Manmohan Singh, the former Indian prime minister widely regarded as the architect of the country’s economic reform programme, has been cremated after a state funeral as politicians and the public mourned his death.
The veteran leader, who was also credited for a landmark nuclear deal with the United States, died on Thursday aged 92.
His body was taken on Saturday morning to the headquarters of his Congress party in New Delhi, where party leaders and activists paid tribute to him and chanted “Manmohan Singh lives forever”.
Abhishek Bishnoi, a party leader, said Mr Singh’s death is big loss for the country. “He used to speak little, but his talent and his actions spoke louder than his words,” he added.
Later, Mr Singh’s body was transported to a crematorium ground for his last rites as soldiers beat drums.
Government officials, politicians and family members paid their last respects to Mr Singh, whose casket was adorned with flowers and wrapped in the Indian flag.
Security personnel honoured him with a ceremonial gun salute.
Indian President Draupadi Murmu, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who called Mr Singh one of the country’s “most distinguished leaders”, and several Cabinet ministers participated in the funeral ceremony.
Mr Singh’s body was then transferred to a pyre as religious hymns played and he was cremated.
Authorities have declared a seven-day mourning period and cancelled all cultural and entertainment events during that time. Government buildings across India are flying the national flag at half-mast.
A mild-mannered technocrat, Mr Singh was prime minister for 10 years and leader of the Congress party in Parliament’s upper house, earning a reputation as a man of great personal integrity.
He was chosen to be prime minister in 2004 by Sonia Gandhi, the widow of assassinated Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi.
Mr Singh was re-elected in 2009, but his second term was clouded by financial scandals and corruption charges over the organisation of the 2010 Commonwealth Games.
This led to the Congress party’s crushing defeat in the 2014 national elections by the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party under the leadership of Mr Modi.
Mr Singh adopted a low profile after relinquishing the post of prime minister.
As finance minister in 1991, he had instituted reforms that moved India away from a socialist-patterned economy and towards a capitalist model in the face of a huge balance of payments deficit, skirting a potential economic crisis.
Mr Singh was the first Sikh to hold the country’s top post and made a public apology in Parliament for the 1984 Sikh Massacre in which some 3,000 Sikhs were killed after then-prime minister Indira Gandhi was assassinated by her Sikh bodyguards.
In a move hailed as one of his biggest achievements apart from economic reforms, Mr Singh ended India’s nuclear isolation by signing a deal with the US that gave India access to American nuclear technology.
But the deal hurt his coalition government, with Communist allies withdrawing their support and criticism of the agreement growing within India in 2008 when it was finalised.
