What If Indira Gandhi Had Replaced Her Sikh Guards?

On the morning of 31 October 1984, Indira Gandhi walked out of her official residence at 1 Safdarjung Road toward a TV interview. Two Sikh bodyguards, Beant Singh and Satwant Singh, waited at a gate on her path. They were not supposed to be there together. They had been rotated, questioned, watched. Gandhi had been warned about Sikh guards after Operation Blue Star. She kept them anyway.

Seconds later, they shot her. By the afternoon, Delhi was already turning on its Sikh citizens. Within three days, thousands of Sikhs were dead in anti-Sikh pogroms, and Indian politics had been jolted onto a new track.

Indira Gandhi was assassinated by her Sikh bodyguards five months after ordering Operation Blue Star, the Indian Army assault on the Golden Temple complex in Amritsar in June 1984. The attack killed hundreds, including many civilians. So why did she still surround herself with Sikh bodyguards? And what if she had not?

Operation Blue Star was the Indian Army operation to remove Sikh militant leader Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale and his followers from the Golden Temple complex. It deeply alienated many Sikhs from the Indian state and from Indira Gandhi personally. Her decision to keep Sikh guards was partly political theater, partly personal conviction, and partly bureaucratic inertia.

This what-if walks through three grounded scenarios: Gandhi removes Sikh guards entirely, she keeps them but under harsher security rules, or she steps back from Blue Star itself. Then it asks which path was actually plausible, given Indian politics in 1984.

Why Indira Gandhi kept Sikh bodyguards after Blue Star

Start with the real world. Before changing it, we need to be clear on what actually constrained Gandhi in mid-1984.

Operation Blue Star ran from 1–8 June 1984. The Indian Army went into the Golden Temple complex, the holiest shrine in Sikhism, to dislodge Bhindranwale and armed followers who had fortified the site. The fighting was intense. Official death figures were in the hundreds. Independent estimates often run higher. The Akal Takht, the temporal seat of Sikh authority, was badly damaged.

The operation enraged many Sikhs, including those who were not sympathetic to separatism. For them, the state had sent tanks and artillery into a sacred space. Within weeks, there were assassination threats against Indira Gandhi. Intelligence agencies warned her that Sikh bodyguards posed a risk.

Yet she refused to remove all Sikhs from her security detail. Several things were going on at once:

First, optics. Removing Sikh guards would have been read by millions of Sikhs as collective suspicion. Gandhi and her advisers knew they were already accused of targeting the community. A visible purge of Sikhs from the Prime Minister’s security would have confirmed that narrative.

Second, politics inside the security apparatus. The Delhi Police and other forces had many Sikh officers. To declare them unfit to guard the head of government would have been a public humiliation and a signal of institutional distrust. That had long-term consequences for loyalty and morale.

Third, Gandhi’s own political style. She liked symbolic gestures that said, “I am not afraid.” Keeping Sikh guards was meant to project confidence and national unity. Some accounts from her staff suggest she was warned repeatedly and waved it off, saying she could not discriminate against an entire community.

So she compromised. The number of Sikh guards was reduced. Some were moved away from the closest inner cordon. But they were not removed entirely. That half-measure, meant to manage risk and politics at once, set the stage for the assassination.

Understanding these motives matters, because any counterfactual has to wrestle with them. Gandhi was not choosing in a vacuum. She was balancing security, symbolism, and the loyalty of the state’s own forces. That balance shaped what alternatives were realistically on the table.

Scenario 1: Gandhi removes all Sikh guards after Blue Star

Imagine Gandhi takes the hard security line in June 1984. Intelligence chiefs present the threat assessments. Instead of resisting, she agrees. All Sikh personnel are quietly removed from her immediate security detail, perhaps from the Special Protection Group around her, and reassigned.

Logistically, this is easy. The Indian state had no shortage of Hindu, Muslim, and other non-Sikh officers to fill those posts. The change could be done within days. The real cost is political.

Word would leak. In 1984, Delhi was a city of gossip and planted stories. Opposition politicians, especially from Sikh parties like the Akali Dal, would accuse Gandhi of treating Sikhs as a suspect population. Sikh officers in the police and army would feel singled out for collective punishment.

In Punjab, where tensions were already high, this would feed the separatist narrative. Militant propaganda had been saying for years that Sikhs could not trust the Indian state. A public or semi-public purge of Sikh guards from the Prime Minister’s detail would be used as proof.

