NEW DELHI: Former Indian prime minister Inder Kumar Gujral, who engineered a thaw in India's relationship with Pakistan, was given a funeral with full state honours on Saturday.
Gujral's body, draped in the tricolour Indian flag, was brought to the cremation site from his New Delhi home in a flower-laden gun-carriage accompanied by military personnel who fired a 21-gun salute.
India's President Pranab Mukherjee and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh attended the ceremony held amid prayers on the banks of the Yamuna River.
Gujral, who served as prime minister in a coalition government from April 1997 to March 1998, died on Friday aged 92 from a lung infection.
As premier, Gujral sought to improve India's strained ties with Pakistan, saying it was time for the two nations to leave the past behind and forge a new relationship.
He was famous for propounding the "Gujral Doctrine", a foreign policy approach based on peaceful accommodation that argued India should treat its neighbours with generosity.
Gujral, whose brother Satish ranks among India's most prominent artists and architects, is survived by two sons, Naresh, who is a member of parliament, and Vishal. His wife, a poetess, died last year.
Gujral was born in the city of Jhelum, Punjab (now a part of Pakistan), into a family of Congress party workers.
He began his career in politics as a student leader and member of the underground Communist Party of India. Gujral was arrested in 1942 and jailed for his involvement in the anti-colonial Quit India movement.
He joined the ruling Congress party after India won independence from Britain and rose through the ranks to become minister of information and broadcasting under prime minister Indira Gandhi from 1969-71 and 1972-75.
But Gujral ran foul of the party when he refused to censor radio broadcasts during the state of emergency imposed by Gandhi in 1975.
Gujral left the Congress party in the 1980s and joined the socialist Janata Dal, serving twice as India's foreign minister before being appointed prime minister in a coalition government in 1997.
Singh said as premier Gujral had set an example of "grace under pressure, of composure in difficult circumstances and of steadfastness to principles".
COMMENTS (1)
Comments are moderated and generally will be posted if they are on-topic and not abusive.
For more information, please see our Comments FAQ
1713525343-0/WhatsApp-Image-2024-04-19-at-4-09-16-PM-(1)1713525343-0-270x192.webp)
1713525453-0/Henry-Cavill-in-James-Bond-(AI)1713525453-0-270x192.webp)
NOVEMBER 30, 2012: When Gujral was prime minister, in a letter to the press I said "India's stupid current prime minister keeps talking about the necessity for Indians to "inculcate" in themselves the scientific spirit but what they need to inculcate in themselves is hatred for the white man [and woman]". When another stupid Indian prime minister, Vajpayee, was about to take office, he said in response to the above "Hate is not on the agenda". Gujral, Vajpayee and other Indian prime ministers are particles of S-H-I-T in the mountain of S-H-I-T that is India's population. See the paragraph dated November 28 '12 below. I am the world's greatest scientist, greatest behavioral scientist and the greatest Indian of all time (my biography can be found in Marquis' Who's Who in Science & Engineering, 2012 and earlier editions; Who's Who in Medicine & Healthcare, 2012 and earlier editions; Who's Who in America, 2012 and earlier editions; and Who's Who in the World, 2012 and earlier editions).
NOVEMBER 28, 2012: India's population is a mountain of S-H-I-T. Bal Thackeray and Raj Thackeray are particles of S-H-I-T in this mountain of S-H-I-T. Saying that the Congress party has the numbers to let Foreign Direct Investment sail through is like saying Shiv Sena has the numbers to jail anyone writing against particles of S-H-I-T like Bal Thackeray and Raj Thackeray. What matters is not who has the numbers but who has nuclear weapons. The British did not have the numbers in 1857 yet enforced their will by killing, by guns and sword, over ten million Indians in just the ten years after 1857 and continue to enforce their will today of which the ability of Anglo-Americans to bring Foreign Direct Investment -- via Indian governments which are proxies for the CIA with all political parties controlled by CIA-RAW -- is an example. But not guns and sword but nuclear weapons are what matter today and who has the nuclear weapons? IndiasTraitorGovtAndMediaDOTblogspotDOTcom Satish Chandra