Opinion | Endorsement Sans Election: How Indira Gandhi's Death Changed Everything

Forty years ago, on October 31, 1984, India saw a sudden change of guard—Rajiv Gandhi was sworn in as Prime Minister within four-and-a-half hours of the official announcement of the assassination of Indira Gandhi. In 1964 and 1966, when the premiership changed following the death of a predecessor, new incumbents were sworn in after a 13-day mourning period. But things were different in 1984. Jawaharlal Nehru and Lal Bahadur Shastri had died due to natural causes; Indira Gandhi had fallen to the bullets of assassins, her own bodyguards.

The planners of the assassination had chosen a perfect day: President Zail Singh was on a visit abroad; Cabinet Secretary Krishnaswamy Raosahib and the Prime Minister's Principal Secretary, P.C.Alexander, were in Bombay for a meeting of the Atomic Energy Commission; Pranab Mukherjee, the designated number-two in the Indira Gandhi Cabinet, was in West Bengal, accompanying All India Congress Committee general secretary Rajiv Gandhi on a tour of rural areas; Home Minister P.V.Narasimha Rao was visiting coastal Andhra; the Congress Working President, Kamlapati Tripathi, was touring Uttar Pradesh; Defence Minister Shankarrao Chavan was in Moscow, leading a delegation of Army and Air Force top brass; Naval chief Admiral Dawson was in Vishakhapatnam; and top intelligence advisor, Ram Nath Kao, was abroad.

Thanks to the resilience of India's democracy, chaos was avoided and a smooth transition of power ensued, though it was blotted by the bloodshed of anti-Sikh riots, for which ultra-enthusiasts of the ruling party were blamed (some are facing trial to date). It was a macabre period—apparently, voters' lists and ration card addresses had been used to identify Sikh homes for the pogrom. Indira Gandhi's assassination was an aftermath of Operation Bluestar, in which the Army flushed out terrorists by attacking Amritsar's Golden Temple complex. She was killed by Sikh bodyguards in her home, 1 Safdarjung Road.