Inder Kumar Gujral (1919-2012) was India's prime minister, and twice served as foreign minister. He was a kind and thoughtful politician, his dove-ish views of relations with Pakistan forged by his painful personal experience of Partition. 'It makes me more human and it makes me more compassionate. And it makes me look at people in Pakistan as kin and not as enemies.'
I interviewed him in March 1997, while he was foreign minister, about his memories of Partition. He was brought up in Jhelum, which became part of Pakistan, into a nationalist family and was active in politics even before he reached his teens. In the course of 1947, he was in Lahore and later Karachi. He attended meetings of Pakistan's Constituent Assembly, of which his father was a member, and on Pakistan's independence day saw Jinnah and Mountbatten in procession through Karachi. An upsurge of rioting in Karachi prompted the family to move to Delhi. His father was involved in helping retrieve abducted women. At least one child in his extended family was lost amid the Partition mayhem - but survived, and crossed over to India many years later. Mark Tully's obituary of I.K. Gujral in the Guardian is an excellent introduction to his life and career.