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Obituary Inder Kumar Gujral: the first Indian Prime
Minister of Punjabi origin 1919-2012
Gujral’s ancestral house in
Shumali mohalla Jhelum close to the river. 2009 photo by Amarjit Chandan His father Avtar Narain and mother Pushpa were Congress activists in the freedom struggle. Both of them were jailed a few times. Their home in Jhelum was a citadel on which patriots converged in time of need. The family had played host to the tallest among them including Jawahar Lal Nehru. The Gujrals’ house in Shumali Mohalla Jhelum was like Anand Bhawan in Allahabad. Avtar Narain was an eminent lawyer. He sacrificed his thriving practice and courted imprisonment several times. When Pakistan’s constituent assembly met, Inder helped his father in framing Pakistan’s Constitution. Avtar Narain was a member of the assembly as all MLAs of undivided Punjab were automatically members of Pakistan’s constituent assembly. He one of the 19 Hindus who signed the pledge of allegiance to Pakistan. He made Jalandhar his second home after partition. The Sikhs would miss Gujral the most. He was a gentleman in politics. He
had rivals but no enemy. His humility was his greatest asset
He left the Congress after his
stint in Moscow, later joining the Janata Dal. He was elected to the Lok
Sabha for the first time in 1989 from Jalandhar in East Punjab, re-elected
in 1998 when he was interim prime minister but he decided not to contest
the 1999 elections, choosing to retire from electoral politics. Talking about his brief prime
ministerial stint, Gujrat said: “...my main task had been to ward off
attacks from various factional leaders so that I could keep my chin up.
But I really did not feel a sense of achievement that I did during my
tenure as minister of external affairs.” He spent his last decade
writing and speaking mostly in chaste Punjabi largely on foreign policy
issues and was much sought after in intellectual and academic circles. He
also published Matters of
Discretion: An Autobiography (Hay House, 2011). He was an ardent
admirer of Faiz and his poetry. Kuldip Nayar, journalist and
ex-diplomat, writes: “Those were the days [1980s - the period of Sikh
and Indian state terrorism] when the Sikhs felt alienated. Gujral
constituted a Punjab Group, which was able to narrow the distance between
the Congress government and the Akalis. The Punjab Group persuaded the
Akalis to give up their anti-Centre stance but the Congress was far from
convinced. Gujral was the most dejected person but he did not give up his
work towards conciliation. The effort was frustrating but rewarding as it
was from Gujral’s heart. The Sikhs would miss him the most. …Gujral
was a gentleman in politics. He had rivals but no enemy. His humility was
his greatest asset. When Jyoti Basu offered him the position of prime
ministership on behalf of the giant front of different political parties,
he said there were better persons than him. Basu replied that in their
opinion he was the best choice.” Gujral’s wife Sheila
predeceased him in 2011. His brother Satish the painter and two sons
survive him. One of them Naresh is a member of Rajya Sabha the upper house
of Indian parliament. Inder Kumar Gujral,
politician and statesman, born December 4 1919 Jhelum, Punjab; died
November 30 2012 Gurgaon
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