More than four decades after the 1984 anti-Sikh riots, Congress Parliamentary Party chairperson Sonia Gandhi has acknowledged that justice has been hard to come by for the victims despite four commissions, nine committees and two special investigation teams, while admitting that Congress workers were among those accused of instigating or directing the violence following Indira Gandhi’s assassination.

In her memoir, Belonging: A Journey of Love, released on Tuesday, Sonia also refers to criminal cases against RSS members, questions the failure of the administration to stop the massacre and recounts the delay in deploying the Army as mobs killed more than 2,000 Sikhs in Delhi alone.

The 544-page memoir also reveals an alleged plot to kill the entire Gandhi family during Diwali celebrations a week before Indira’s assassination on October 31, 1984, and Sonia’s desperate attempt to prevent Rajiv Gandhi from becoming Prime Minister, fearing that he would be the next target.

Revisiting one of the darkest chapters in independent India’s history, Sonia writes that several individuals, many of them Congress members, faced criminal proceedings for allegedly instigating or directing the violence. Cases were also registered against RSS members who participated in the killings, she says.

Of the hundreds of FIRs registered, four or five led to the arrest of Congress workers, according to her account.

Even after successive inquiries, many cases continued to drag on in courts. Sonia acknowledged that the failure to punish those responsible for communal violence has been a systemic problem that successive governments have been unable to resolve. She also maintains that the massacre did not reflect any deep-rooted hostility between the Congress and the Sikh community, pointing to the party’s subsequent electoral victories in Punjab.

Her account of the riots also examines the conduct of Rajiv Gandhi, who was sworn in as Prime Minister hours after his mother’s assassination.

Sonia writes that Rajiv appeared on national television on the night of October 31 and appealed for peace. He visited areas affected by violence and asked his staff to locate their Sikh colleagues and ensure their safety.

On November 1, Rajiv again went out to meet people, urging them not to seek revenge. The following day, he issued another nationwide television appeal condemning arson, looting and murder.

But Sonia also acknowledges that the machinery of government had come under severe strain, with the police unable to control violent crowds. She writes that some officials appeared to have looked the other way while others may even have encouraged the violence.

The memoir offers an account of the delay in deploying the Army, a question that has remained central to the debate over the 1984 massacre.

Sonia writes that Army chief General AS Vaidya received orders on the night of Indira’s assassination, but the family subsequently heard that he had decided against immediately mobilising nearby Army units because they were manned by Sikh soldiers.

This was against the backdrop of sporadic mutinies involving Sikh soldiers after Operation Blue Star in Gurdaspur, Ramgarh, Pune and Jammu.

Instead, Army units were ordered to move from Dehradun. According to Sonia, the troops began entering Delhi on the night of November 1 and were positioned in affected areas by noon on November 2. Curfew and shoot-at-sight orders were imposed, while civil society groups established relief camps for survivors.

Sonia also recalls that several Sikh families fleeing the violence found refuge in the Gandhi household. Some had already experienced the trauma of Partition, having fled Pakistan to rebuild their lives in India.

Yet, she admits, she was initially too overwhelmed by Indira’s murder and fears for Rajiv and her children to fully comprehend the suffering around her.

It was five years later, in riot-hit Bhagalpur in Bihar, that the enormity of the violence struck her.

In 1989, Sonia accompanied Rajiv to Bhagalpur despite warnings from their security personnel. Their aircraft landed at a small airstrip, where an angry crowd surrounded them before allowing them to proceed to a nearby hospital.

What she witnessed there left her shaken. The injured, mostly women and children, were lying on the floor because the beds were full. Women with deep wounds pleaded with her to locate their missing relatives. Children cried in terror or clung to their injured mothers.

Sonia recalls repeatedly stepping aside to regain her composure before approaching the next group of victims. She writes that the experience forced her to confront the horrors of communal violence and question whether her own grief over Indira’s assassination had overshadowed her understanding of the atrocities committed against Sikhs in Delhi in 1984.

On the flight home, she could no longer hold back her tears. The memoir also revisits attempts by successive Congress-led governments to introduce legislation against communal violence, including the 2005 and 2011 Bills.

Sonia writes that the proposed laws faced opposition mainly from the BJP and RSS, but also from Left and regional parties, which argued that existing laws were adequate and that the legislation would undermine the federal structure by interfering with the states’ responsibility for law and order.

She expresses disappointment over the failure of the legislation and alleges that communal violence, lynchings, social media and partisan governance have since combined to worsen the situation.

Beyond the political questions surrounding 1984, the memoir contains an extraordinary account of the threats facing Indira Gandhi in her final days.

Sonia reveals that the family later learnt that grenades had been hidden in a room adjoining their kitchen during Diwali celebrations on October 24, 1984, allegedly intended to kill the assembled family.

