple) complex in Amritsar, the holiest shrine for Sikhs. Tensions between the government and Sikhs intensified. In June 1984, Gandhi ordered Operation Blue Star, where the Indian army attacked and removed the separatists from the complex. Some buildings were severely damaged in the fighting, and according to government officials, more than 80 soldiers and hundreds of pilgrims died. However, Sikh estimates of the death toll were much higher, suggesting thousands died. Five months later, Gandhi was shot in her garden in New Delhi by two of her own Sikh bodyguards in retaliation for the attack on Amritsar. She was succeeded as prime minister by her son Rajiv Gandhi, who served until 1989.