Bhai Beant Singh and 31 October 1984: what the SGPC calendar remembers

The SGPC's Nanakshahi calendar keeps 31 October as the shaheedi of Bhai Beant Singh. It is one of the most contested days in the calendar, and for many Sikhs it is above all the beginning of the November 1984 killings.

The events of 31 October 1984

Beant Singh was a sub-inspector of the Delhi Police posted to the security staff of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. Like many Sikhs, he was deeply affected by the army operation at Sri Harmandir Sahib in June that year. On the morning of 31 October 1984, at the Prime Minister's residence in New Delhi, he and another guard, Satwant Singh, shot her as she walked to an interview. Beant Singh was shot dead by other security personnel in custody the same morning. Satwant Singh was wounded, tried and later hanged, along with Kehar Singh.

The killings that followed

Over the next days, mobs in Delhi and other cities hunted down Sikhs, killing thousands, burning homes and gurdwaras, while the authorities were slow to act. Official enquiries later found that political figures had helped organise some of the violence. Families in Delhi's resettlement colonies bore the worst of it, and justice for the victims took decades, where it came at all.

How the day is observed

Views of the assassination differ sharply. The SGPC marks Beant Singh's death as a shaheedi, and the day is observed with Ardas at Sri Akal Takht Sahib. Many Sikhs also use these days to remember the innocent people killed in November 1984, at memorials such as the Wall of Truth at Gurdwara Rakab Ganj Sahib in Delhi, and with Akhand Paath and Ardas in gurdwaras around the world.