Opinion: What is the need for a memorial for Manmohan Singh where no one goes?

Once On a trip to Varanasi, a friend suggested visiting the ancestral home of Lal Bahadur Shastri. A house across the Ganges, it served as an unofficial memorial to the second Prime Minister of India. The small one-storey building was entered from a courtyard, where the family had left what remained of Shastri’s room in the state of his/her use. A cot, an open cupboard, a slipper, some books, a pot, Everything was lying as if the former Prime Minister had just come out. A fitting monument to an ordinary man, without any excessive physical or mental burden, who might have preferred to live and die in comfortable obscurity.

So Manmohan Singh would have made a law

What little people know about Manmohan Singh seems to be that this is the memorial he/she would have liked for himself. Certainly, if he/she had even the slightest idea that a controversy might arise over building a memorial after his/her death, he/she would certainly have made a law to ban memorials.

Meanwhile, while Congress and BJP debate the details, let’s think about what kind of memorial would honor the architect of India’s liberalisation. Where should it be built and who should pay for it.

Started from Jawahar Lal Nehru

It started with Nehru. Teen Murti Bhavan was the residence of the first Prime Minister of India. For a long time after his/her death and before the library was built, it was a memorial to him/her. It displayed, among other things, his/her study desk and the poetry of Robert Frost. Nehru was cremated at a large plot in Shanti Van near the Yamuna, which was his/her final resting place.

When his/her successor Shastri died suddenly in Tashkent two years later, the government allowed his/her widow to keep the property on Janpath. he/she was allotted a memorial place at Vijay Ghat, away from Nehru. Years later, the cluster of two houses on Safdarjung Road occupied by Indira Gandhi became the Indira Gandhi Memorial after her death. he/she also got his/her place at the place of power on the banks of the river.

anonymity in public

As memorials to former prime ministers began to be held up as bad examples, more memorials were built: a small memorial to Gulzarilal Nanda in Ahmedabad, and a memorial to Sanjay Gandhi at Vijay Ghat in Delhi. Nearby were Charan Singh’s Kisan Ghat and Rajiv Gandhi’s Veer Bhoomi. Then a series of mausoleums of President Zail Singh, R Venkataraman and others came up at the same place.

This probably made the 245-acre National Memorial site on the banks of the Yamuna the largest area given for monuments in any capital city. It would not be difficult to fit Manmohan into this mix. But like all other places along the river, this will only ensure them a future of public anonymity and insignificance.

Is it possible to find a better way to remember?

How often do tourists visit Shakti Sthal or Vijay Ghat of Delhi? What do they gain from the rectangular abstraction of mausoleums and stone statues? Is it possible to stop this obsessive desire to praise our political leaders by placing large stones on public real estate, and find better ways to remember them?

The first possibility is to create something useful and in public interest. The Manmohan Singh Memorial Library, like presidential libraries in the US, can be a community institution, where the former Prime Minister can be appropriately remembered for the legislation passed in Parliament or for particular statesmanship actions undertaken by him/her during his/her tenure.

Functioning as both a research center and an attractive memorial, the value of such a place will surely last longer than a desolate statue in an isolated park.

Can take inspiration from the great cemeteries of the West

Another option could be inspiration from the great cemeteries of the West. Père Lachaise in Paris or Arlington in Washington DC. French land, visited by more than 32 lakh people every year. It houses the mausoleums and tombs of some of the greats of literature, music, politics and art such as Oscar Wilde, Balzac, Chopin, Jim Morrison and others.

Similarly, the Washington Cemetery is an elaborate but solemn museum of American political and military leadership – generals, presidents, politicians, and soldiers. Like these two, can we create a single focused space to depict the story of Indian greats in monuments so dense, that it becomes the physical embodiment of those who enriched our lives. Tagore, Gandhi, Rani of Jhansi, MF Hussain, Mother Teresa and others should be given place in this.

Ultimately, the value of a good monument lies in what it represents and reflects, both its private and public aspects. Then how should Manmohan Singh be presented – sitting like Abraham Lincoln on white marble; Or like Gandhi, as an abstract slab of black granite? Or like Shastri, in his/her old family home, where his/her everyday items are put on public display? It is easy to guess which of these options he/she would have preferred.
(Gautam Bhatia is an architect by profession and a resident of Delhi.)