NEW DELHI: A day after the Congress raised a question mark over the cremation of former PM Manmohan Singh at Nigambodh Ghat, senior SAD leader Naresh Gujral also asked the government why it had made a departure from the norm in the case of India’s only Sikh PM.
“It is baffling that a man who was India’s PM for 10 years and who led the country’s economic transformation was not given 250 yard of land at the Rashtriya Smriti Sthal where other former PMs have been cremated and their memorials built,” said Gujral, the son of former PM Inder Kumar Gujral.
He said the government should clarify whether it was now the state policy that no past PM would be cremated at the Smriti Sthal anymore.
“This is the first time any former PM has been cremated at Nigambodh Ghat. Why this exception for the only PM from the minority community,” asked Gujral. His father IK Gujral was cremated at Smriti Sthal, which has been built at the Samadhis complex near Ekta Sthal to perform the last rites of departed national leaders.
Another former PM, Atal Behari Vajpayee, was also cremated at the Smriti Sthal in 2018. This was in line with a May 2013 Union Cabinet decision which gave approval for the construction of the Rashtriya Smriti at the Samadhis Complex near Ekta Sthal in New Delhi to establish a place to perform last rites of departed national leaders namely presidents, vice-presidents, prime ministers and other leaders as decided by the Cabinet.
The 2013 Congress-led UPA Cabinet decision said, “In the past, separate memorials to national leaders were created near Rajghat which covered a large space. In view of the Cabinet decision taken in 2000 that henceforth government shall not develop any Samadhi for departed leaders and the paucity of land at the Samadhis Complex area, the Rashtriya Smriti is being developed to perform last rites of national leaders. The Smriti area shall provide space for the last rites of national leaders in future, besides space for a public gathering.”
IK Gujral was cremated at Smriti Sthal on the banks of the Yamuna with full state honours on December 1, 2012. Later, AB Vajpayee was given a state funeral at the same place on August 17, 2018.
The government’s decision to depart from the norm of cremating former PMs at Smriti Sthal in the case of Manmohan Singh remains unexplained though the government has committed to building a memorial to him and has said land will be identified.
Dr Singh’s family friend Mohinder Singh, director of Bhai Vir Singh Sadan, an organisation dedicated to research on Sikh literature, told The Tribune that the departure from tradition in the case of Dr Singh was inexplicable.