News-12 Jan 13: EX INDIAN PRIME MINISTER MR. I.K. GUJRAL PASSED AWAY

EX-PRIME MINISTER INDRA KUMAR GUJRAL PASSES AWAY

Former Prime Minister I. K. Gujral, died on November 30, 2012 after a brief illness.

Gujral, who migrated from Pakistan after partition, rose to become the Prime Minister with a slice of luck after he came up through the ranks—starting as Vice-President in the New Delhi Municipal Committee (NDMC) in the Fifties to later become a Union Minister and then India's ambassador to the USSR.

Educated at DAV College, Haily College of Commerce and Forman Christian College, Lahore, Gujral took active part in student politics. After the tumultuous events that rocked the sub-continent in the wake of partition in August 1947, Gujral crossed over to India.

He was the Information and Broadcasting Minister when Emergency was imposed (on June 25, 1975), which brought in arbitrary press censorship. Since he refused to kowtow to the powers that be, he was taken out of the ministry and sent by Mrs. Gandhi as ambassador to Moscow, a post he handled with tact and finesse. He continued even during the tenures of her two successors, Morarji Desai and Charan Singh.

He had left the Congress to join the Janata Dal in the late 1980s. He became external affairs minister in the V. P. Singh led National Front government in 1989.

He had a second stint in the ministry in the United Front government under H. D. Deve Gowda, whom he later replaced as Prime Minister after the Congress withdrew support in the summer of 1997.

In a condolence message, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh termed Gujral as "an intellectual, a scholar statesman and a gentleman politician" who left a mark in every position he held.

In external affairs he is known for his famous Gujral Doctrine which essentially stood for good and cooperative relations with its neighbours and the southeast Nations. In the world of foreign policy he was eminently an idealist.

Friends Across the Spectrum

He was a gentleman to the core. If there is a key to understanding Mr. Gujral's life, it was that he had friends in virtually every political party, and across the social spectrum, something he makes it a point to underscore in his Matters of Discretion: An Autobiography. The 'old friends' who helped him become India's 12th Prime Minister (pipping Moopanar and Mulayam Singh Yadav to the post) included the CPI (M)'s Jyoti Basu, former Vice-President Krishan Kant (who was Andhra Pradesh Governor at the time), a group of powerful journalists and an influential newspaper group.