Former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who died on Thursday at the age of 92, leaving behind a legacy of landmark measures that revived India’s economy, was cremated at the riverside cremation ground in the country’s capital, Nigambodh, on Saturday. The last rites were performed with full state honors at the ghat.
Top officials, relatives and thousands of fans gathered on Saturday as the funeral pyre was lit by his eldest daughter Upinder Singh in the presence of her sisters Daman Singh, a writer, and Amrit Singh, who teaches at Stanford Law School. Gursharan Kaur, widow of the late Prime Minister. Congress party leaders and foreign dignitaries also attended the funeral, which was given a 21-gun salute. National flags were flown at half mast in the national capital on a day when the sky was cloudy.
Shortly after 11.20 am at the funeral site, President Draupadi Murmu led the nation in paying homage to the country’s 13th Prime Minister, whose tenure as prime minister lasted from 2004 to 2014. The President laid a wreath of white lotus flowers and lilies at his feet. A raised platform where Singh’s body lay wrapped in the national flag.
After the President’s tribute, Vice President Jagdeep Dhankhar, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Home Minister Amit Shah, Defense Minister Rajnath Singh, Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla and Health Minister JP Nadda, who is also a leader of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), paid tribute. of. , Shah was the first among top government officials to arrive for the funeral.
Congress President and Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge, Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi and party leaders Sonia Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra also paid floral tributes at Nigambodh Ghat. He sat in the front row at the funeral ceremony along with the President, Vice President, Prime Minister and senior cabinet ministers. Sonia had earlier said that Singh was her “friend, philosopher and guide”.
Bhutan’s King Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck also paid floral tributes and Mauritius Foreign Minister Dhananjay Ramphul also paid floral tributes. Singapore and Mauritius decided to fly their national flags at half-mast on all government buildings to mourn Singh’s death.
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Earlier, top officials of the armed forces, including Chief of Defense Staff General Anil Chauhan, Army Chief General Upendra Dwivedi, Air Chief Marshal AP Singh and Navy Chief Admiral Dinesh K Tripathi paid tribute to him.
In a White House statement on Saturday, US President Joe Biden said: “Jill and I join the people of India in mourning the passing of former Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. The unprecedented level of cooperation between the United States and India today would not have been possible without the strategic vision and political courage of the Prime Minister,” he said, adding, “He was a true statesman. A dedicated public servant. And above all, he was a kind and humble man.”
The only Indian to serve as Prime Minister, Finance Minister and Governor of the Central Bank, Singh transformed the country’s political and economic landscape in his wide-ranging career as a scholarly economist and technocrat.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said in a statement that Singh was “a remarkable person” who made a “great personal contribution to strengthening friendly relations” between the two countries.
In one of his many posts on Twitter, Prime Minister Modi praised Singh as “one of (India’s) most distinguished leaders” who “left a strong mark on our economic policy over the years”.
The Center has declared seven days of national mourning from December 27 to January 02, including both days, with a half-day official holiday on Saturday. Nevertheless, Singh’s cremation faced controversy when the Congress party criticized the government’s decision to hold the cremation at Nigambodh Ghat instead of building a memorial.
The party wanted a site in the prestigious cremation ground of Rajghat, where many of India’s founders were cremated. Congress said, “The people of our country are unable to understand why the Government of India could not find a place for his cremation and memorial that is commensurate with his global stature, record of outstanding achievements and exemplary service to the nation over decades ” communications head Jairam Ramesh said in a post on X.
Earlier at around 9.15 am, the late leader’s mortal remains were taken in a flower-bedecked funeral rites to the Congress party headquarters at 24 Akbar Road, barely two km from 3 Motilal Nehru Marg, his retirement residence of 10 years. Congress president Kharge, leaders Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, all MPs, along with hundreds of fans and party workers paid their last tributes at the party office.
At around 10.25 am, the funeral procession moved towards the crematorium on the Yamuna banks as Rahul Gandhi boarded a truck behind the flower-laden hearse.
