India bid farewell to its former prime minister Manmohan Singh in a state funeral on Saturday as the country’s top politicians and leaders gathered to mourn his death in New Delhi.
Known as the prime minister who shielded India from the 2008 global financial crisis, the veteran Congress leader died late on Thursday at the age of 92.
Singh was seen as the architect of India’s economic reform in the post-independence era and lauded for striking a landmark nuclear deal with the US.
A day after the Indian leaders from across the party ranks paid tribute to the late prime minister, his body was taken to the headquarters of Congress party on Saturday morning. The party leaders and activists paid tributes to him and chanted “Manmohan Singh lives forever”.
Dozens of government officials, politicians and family members paid their last respects to Singh, whose casket was adorned with flowers and wrapped in the Indian flag.
Shortly after, his body was transported to a crematorium ground for his last rites amid a state funeral procession as soldiers beat drums. Indian president Draupadi Murmu, prime minister Narendra Modi and his party leaders were also present at the state funeral.
India’s security personnel also honoured Singh with a ceremonial gun salute.
Religious hymns filled the crematorium hall as Singh’s body was transferred to a pyre as his family and relatives bid their final goodbye.
India has announced a seven-day mourning period and cancelled all cultural and entertainment events in the coming week. As a mark of state mourning and respect to the iconic Sikh leader, all government buildings and ministries across the country are flying the national flag at half-mast.
“He used to speak little, but his talent and his actions spoke louder than his words,” said Abhishek Bishnoi, a Congress party leader, calling it a big loss for India.
Regarded as India’s most low-profile prime minister and a mild-mannered technocrat, Singh served India as prime minister for 10 years between 2004 and 2009 and as leader of the Congress party in Parliament’s upper house.
He was hand-picked by India’s senior Congress leader Sonia Gandhi, the wife of assassinated prime minister Rajiv Gandhi, to lead the country in 2004 and was reelected in 2009. However, his second term was hit by financial scandals and corruption charges over India’s 2010 Commonwealth Games.
Top leaders from across the world joined the mourning as they remembered Singh’s major diplomatic contributions to the external affairs of New Delhi. US president Joe Biden said the former Indian prime minister was a true statesman and a dedicated public servant.
“The unprecedented level of cooperation between the United States and India today would not have been possible without the Prime Minister’s strategic vision and political courage,” Mr Biden said in a statement.
He added: “From forging the US-India Civil Nuclear Agreement to helping launch the first Quad between Indo-Pacific partners, he charted pathbreaking progress that will continue to strengthen our nations—and the world—for generations to come. He was a true statesman. A dedicated public servant. And above all, he was a kind and humble person.”
Singh, who served as India’s finance minister from 1991 to 1996, is credited with opening up the Indian market and workforce to the rest of the world in 1991 in the wake of a financial crisis by instituting reforms aimed at making India a capitalist model.
This was a remarkable shift from the Asian country’s socialist-patterned economy which was languishing in payments deficit, averting a potential economic crisis. Indian economists have credited Singh with the country’s economic progress.
He also safeguarded India as the rest of the world was battered in the 2008 global recession, earning the reputation of an honest and prudent country leader. In one of his biggest achievements, Singh ended India’s nuclear isolation in 2008 after he signed a deal with the US to access American nuclear technology.
Singh was also the first and only Sikh so far to hold the top office in India. After his second term which faced political upheaval, Singh had said history will be kinder to him.
