Gujral cremated with full state honours

Military gives India’s ex-pm 21-gun salute

NEW DELHI, Dec 1, (AFP): Former Indian prime minister Inder Kumar Gujral, who engineered a thaw in India’s relationship with arch rival 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.

India’s newspapers were full of praise for Gujral on Saturday with the Indian Express calling him a “gentlemanpolitician” for his intellect and diplomacy.

The Hindustan Times hailed him for going “the extra mile to bring peace” in South Asia’s troubled neighbourhood.

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.