Amritsar, March 27: Former Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh, who visited the Indo-Pak Partition museum here on Sunday, said that Partition was very painful and sad chapter in the history of India and Pakistan.
Dr Singh, who was on a two-day visit to the holy city, spent about half an hour at the museum, which is the world’s first Partition museum at the Town Hall, a colonial era building, a short walk from the Golden Temple. His wife, Gursharan Kaur, also accompanied him.
He left a note for the ‘Tree of Hope’, writing that “This museum is a real reminder of a very painful chapter in the history of India and Pakistan. One hopes this sad chapter is never repeated in future.”
The former Prime Minister is himself a partition survivor. He was born in 1932 in Gah, now in Pakistan and migrated to India in 1947. After Partition, he did his Bachelor degree from Hindu College here. During the visit, he recalled memories of Partition that made his family leave Pakistan.
He said that as a student he used to study in the Moti Lal Nehru Library adjoining the museum at Town Hall.
Dr Manmohan Singh paid obeisance at the Golden Temple earlier in the morning, where he was honoured with a ‘siropa’ (robe of honour) inside the sanctum sanctorum by ardasia (priest) Rajdeep Singh.
He and his wife stayed at the Golden Temple complex for an hour during which he listened ‘gurbani’ inside the sanctum sanctorum for 10 minutes and also offered ‘deg’ (parshad).
At the information office of the Golden Temple, officials of the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC), including SGPC executive member Bhagwant Singh Sialka, secretary Manjit Singh, manager Sulakhan Singh, chief information officer Jaswinder Singh Jassi, presented him a portrait of the Golden Temple and a set of books on Sikh philosophy. “It was real bliss for me to have darshan of Sri Harmandar Sahib,” he wrote in the visitors’ book of the shrine.
