Former Congress Union Minister Salman Khurshid wrote in his book At Home in India: A Restatement of Indian Muslims that there was a “terrible satisfaction” among Muslims following the assassination of former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi in 1984, with Hindus and Sikhs seen as paying for their “sins” and for the blood they had drawn during Partition.
In the passage, Khurshid wrote that some Muslims had “not completely forgotten the Partition’s unpleasant aftermath” and viewed the violence that followed Indira Gandhi’s assassination as a form of retribution.
“On the other hand, there was also a terrible satisfaction amongst Muslims, who had not completely forgotten the Partition’s unpleasant aftermath. Hindus and Sikhs were alike paying for their ‘sins’. They were paying for the blood they had drawn in 1947. They were paying for the life of Mrs Indira Gandhi who, after her father Jawaharlal Nehru, was perceived as the ‘only hope of the Muslims’ in India.”
Salman Khurshid wrote in his book :
At Home in India: A Restatement of Indian Muslims,“Sikhs suffered in 1984 for their SINS during 1947” pic.twitter.com/G8gsUYZuY4
— Rishi Bagree (@rishibagree) September 10, 2026
The passage appears on page 114 of the edition shown in the book image.
Khurshid was a senior Congress leader and served as a Union minister in the Manmohan Singh-led UPA government. He was Minister of Minority Affairs before becoming Minister of Law and Justice and subsequently served as Union Minister for External Affairs from October 2012 to May 2014. Official records from the Ministry of External Affairs identify him as External Affairs Minister during 2013-14.
The book itself, however, predates Khurshid’s tenure as a Union minister by several years. Library catalogues and academic records identify At Home in India: A Restatement of Indian Muslims as a 1986 publication by Vikas Publishing House, rather than a 2014 publication.
A separate book titled At Home in India: The Muslim Saga was published by Hay House in 2014. Khurshid’s own publication list records the 1986 A Restatement of Indian Muslims and the 2014 The Muslim Saga as separate works.
The passage concerns the aftermath of the assassination of Indira Gandhi on 31 October 1984, when anti-Sikh violence erupted in several parts of the country. Khurshid’s account links the reaction among some Muslims to memories of Partition and presents the violence as a form of punishment for what Hindus and Sikhs were perceived to have done in 1947.
The passage is deeply disturbing not merely because of the violence it describes, but because of the mindset behind it. How could a man who went on to serve as a Union Minister describe Hindus and Sikhs being killed in communal violence as paying for the bloodshed of Partition?
The victims of 1984 were individuals. They did not collectively bear responsibility for what happened during Partition decades earlier. Yet Khurshid’s passage frames their suffering through the language of historical retribution, as though an entire community could be made to pay for the alleged sins of another generation.
That raises an uncomfortable question: what does it say about the mindset of a senior political leader who could view communal victims through such a lens? And how different would the reaction be if the same logic had been used to justify violence against Muslims?
The issue is what religion Khurshid belongs to. The issue is also the dangerous idea that violence against one community can be rationalised as historical payback.
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