memorial-for-manmohan-singh-much-ado-about-nothing

Former Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh was accorded a state funeral on Saturday.

 

Prime Minister Narendra Modi led the country to pay homage to the departed leader. Modi paid his respects to the departed soul at his residence and then marked his presence at Nigambodh Ghat, the funeral site for the late Prime Minister.

 

Dr Singh was accorded 21-gun salute.

 

Besides the Prime Minister, President Draupadi Murmu, Vice President Jagdeep Dhankhar, union Home Minister Amit Shah, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh and other senior Bharatiya Janata Party leaders were also present.

 

And of course the Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge, Ms Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra and other senior party leaders were also present. 

 

It was quite unprecedented that Prime Minister Modi led the country in observing the mourning and remained involved in the entire process right till the cremation took place at the Nigambodh Ghat, for a former Prime Minister who did not belong to his political party. 

 

The Congress was apparently taken aback since Modi had owned up Dr Singh, rising above the partisan politics. The Congress raised the issue of setting up a memorial for Dr Singh, which the BJP government readily agreed to and confirmed it to the Congress president and Dr Singh’s family also.

 

Since the decision to provide a site for Dr Singh’s memorial was taken late, it took time to get publicised. But by that time, the Congress had managed to build up a narrative that the BJP government had denied a memorial to Dr Singh in the national capital. 

 

Once it was clear in the public domain that the government had already agreed to setting up a memorial for Dr Singh, the Congress switched over to the narrative of “not a befitting cremation”, saying the Nigambodh Ghat was not the proper funeral site for the late Prime Minister.

 

The Congress played it up and also mixed the two things. Memorial and cremation were two different things. The government had already decided that Dr Singh will be accorded a state funeral, with the President and the Prime Minister in attendance. But the public got confused that the government had refused to provide a memorial site for Dr Singh.

 

Not just that, Congress spokesperson and Chairman of the Media and Publicity Department of the party, Pawan Khera came out with a detailed statement, finding faults with the funeral arrangements and alleging insult to the late Prime Minister. 

 

Ideally there should not have been any problem for anyone to organise the funeral at the Rajghat. But the government is entitled to its own decision making process, that must have been made taking many factors into consideration. What actually matters is that Dr Singh was accorded the state funeral. Place of the funeral really does not matter much, particularly when the government had already decided to allot a site for the memorial of the late Prime Minister. 

 

The Congress drew right and justified criticism for its “double standards”.

 

Dr Singh, did not get a fair deal while being the Prime Minister, particularly in his second tenure. Rahul Gandhi tearing down the copy of an ordinance, was deemed as a grave insult to the Prime Minister.

 

Second, the way the Congress, while being in power, treated PV Narsimha Rao, another former Prime Minister and in fact Dr Manmohan Singh’s political mentor, when he died. His body was not allowed to be kept at the AICC headquarters and nor was any memorial erected in his memory. Pranab Mukherjee, who was a former President and died in 2020, the Congress just did not do anything befitting the stature of Mukherjee. 

 

While the Congress is resorting to too much breast beating over the “denial of respectable” funeral space to Dr Singh, it never owned up to his legacy. It is a globally acknowledged fact that Dr Singh was the architect of the economic reforms, which transformed the country's economy. Besides, his role in the Indo-US Civil Nuclear Deal is unparalleled. Also, the country achieved the highest GDP growth rate of over ten percent during his tenure, which was neither achieved before him nor after him, so far. 

 

But none of the Congress leaders ever talks about it. The party has completely disowned his legacy. Not to speak of owning it up, the party is completely undermining the policies that Dr Manmohan Singh is known and praised for. He would be the last person to endorse caste-census, demonising private sector and wealth creators, as Rahul Gandhi does. 

 

Instead of crying wolf and trying to create an issue out of nothing to show their respect for Dr Manmohan Singh, the Congress leaders will do better to own up to his legacy of reforms and liberalisation. Token and momentary gestures of respect, clearly betraying the intent, will not serve any purpose for the party. 

 

In fact the things Rahul Gandhi has been seeking, like the caste-census, removing the ceiling on reservations, wealth redistribution and demonising the big industrialists and wealth creators, is completely contradictory and opposite to what Dr Manmohan Singh did and believed in.

 

Rahul Gandhi is trying to take the country to pre-1991 reforms era and in a way seeking to undo all that what Dr Manmohan Singh did and is known and respected for.