December 26th 2024, was the 25th death anniversary of my dear Amma. This Boxing Day has become doubly sorrowful with the passing of India’s jewel, Dr. Manmohan Singh ji.
I was already reminiscing about the most huggable person in my life, my Amma, when I woke up to read about the demise of our ex-Prime Minister at the age of 92. What an eventful and impactful life he led with malice to no one, doing what needed to be done for the country at all the important and critical offices he held in a public career spanning over 50 years. I feel a personal loss, though I never met him, but what he did affected us all in a good way.
It’s my good karma that I’m the daughter of my Amma, and it’s all our collective karma that we had such a soft-spoken intellectual and technocrat as Dr. Singh to steer us out of financial woes and into the 21st century, where the world recognized us as the ‘emerging economy’ with a chance to outdo the bad boys and be a leading force for religious secularism and democratic values. He didn’t need jingoism, no chest beating and bellowing curses at other leaders, no avoiding the fourth pillar, but just well chosen words and a focus not unlike an Olympic champion. I heard his mann ki baat by seeing what he did and what he stood for.
I haven’t seen this kind of overwhelming public sorrow and expression of grief and admiration in a long time as I see for Dr. Singh, from past and current world leaders, most Indians and even the ‘free’ press that vilified him and sought to paint him as a hapless and powerless head of government. He had smilingly brushed off the criticism saying, “History will be kinder to me…”
The crusaders of India Against Corruption, the ‘star’ journalists, his unfaithful junior turned biographer and politically tainted filmmaker and actor who made a flop movie on his life, and his political detractors are ‘maun’ today, which is really being kind as they have realized what another type of man can do to break our social and moral fabric in less than a decade while increasing the economic inequalities among Indian citizens.
Dr. Manmohan Singh, a true Gandhian and role model, has left behind a foundational legacy to make us stand strong, shoulder to shoulder, with global elites anywhere we go. I am proud to have been born in a country that also had Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru and Manmohan Singh.
0 Comments