Sonia Gandhi’s memoir, Belonging: A Journey of Love, has reopened the question of why the Army was not used to stop the killings of Sikhs in Delhi in November 1984.
She writes that Army chief General A.S. Vaidya received orders on the night of Indira Gandhi’s assassination. The family later heard that he decided against immediately mobilising nearby Army units because they were manned by Sikh soldiers, and ordered units from Dehradun instead. The passage is framed as something heard later, not something she witnessed. According to the IANS report, she also points to sporadic mutinies by Sikh soldiers in 1984 as context. She acknowledges that justice has largely eluded the victims despite four commissions, nine committees and two special investigation teams. She calls the riots a “tragic and shameful” chapter in India’s history.
Advocate H.S. Phoolka, who has fought cases for riot victims and is now described as a BJP leader, rejects her account. He calls it “against official records” and accuses her of giving Rajiv Gandhi a clean chit. The BJP has accused her of whitewashing her family’s record, and Delhi minister Manjinder Singh Sirsa called her statement that Rajiv was saddened and distressed after the violence “a lie.”
What General Vaidya said
Vaidya cannot respond to the memoir. He planned and oversaw Operation Blue Star and was later fatally targeted by Khalistani militants. He was killed in Pune in 1986. What he told the Justice Ranganath Misra Commission is the main record of his side. He testified that a brigade of 1,600 soldiers was ordered from Meerut to Delhi at 10.30 am on October 31 and reached the capital before midnight. The Delhi area commander, Major General J.S. Jamwal, told the commission that 6,100 soldiers were available. Phoolka adds that Vaidya consulted the Delhi GOC, who confirmed that 6,000 troops were in the capital.
The Misra Commission
The Misra Commission was appointed on April 26, 1985, by Rajiv Gandhi’s government. It submitted its report in 1986, and the report was tabled in Parliament in February 1987. It found that 5,000 Army personnel were ready in Delhi by midnight on October 31, and that the Delhi administration and police were slow to call in the Army. According to The Caravan, the commission concluded that 5,000 jawans moving into the streets in columns, properly armed, on the morning of November 1 would have made a difference. It also found baseless the Delhi police commissioner’s claim that there were not enough Army personnel in the city.
The commission did record that Rajiv Gandhi alerted Vaidya. Phoolka concedes the point, but says the Army chief’s job is to keep the Army ready, and that deploying it falls to the civil administration. He adds that nowhere in Vaidya’s testimony does the general say the Prime Minister told him to call in the Army.
The Nanavati Commission
The Nanavati Commission was appointed on May 8, 2000, and released its report on February 9, 2005. Phoolka cites it alongside Misra for the finding that about 6,000 Army personnel were present in Delhi on October 31 and the morning of November 1 but were not deployed to control the violence. Sabrang reports that testimony before Nanavati showed then Union home minister P.V. Narasimha Rao and Delhi lieutenant governor P.G. Gavai failed to take firm action when urged to call in the Army.
Where the commissions and the memoir part ways
On the Army question, the two commissions point in a different direction from the memoir. Both place a deployable force of 5,000 to 6,000 in Delhi and locate the failure in the civil administration and police. Neither report, as far as the available accounts show, attributes the delay to a decision by Vaidya about Sikh units. His own testimony is that he summoned additional troops and that they arrived the same night. The central question, as Phoolka frames it, is why troops already in the capital were not deployed on November 1, when the violence was at its peak.
On wider responsibility, the findings are narrower than the political charges. The Misra Commission ruled out the involvement of the Congress party as such, and the Nanavati Commission said there was no evidence that Rajiv Gandhi or any other high-ranking Congress leader had suggested or organised attacks on Sikhs. Nanavati did find that local Congress leaders were involved in the attacks. Critics argue that Misra, then in line to become Chief Justice, was cautious, and that his commission indicted 19 Congress workers while absolving the party. The Marwah inquiry into police conduct was also halted by Rajiv Gandhi’s government in 1985, with Misra asked to take over.
No response from Sonia Gandhi or the Congress to these specific objections had been reported at the time of writing. Phoolka has said he bought the book to check the passage himself, so the exact wording remains central to the dispute.
