When Manmohan Singh said, "Don't let me die," on improving relations between Pakistan and India

 Monday, December 30, 2024

Islamabad (UrduPoint News Today/ Pakistan Point News - 30th December, 2024 ) Manmohan Singh was the last Prime Minister of India, who witnessed the partition of 1947. His grandfather was killed in a riot in his birthplace ‘Gah’ in Chakwal and he could never erase this bitter memory from his heart.

Why did Manmohan Singh, who installed geysers in mosques in his native village, solar panels in houses and street lights in the streets, not visit his birthplace despite visiting Pakistan three times?

Peepal tree, pond and primary school: What was Manmohan Singh’s childhood like in Gah?

After the death of Manmohan Singh, an unusual emotional response was seen in ‘Gah’, a village in Chakwal, about a hundred kilometers away from Islamabad.

All the men gathered in one place and remembered their ‘Mohana’.

Ninety-one-year-old Muhammad Khan was more emotional than the rest because Mohana was not only his daughter-in-law but also a classmate.

Speaking to DW Urdu, he says, “There were a large number of Sikhs in the village, both the mosque and the gurdwara were inhabited and life was going on. Only our village had a school where boys from nearby used to come to study.

Mohana would sit on the tarp with us and study, play together and bathe in the pond on Jeth Haar afternoons. We would play for hours every day under the shade of the peepal trees planted here.”

He says, “During Partition, our village was attacked by another village in which many Sikhs were killed. Mohana was with her father in Peshawar at the time. Her grandfather was also killed in the riot.

”

According to the records of the Government Primary School in Gah, Manmohan Singh joined the school on April 17, 1937 and studied there till class four. His father’s name was Gurmukh Singh, his caste was Kohli and his profession was shopkeeper.

After passing primary, he went to Peshawar to join his father and got admitted to Khalsa High School.

Mother safe, father killed: The four-word telegram that Manmohan Singh could never forget

Former Punjab Finance Minister Preet Singh Badal writes in a recent article that I once spoke to Manmohan Singh about not going back to his native village and said, “As Prime Minister, you would have been given a wonderful welcome.”

“The memories are very bitter,” Manmohan Singh replied.

These bitter memories were actually linked to the blood of his close relatives during the partition and migration.

Author Rajiv Shukla writes in his book titled “Scars of 1947” that Manmohan was raised by his grandfather. There was a strong emotional bond between the two. His grandfather was killed.

At that time, Manmohan Singh was with his father in Peshawar. “His uncle, who was in Chakwal, sent a four-word telegram to his brother, ‘Mother safe, father killed.’” Manmohan Singh was fifteen years old then and he still remembers this telegram.

Rajiv Shukla goes on to write that the bitter memory of his grandfather's murder was always etched in Manmohan's memory. When he visited Pakistan in 1968 to meet his Cambridge friend Mehboob-ul-Haq, he also visited the old bookshop in Rawalpindi and the Gurdwara Panja Sharif in Hassanabad.

When asked about visiting his birthplace, his answer was, "I don't want to go through that trauma again by going there, where my grandfather was brutally murdered."

He visited Pakistan twice more after that, in 1984 and 2019, but never made up his mind to visit his village.

Portraits hanging in the room, Chakwal's reori, khasa and soil and water from the gah

Manmohan Singh never visited his village again, but a connection remained.

Local journalist Ali Khan tells DW Urdu, "After he became prime minister in 2004, the media suddenly focused on 'gah'. This is where the connection that had apparently been severed in 1947 was reconnected. Various Indian channels have reported on the difficult living conditions in Gah, and in return, fifty-one houses were gifted solar panels and sixteen street lights.

He says what impressed the villagers was the need to install geysers for mosques.

Manmohan Singh's grandfather was killed, but the people here also sheltered his grandmother. There are all kinds of people in society. "Mohan remembered good behavior."

Manmohan Singh's classmate Raja Mohammad Ali met him in Delhi in 2008. His nephew and former UC Nazim Ashiq Hussain tells DW Urdu, "He was offered Chakwal rice, cattle, soil from Gah and water.

There is also his picture in the fried golden rice. It was an extraordinary moment for the entire village."

Manmohan Singh's daughter Daman Singh has mentioned in "Strictly Personal" the portrait hanging in his room, his eating Chakwal rice and drinking Gah water. Daman Singh writes in the aforementioned book, “Receiving the envelope filled with Gah soil, an emotional smile could be clearly seen on his face and the sparkle of memories in his eyes.”

When Manmohan Singh said, 'Don't let me die' on improving Pak-India relations

Mushahid Hussain Syed told DW Urdu, "When Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain and I met Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in Delhi in 2006, I told him in Punjabi, 'Dil wada karo' and Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain also said, 'Hun wat aa gaya hai koi paksa karye, tusi vi age vadu.

'' To this, Manmohan Singh replied in Punjabi with a laugh, 'Don't let me die'." He says, "Manmohan Singh's attitude towards Pak-India relations has always been sympathetic."

Javed Malik, a resident and intellectual of Chakwal, says, "This sympathetic attitude, this is in the water of religious tolerance. "How many prominent politicians of India were born in areas that are now in Pakistan, but hardly anyone has ever embraced a son of their own land like the people of Gah embraced 'Mohne'? Our entire region needs such a generous attitude and broad-heartedness."