​​The Indian Prime Minister who never came home to Pakistan

In the Pakistani village of Gah, nestled near Chakwal, a place almost forgotten by time, the name Manmohan Singh still stirs a quiet pride. Singh, India’s 13th Prime Minister, was born here on September 26, 1932.

He never revisited the place of his birth after migrating to India during the Partition of 1947. Despite this, his legacy endures in his ancestral village, where his childhood memories are revered.

Manmohan Singh’s connection to Gah remained bittersweet.

When Manpreet Singh Badal, a former finance minister in Punjab, asked why he never returned to his birthplace, Singh said, “Yadan badeeyan talkh hun”—the memories are too bitter.

Partition tore Gah apart. The violence that followed left scars that Singh, like so many others, could never fully heal.

Singh died at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences in New Delhi on December 26. He was 92.

A village of dreams

When Singh rose to power in 2004, villagers in Gah celebrated as if one of their own had triumphed.

They pored over old records of the school where Singh had studied as a boy —yellowing pages that noted his attendance from 1937 to 1941. A diligent student, the records said, always in the top ten. His father, Gurmukh Singh, was a shopkeeper, and Singh was a boy who studied by candlelight.

A few years back, Shahid Shabbir, a historian of Sikh heritage, visited Gah to document and understand Singh’s connection with his ancestral home. He found villagers who welcomed him warmly and shared stories of Singh’s childhood. “The village retains its old worldly charm, and its residents cherish memories of Singh”, Shabbir said.

“They all hoped and prayed that Mohna, as they called him, would visit one day,” Shabbir told TRT World.

Singh remains a symbol of resilience and connection for the villagers, said Shabbir.

The school he once attended is now a middle school, attended by children from neighbouring villages. Teachers use Singh’s story to inspire students, showing them that greatness can emerge from humble beginnings.

Shabbir shared that the school principal showed him Singh’s well-preserved records and said: “He was always in the top 10.”

Singh’s old schoolmates remember him fondly, and one of them even crossed the border of two fractious countries to meet his “Mohna”.

Muhammad Ashraf, an 81-year-old farmer and childhood friend of Singh, reminisced about their early school days together: walking miles to class, sharing homework, and quarrelling over stealing berries from a tree that still stands in the village. Despite Singh’s stature as Prime Minister, Ashraf said, “He is still Mohna to me.”

Another friend, Raja Muhammad Ali, managed to reunite with Singh in New Delhi in 2008, more than six decades after Partition. He carried soil and water from Gah as gifts, tokens of a shared past. But their meeting was brief; Ali died two years later.

Singh’s legacy

Despite strained Indo-Pak relations, Gah remains a rare testament to shared history and enduring goodwill. Singh never returned, but his generosity crossed the border.

In 2005, Pakistan’s government pledged to develop Gah into a model village, renaming its primary school after Singh. The name change never came, but Singh quietly funded significant improvements—a water supply system, solar-powered lights, and a middle school. Further collaborations were hindered after ties between the nuclear-armed neighbours strained following the Mumbai terror attack in 2008.

Despite political and geographical divides, the villagers of Gah wished for their Mohna’s return, if only for a moment, to the place where his journey began. For now, they hold onto his memory, as vivid as the sunlight that now powers their village.

On a visit to Gah in 2012, journalist Danial Khan noted the transformation of the village. Khan quoted one of Singh's friends: “If every man were like my Mohna, the world would be a better place.”