Would it save Gandhi’s life? Probably, at least from Beant Singh and Satwant Singh on that October morning. The specific plot that killed her relied on two Sikh guards in close proximity, with weapons, at a predictable point on her route. Remove Sikh guards and that particular chain breaks.

But assassination attempts do not vanish just because one method is blocked. Militant groups in Punjab had access to weapons and sympathizers. They could target her motorcade on trips, plant bombs, or seek non-Sikh collaborators. The risk remains, though the odds and timing change.

The big change comes after 31 October. No assassination by Sikh guards means no immediate trigger for the 1984 anti-Sikh pogroms in Delhi and other cities. The massacres that followed were not a spontaneous riot. They were encouraged and in some cases organized by local Congress politicians and criminal gangs, using the assassination as justification.

Without that spark, you likely do not get three days of organized killing on that scale. Anti-Sikh sentiment would still be high in some quarters, but the specific wave of violence that killed thousands and scarred Sikh-Hindu relations for a generation would probably not occur in the same way.

Indian politics would shift too. Rajiv Gandhi would not be rushed into office as the grieving son. Indira, already in her mid-60s, might fight another election. Her style of rule, more authoritarian and centralizing than her son’s, would shape the late 1980s response to insurgency in Punjab and to rising unrest in other states.

So what? Removing Sikh guards likely saves Indira Gandhi from that particular assassination and prevents the 1984 pogroms, but it deepens Sikh alienation and probably hardens the insurgency in Punjab, trading one kind of bloodshed for another.

Scenario 2: Gandhi keeps Sikh guards but tightens security

Now take a more modest change. Gandhi insists on keeping Sikh guards for symbolic reasons, but she actually follows through on the security recommendations that were only partially implemented in real life.

In this scenario, Sikh guards are limited to outer cordons, away from the closest access points. Rotations are stricter. No two Sikh guards are allowed to be together at the same choke point. Intelligence vetting is more aggressive, and anyone expressing anger about Blue Star is quietly transferred.

Some of this did happen. After Blue Star, there were reviews of her security. The problem was enforcement and Gandhi’s own habits. She liked to meet people, walk in her garden, and take familiar routes. Security protocols were bent to fit her preferences.

Change that one variable: she accepts inconvenience. Her staff and security chiefs are given real authority to alter her routines. The gate where she was shot on 31 October is manned only by non-Sikh officers. Sikh guards are present, but at a distance, more as a visible symbol than as the last line of defense.

In that case, Beant Singh and Satwant Singh either never get the chance, or they attempt something much riskier, like attacking from an outer cordon or on a public route. The odds of success go down. The odds of detection go up.

Politically, this scenario looks almost identical on the surface to what actually happened. The public still sees Sikh guards near the Prime Minister. Gandhi can still point to them as proof she does not blame an entire community. Sikh officers do not feel collectively banished.

The difference is in the quiet, technical details of security planning. It is the kind of change the public barely notices, but which matters immensely to whether a plot succeeds.

If Gandhi survives that autumn, the rest of 1984 plays out very differently. There is no immediate pretext for anti-Sikh massacres in Delhi. Congress politicians do not have the same opportunity to mobilize mobs in the name of avenging the leader.

The insurgency in Punjab, however, is still there. Blue Star has already happened. The Akal Takht is still damaged. The sense of grievance among many Sikhs is still raw. Attacks on police, politicians, and civilians in Punjab continue. The state’s response, which in the late 1980s involved heavy-handed counterinsurgency and human rights abuses, likely still develops, perhaps even faster under Gandhi’s harder line.

So what? Keeping Sikh guards but tightening security preserves Gandhi’s symbolic message, probably prevents her assassination on that day, and avoids the Delhi pogroms, but it does little to change the long war in Punjab that was already underway.

Scenario 3: No Operation Blue Star, no need for symbolic guards

The most dramatic counterfactual is further upstream. What if there is no Operation Blue Star at all, or a much more limited action? In that world, the question of Sikh bodyguards looks very different.

By early 1984, the situation in Punjab had been deteriorating for years. Bhindranwale and armed followers were inside the Golden Temple complex. There had been assassinations, communal killings, and open defiance of the state. Gandhi’s advisers and many in the security establishment pushed for a decisive strike.