The celebrations had brought together Indira, Rajiv, Sonia, Rahul and Priyanka, along with relatives and friends. The family had lit lamps around the house and garden, following their annual tradition.

According to Sonia, the alleged plot was called off at the last moment for reasons that remained unknown. Six days later, on October 30, a car rammed into the jeep escorting Rahul and Priyanka home from school. Indira believed the collision was deliberate and regarded it as a warning.

Sonia questions the absence of adequate emergency medical arrangements despite the threats to the Prime Minister’s life. Following Operation Blue Star in June 1984, Indira had refused to replace Sikh personnel in her security detail, believing that such a decision would violate her principles.

Sonia recalls that one of the two Sikh guards who subsequently assassinated Indira had regularly played with Rahul and Priyanka. The memoir also reveals that former intelligence chief and security adviser RN Kao had warned Indira about reports that her grandchildren might be kidnapped.

The threat forced the family to withdraw Rahul and Priyanka from their boarding schools and bring them back to Delhi. Although the move disrupted their education, it allowed them to spend what became the final two months of their grandmother’s life with her.

Indira remained deeply anxious about their safety. Sonia writes that her mother-in-law appeared increasingly conscious of the danger surrounding her. She had spoken to Rahul about what should happen if she died, telling him not to cry and explaining her wishes for her funeral.

On October 25, a day after Diwali, Indira suddenly decided to visit Srinagar. Sonia was to accompany her but fell ill. Indira travelled with the children and friends, visited the Sharika Devi temple and Makhdoom Sahib shrine, and met Kashmiri Shaivite sage Lakshman Joo. The family later wondered whether Indira had sensed that it would be her last visit to Kashmir.

On October 30, at her final public rally in Bhubaneswar, Indira spoke about the possibility of death and her lifelong commitment to serving the country. She returned to Delhi exhausted and showed Sonia three handspun cotton saris she had selected in Bhubaneswar.

The following morning, October 31, Indira was preparing for a dinner in honour of Princess Anne. Sonia recalls meeting her in the dressing room, where a pale orange Bomkai sari had been laid out for the evening. They discussed the dinner menu and table decorations before Indira left for her office.

Minutes later, gunshots rang out. Sonia rushed towards the garden and saw Indira being carried into a white Ambassador car. She climbed into the vehicle and crouched beside her mother-in-law as it struggled through Delhi’s traffic without a siren. Blood covered Indira’s sari and chest. Sonia repeatedly tried to speak to her, but there was no response.

The car encountered traffic signals and further delays at the hospital entrance before Indira was taken for emergency treatment. She was declared dead at 2 pm.

Sonia returned home to collect clothes for Indira and found Rahul and Priyanka crying. Commandos had brought them home from school, and the children were desperately asking what had happened.

She selected a tribal sari and a bead necklace for her mother-in-law before returning to the hospital. Rajiv, meanwhile, had been campaigning in West Bengal when he learnt that Indira had been seriously wounded. He landed in Delhi at 3.30 pm and went straight to the hospital. There, he told Sonia that he had been asked to take over as Prime Minister.

“I have been asked . . . They want me to be sworn in as prime minister,” Rajiv told her, according to the memoir. Sonia recalls feeling as though a knife had been plunged into her heart. She could not understand why Rajiv was being asked to assume power when his mother had just been assassinated.

She pleaded with him to refuse, fearing that the same fate awaited him. “They will kill me anyway,” Rajiv replied, she writes.

Rajiv was sworn in around 6.30 pm that evening, while Indira’s body lay at the family residence. Sonia recalls that she was convinced his political journey would end in another assassination.

The memoir also offers an intimate account of Rajiv’s grief. Sonia writes that she once found him alone in his mother’s study, crying as he looked at the objects associated with her life. Despite the loss, he had to attend Cabinet meetings, receive foreign dignitaries and make arrangements for the funeral.

Sonia herself recalls entering Indira’s room and arranging her writing table, comb, hairbrush, hairpins, footwear and clothes, as though restoring order to the room could somehow preserve her presence. The book also reveals that Indira had left written instructions expressing her wish not to have a conventional funeral.

In a note dated June 11, 1984, shortly after Operation Blue Star, she had asked that her body be placed in a casket and left in a crevasse in the high Himalayas, with classical music played instead of mourning rituals.

Rajiv could not bring himself to follow those instructions. Indira was cremated on November 3. Rajiv and Sonia immersed a portion of her ashes at the Sangam in Allahabad on November 5, while Rajiv subsequently scattered ashes over the Himalayan snows.

Sonia also refers to another note in which Indira had expressed her wish for no public mourning or ceremonial memorial meetings. On November 9, Indira’s birthday, Sonia and Rajiv signed their own wills, setting out instructions for their children. Rajiv wanted their bodies to be brought to Delhi and cremated together if they died around the same time, with Rahul, their eldest child, lighting the pyre.