In a candid admission, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi has said he is “more than happy to take responsibility for everything the Congress party has ever done wrong in its history,” including the 1984 anti-Sikh riots that erupted after the assassination of former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi.
Speaking at a public interaction held two weeks ago at the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs at Brown University in the United States, Gandhi was confronted by a Sikh student who demanded accountability for the Congress party’s alleged role in the riots that claimed over 3,000 lives, mostly in Delhi.
“You create a fear among Sikhs about what BJP would look like… We want freedom of expression, which has not been allowed under the Congress Party in the past,” the student charged, questioning Gandhi’s previous remarks on religious freedoms under the BJP.
The student went on to accuse the Congress of misrepresenting the Anandpur Sahib Resolution as a separatist manifesto, adding that “many more Sajjan Kumars are sitting in Congress Party”—a reference to the former Congress MP convicted for his role in the 1984 violence.
Rahul Gandhi responded by reiterating his longstanding condemnation of the riots. “I have publicly stated that what happened in the 80s was wrong. I have been to the Golden Temple multiple times. I have extremely good relationships with the Sikh community in India,” he said.
In a rare move, Gandhi distanced himself from the events while still accepting accountability as the party’s current leader. “As far as the mistakes of the Congress Party are concerned, a lot of those happened when I was not there, but I am more than happy to take responsibility for everything the Congress party has ever done wrong in its history,” he stated.
The 1984 anti-Sikh riots remain a painful chapter in India’s modern political history. Following Operation Blue Star—an Indian Army operation to flush out Sikh militants from the Golden Temple—Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was assassinated by her Sikh bodyguards, triggering retaliatory violence that left thousands of Sikhs dead and thousands more displaced.