Addressing the X, French President Emmanuel Macron said, “India has lost a great man” and “our thoughts are with his family and the people of India”. In a touching tribute, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said he had lost “my friend (friend), my brother (brother)”.
In a lengthy post on He was appreciated by the government at that time… He offered a scholarship to my children, especially my son Ehsaan. Although I declined this kind offer, such behavior undoubtedly reflected his extraordinary humanity and generosity. Is.” Ibrahim was jailed from 1999 to 2004 and again from 2015 to 2018.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas also condoled Singh’s death in a statement addressed to Mallikarjun Kharge.
More than 100 Congress leaders paid tribute to him at the party office, including workers from far off places. “I have always admired him. Our country has lost a great son and our Congress party has lost a great leader,” said Pandit Atre Ram, a party worker from Rae Bareli, Uttar Pradesh, a seat represented by Rahul Gandhi in Parliament.
In many ways, Singh laid the foundation for India’s development as a regional economic power and shaped the country’s institutions, from the then Planning Commission to the Reserve Bank of India.
Three decades ago, Singh, as finance minister, introduced a series of reforms that boosted India’s economy. When rising oil prices nearly emptied all of India’s foreign reserves, leaving enough dollars for two weeks’ worth of imports, Singh freed up the economy. This led to a serious balance of payments crisis, which could have led to bankruptcy if Singh had not pulled the economy back from the brink.
“No power on earth can stop an idea whose time has come,” Singh said at the time, quoting French writer Victor Hugo, referring to India’s “emergence as a major economic power in the world.”
Former World Bank chief economist Kaushik Basu, who was India’s chief economic adviser during Singh’s second term, said Singh’s humility came from a “deep sense of courage and confidence”.
“His visionary reforms inspired countless young economists like me. Rest in peace, Dr. Manmohan Singh,” said Gita Gopinath, the IMF’s first deputy managing director, who, before receiving her PhD, earned a master’s degree from the Delhi School of Economics, where Singh once taught. in Economics from Princeton University in 2001.
Singh turned the 1991 crisis into a leapfrogging opportunity by ending excessive state control over trade and industry. They devalued the artificially inflated currency, reduced external borrowing to cut huge public debt, removed the constraints imposed on private companies, freed up capital flows and dismantled inefficient, bloated state monopolies. Broke.
In his first term, Singh defeated former US President George W. Bush, a notable foreign-policy achievement that ended India’s nuclear isolation. The “123 Agreement”, as it was known, helped the country emerge as a recognized, de facto nuclear power on the global stage.
Under Singh’s tenure as Prime Minister, India became Asia’s third largest economy with the highest decadal average real economic growth of 8.3%. On the one hand, Singh led a modern market-driven economy, where private investment drove growth.
On the other hand, as Prime Minister, Singh’s social policies were to ensure that the vulnerable were protected by safety nets, such as the Rural Employment Guarantee Program and a National Food Security Act implemented in 2013, which provided two-thirds of the population’s income. Gave heavily subsidized food grains. Of Indians.
Several non-Congress and Congress chief ministers, such as MK Stalin (Tamil Nadu), Sukhwinder Singh Sukhu (Himachal Pradesh), Revanth Reddy (Telangana) and Delhi Chief Minister Atishi also paid tribute to Singh. Delhi Lieutenant Governor VK Saxena was also present at the funeral.
Vice President Dhankhar had earlier met Singh’s family and acknowledged his “enduring legacy” in a statement, while former President Ram Nath Kovind called Singh “a modern reformer for the Indian economy”.
Singh was born on September 26, 1932, in a village called Gah in a part of Punjab in then undivided British India, which now falls in Pakistan. Singh had recalled on several occasions how he had to walk for miles to his school in a village where there was no electricity. He studied economics first in India and later at Cambridge University. He received a doctorate in economics from Nuffield College, Oxford University in 1962.
“As I have always said, my public life has been like an open book. I have tried to serve our great nation with all my might. Our country is far ahead of where it was 10 years ago. But there is still plenty of room for growth. For this we will have to work unitedly and hard,” Singh had said in his last speech at the end of his tenure in 2014.