There were alternatives, though none were clean. One was prolonged siege and negotiation. The state could have surrounded the complex, cut off supplies, and used political channels through moderate Sikh leaders and the Akali Dal to isolate Bhindranwale. That would have taken time and patience, and it risked making the Temple look like a besieged fortress, which had its own symbolic power.

Another option was a more limited, better-timed operation, perhaps avoiding the days around a major Sikh religious anniversary when the Temple was crowded with pilgrims. Some retired officers later argued that the assault was rushed and poorly planned, that intelligence on the fortifications was weak, and that the use of heavy weapons inside a sacred complex was a political choice as much as a military one.

In a scenario where Gandhi chooses a slower, more political approach, or a less destructive operation, you probably still get anger among Sikhs, but not on the same scale. The Akal Takht is not shattered by tank fire. The image of the Indian Army storming the holiest shrine does not circulate in the same way.

In that world, Gandhi has no need to prove she trusts Sikhs by keeping Sikh guards. The question of removing them never arises, because there is no mass perception that she has attacked the community’s core symbol. Sikh officers in the police and army remain part of the normal security rotation without controversy.

Does that mean no assassination? Not necessarily. Bhindranwale and his followers already saw Gandhi as an enemy. Even without Blue Star, there was a separatist movement that viewed the Indian state as oppressive. But the intensity of personal hatred directed at her after June 1984 was directly tied to the Temple assault.

Without Blue Star, the pool of potential assassins shrinks. The idea of killing the Prime Minister as revenge for sacrilege at the Golden Temple does not exist, because the sacrilege never happened. Plots might still be hatched, but they are less likely to find willing insiders in her own security.

The bigger change, though, is in Punjab itself. Without Blue Star and the later Operation Woodrose (the crackdown that followed), the insurgency may grow more slowly or take a different form. Many young Sikhs who joined militant groups after 1984 did so out of anger at the Temple assault and the later 1984 pogroms. Remove those triggers, and recruitment looks different.

So what? Avoiding or softening Operation Blue Star reduces the need for symbolic gestures like keeping Sikh guards, likely lowers the risk of an insider assassination, and reshapes the entire trajectory of Sikh-state relations in the 1980s.

Which scenario is most plausible, and what really changes?

Of these three, the second scenario is the most realistic tweak to history. Gandhi was deeply invested in the symbolism of keeping Sikh guards. A complete purge of Sikhs from her security would have gone against her public posture and risked alienating Sikh officers. On the other hand, canceling or radically changing Operation Blue Star would have required her to reverse course on a major security decision, against the advice of much of her own apparatus.

Tightening security while keeping Sikh guards fits her pattern. She often tried to have it both ways: hard policy moves with soft symbolic cover. In reality, that compromise failed because of lax enforcement and her own willingness to override security routines. A version of 1984 where she accepts stricter protocols is not a huge stretch.

Would that have changed the big picture? It would almost certainly have changed the events of 31 October and the days that followed. No assassination by Sikh guards means no immediate anti-Sikh pogroms in Delhi. The single most traumatic event for many urban Sikhs in independent India might not happen.

But Blue Star had already happened. The damage to the Golden Temple and to Sikh trust in the Indian state was done. The insurgency in Punjab, and the heavy-handed counterinsurgency that followed, were not caused by her assassination. They were already in motion.

The first scenario, removing all Sikh guards, is technically easy but politically costly. Gandhi could have done it, but it would have sent a message of collective suspicion that cut against her own rhetoric and risked long-term damage to the loyalty of Sikh officers. It probably would have saved her life that day, at the price of deepening the sense among many Sikhs that the state saw them as a problem community.

The third scenario, no Operation Blue Star, is the most transformative but also the hardest to imagine given the pressures she faced. By mid-1984, Gandhi had been presented with the Punjab problem as a test of state authority. Backing away would have required not just a different tactical choice but a different political temperament: more patient, more willing to accept ambiguity and negotiation.

In all three scenarios, the question people ask on Reddit "Why did she still have Sikh bodyguards?" turns out to be a doorway into bigger constraints. She kept them because she was trying to manage symbolism, loyalty, and security at once, in a country where Sikhs were both a minority and deeply embedded in the state’s own armed forces.

So what? The most plausible change is not that Indira Gandhi abandons Sikh guards, but that she takes their presence seriously enough to adjust her security properly. That small, bureaucratic shift might have spared her life and prevented the 1984 pogroms, even though it would not have healed the deeper wounds opened by Operation Blue Star.