'We Feel Someone From Our Family Has Died': A Village in Pakistan Mourns Manmohan's Death

Gah: A group of local residents in Gah village, about 100 km southwest of Islamabad, held a meeting to mourn the death of Manmohan Singh, who rose to become India's prime minister. 

Altaf Hussain, a teacher at the school where Singh studied until class 4, expressed the deep loss felt by the village. Singh's father, Gurmukh Singh, was a cloth merchant, and his mother, Amrat Kaur, was a homemaker. Friends fondly called him 'Mohna'. 

The village, originally part of Jhelum district, became part of Chakwal in 1986.

“The entire village is in mourning. We feel that someone from our family has died today,” Altaf Hussain told news agency.

Surrounded by lush green fields, the place can be reached from M-2 motorway linking Islamabad to Lahore, as well as from Chakwal city.

The former prime minister died at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) in New Delhi on Thursday night. He was 92.

Raja Ashiq Ali, nephew of Raja Muhammad Ali, a schoolmate who travelled to Delhi in 2008 to meet him, addressed the meeting.

“All these villagers are deeply moved… They were eager to attend his last rites in India but it is not possible. So they are here to mourn,” he said.

Singh’s rise brought to spotlight his forgotten ancestral village, surrounded by lush fields.

Some classmates who were around when he became prime minister in 2004 are dead now. But their families still live in Gah, and cherish the old link.

“We are still overwhelmed by the memory of the days when everyone in the village felt proud that a boy from our village had become the prime minister of India,” Ashiq Ali said.

The most iconic place in the village is perhaps the school where Singh got his early education. His admission number in the register is 187, and the date of admission April 17, 1937. His date of birth is entered as February 4, 1932, his caste as ‘Kohli’.

Local people credit Singh being from the village for the renovation of the school, and say there was some talk about naming it after the Indian politician. Singh's rise in India prompted local authorities to concentrate on the development of the village, they believe.

He shifted to Chakwal after class 4. Shortly before Partition, the family moved to Amritsar, according to the villagers.

Singh invited one of his friends, Raja Muhammad Ali, to visit him in Delhi in 2008. Ali died in 2010, and so did a couple of other friends in the years that followed.

‘Mohna’ never came back to Gah and finally the news of his passing arrived, severing the bond with the village.

“Dr Manmohan Singh could not come to Gah in his lifetime. But now when he is no more, we want that someone from his family should come and pay a visit to this village,” the schoolteacher said.

(with agency inputs)