Thousands pay tearful last respects to Manmohan Singh

Former prime minister Manmohan Singh, who died at 92 on Thursday, leaving behind a legacy of historic measures that unleashed India’s economy, was cremated on Saturday with full state honours at Nigambodh Ghat in the nation’s capital.

Top officials, relatives and thousands of admirers gathered as the funeral pyre was lit by Singh’s eldest daughter, Upinder Singh, in the presence of her sisters Daman Singh, a writer, and Amrit Singh, who teaches at Stanford Law School, apart from the late prime minister’s wife Gursharan Kaur. Congress party leaders and foreign dignitaries also attended the funeral that saw a 21-gun salute. National flags flew at half-mast across the national capital on what was a grey, overcast day.

Shortly after 11.20am at the funeral site, President Droupadi Murmu led the nation in paying tributes to the 13th prime minister of the country, whose premiership ran from 2004 to 2014. The president laid a wreath of white lotus flowers and lilies at the foot of a raised platform where Singh’s body had been lain, draped in the national flag.

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The president’s tributes were followed by those of Vice President Jagdeep Dhankhar, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Union home minister Amit Shah, defence minister Rajnath Singh, Lok Sabha speaker Om Birla and health minister JP Nadda, who also leads the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Among top government officials, Shah was first to arrive at the funeral.

Congress president and leader of the Opposition in Rajya Sabha, Mallikarjun Kharge, party leaders Sonia Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra and leader of the Opposition in Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi also laid wreaths at Nigambodh Ghat. They were seated in the front row at the funeral ceremony, along with the President, Vice President, PM and senior Cabinet ministers. Sonia had earlier said Singh was her “friend, philosopher and guide”.

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Bhutan’s King Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck also laid a wreath as did Mauritian foreign minister Dhananjay Ramful. Singapore and Mauritius decided to fly their national flags at half-mast at all government buildings to mourn Singh’s death.

Earlier, top armed forces officers paid their tributes, including chief of defence staff Gen Anil Chauhan, army chief Gen. Upendra Dwivedi, air chief marshal AP Singh and navy chief admiral Dinesh K Tripathi.

The only Indian to have served as prime minister, finance minister and central bank governor, Singh changed the country’s political and economic landscapes in an extensive career as an erudite economist and technocrat.

On his death, Prime Minister Modi, in one of his several posts on X, praised Singh as “one of (India’s) most distinguished leaders” who left a “strong imprint on our economic policy over the years”.

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The Centre has declared a seven-day national mourning, from December 27 till January 02, both days inclusive, and a half-day official recess on Saturday. Yet, Singh’s funeral was marked by a controversy when the Congress party criticised the government’s decision to conduct the funeral at Nigambodh Ghat, instead of a place where a memorial could be built.

The party wanted a site in the prestigious funeral enclave of Rajghat, where several of India’s founding fathers had been cremated. “The people of our country are simply unable to understand why the Government of India could not find a location for his cremation and memorial that is befitting of his global stature, record of outstanding achievements, and exemplary service to the nation for decades,” Congress communication chief Jairam Ramesh said in a post on X.

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Earlier around 9.15am, the body of the departed leader was taken in a flower-bedecked cortège from 3 Motilal Nehru Marg, his retirement abode for 10 years, to the Congress party’s headquarters barely two kilometres away at 24 Akbar Road. At the party office, Congress president Kharge, leaders Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, all MPs, paid their last respects, along with hundreds of admirers and party workers.

Around 10.25am, the cortège made its way to the crematorium on the Yamuna bank, as Rahul Gandhi clambered on to the truck following the flower-draped hearse.

At the party office, more than a 100 Congress leaders paid their tributes, including workers from faraway places. “I have always admired him. Our country has lost a great son and our Congress party a great leader,” said Pandit Atre Ram, a party worker from Rae Bareli, Uttar Pradesh, a seat represented by Rahul Gandhi in Parliament.

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In many ways, Singh laid the foundations for India’s growth into a regional economic power and shaped the nation’s institutions, from the erstwhile Planning Commission to Reserve Bank of India.

A spate of reforms three decades ago, which Singh rolled out as finance minister, jump-started India’s economy. Singh set the economy free, after rising oil prices nearly emptied all of India’s foreign reserves, with just enough dollars for two weeks’ of imports. This had sparked a severe balance-of-payments crisis that would have led to bankruptcy had Singh not pulled the economy back from the brink.

Singh was born on September 26, 1932, in a village called Gah in a part of Punjab in the then undivided British-ruled India, a place which now falls in Pakistan. Singh had recalled on many occasions how he had to walk miles to his school in a village that had no electricity. He went on to study economics, first in India, and then later at Cambridge University. He earned a doctorate in economics in 1962 from Oxford University’s Nuffield College.

“As I have always said, my public life has been like an open book. I have tried to serve my great nation with all my strength. Our country is far ahead than where it was 10 years ago. But there is a lot of opportunity still for development. For that we will have to work hard unitedly,” Singh had said in his last speech at the end of his tenure in 2014.