Karan Singh (born 9 March 1931) is an Indian politician and philosopher. He is the titular Maharaja of the

princely state A princely state (also called native state or Indian state) was a nominally sovereign entity of the British Raj, British Indian Empire that was not directly governed by the British, but rather by an Indian ruler under a form of indirect rule, ...

Jammu and Kashmir Jammu and Kashmir may refer to: * Kashmir, the northernmost geographical region of the Indian subcontinent * Jammu and Kashmir (union territory), a region administered by India as a union territory * Jammu and Kashmir (state), a region administered ...

. From 1952 to 1965 he was the ''

Sadr-i-Riyasat Sardar, also spelled as Sardaar/Sirdar ( fa, سردار, , 'commander', literally 'headmaster'), is a title of royalty and nobility that was originally used to denote princes, noblemen, chiefs, kings and other aristocrats. It has also been ...

'' (President) of the state of Jammu and Kashmir. He is the chairperson trustee of the Dharmarth Trust of Jammu and Kashmir which maintains 175 temples in north India and works in other areas such as historical preservation. Singh was a member of India's Upper House of Parliament, the

Rajya Sabha The Rajya Sabha, constitutionally the Council of States, is the upper house of the bicameral Parliament of India. , it has a maximum membership of 245, of which 233 are elected by the legislatures of the states and union territories using si ...

, representing the national capital territory of

Delhi Delhi, officially the National Capital Territory (NCT) of Delhi, is a city and a union territory of India containing New Delhi, the capital of India. Straddling the Yamuna river, primarily its western or right bank, Delhi shares borders w ...

. He is a senior member of the

Indian National Congress The Indian National Congress (INC), colloquially the Congress Party but often simply the Congress, is a political party in India with widespread roots. Founded in 1885, it was the first modern nationalist movement to emerge in the British Em ...

party who served successively as President (''

'') and Governor of the Indian-administered Jammu and Kashmir. He was a life trustee and president of

India International Centre The India International Centre (IIC) is a non-official organisation situated in New Delhi, India. Membership of the IIC includes artists, academicians, senior government officials, judges, jurists, parliamentarians, doctors, ministers, governors ...

. He was elected chancellor of Banaras Hindu University for three terms until 2018 when he was succeeded by

Giridhar Malaviya Giridhar Malaviya (born 1936) is the chancellor of Banaras Hindu University and a retired judge of Allahabad High Court. Personal life and education Malaviya is the grandson of Madan Mohan Malaviya (founder of Banaras Hindu University) and ...

. He has been a prospective presidential candidate over the years.

Early and personal life

Yuvraj Yuv(a)raj(a) (Sanskrit: युवराज) is an Indian title for the crown prince, and the heir apparent to the throne of an Indian (notably Hindu) kingdom or (notably in the Mughal Empire or British Raj) princely state. It is usually applied t ...

'' Karan Singh was born at the Martinez Hotel,

Cannes Cannes ( , , ; oc, Canas) is a city located on the French Riviera. It is a communes of France, commune located in the Alpes-Maritimes departments of France, department, and host city of the annual Cannes Film Festival, Midem, and Cannes Lions I ...

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...

, into the Dogra dynasty. He was the only son of Sir Hari Singh, Maharaja of Jammu and Kashmir. His mother, Maharani Tara Devi, who was the fourth wife of his father, was the daughter of a landowning

Katoch Katoch is a Chandravanshi Rajput clan. Their traditional area of residence was in the Trigarta Kingdom, based at Jalandhar and at Kangra Fort in the Indian state of Himachal Pradesh. They descent from the Trigarta dynasty mentioned in the Mahabha ...

Rajput Rajput (from Sanskrit ''raja-putra'' 'son of a king') is a large multi-component cluster of castes, kin bodies, and local groups, sharing social status and ideology of genealogical descent originating from the Indian subcontinent. The term Ra ...

family and came from (Vijaypur near Bilaspur) in

Kangra district Kangra is the most populous district of the Indian state of Himachal Pradesh. Dharamshala is the administrative headquarters of the district. History Kangra is known for having the oldest serving Royal Dynasty in the world, the Katoch. In 1758 ...

Himachal Pradesh Himachal Pradesh (; ; "Snow-laden Mountain Province") is a state in the northern part of India. Situated in the Western Himalayas, it is one of the thirteen mountain states and is characterized by an extreme landscape featuring several peaks ...

. Singh was educated at Doon School,

Dehradun Dehradun () is the capital and the most populous city of the Indian state of Uttarakhand. It is the administrative headquarters of the eponymous district and is governed by the Dehradun Municipal Corporation, with the Uttarakhand Legislative As ...

, a boarding school, which represented a departure from the usual practise of princes being educated by tutors at home. The school was very elite, but it nevertheless meant that Karan Singh shared the classroom (though not the hostel) with boys from non-royal backgrounds, and received a standard education. Unusually for the scion of an Indian royal family, he then enrolled in a college for a graduate degree, receiving first a B.A. degree from Jammu and Kashmir University,

Srinagar Srinagar (English: , ) is the largest city and the summer capital of Jammu and Kashmir, India. It lies in the Kashmir Valley on the banks of the Jhelum River, a tributary of the Indus, and Dal and Anchar lakes. The city is known for its natu ...

, and subsequently an M.A. degree in Political Science and a

PhD PHD or PhD may refer to: * Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), an academic qualification Entertainment * '' PhD: Phantasy Degree'', a Korean comic series * ''Piled Higher and Deeper'', a web comic * Ph.D. (band), a 1980s British group ** Ph.D. (Ph.D. albu ...

from

University of Delhi Delhi University (DU), formally the University of Delhi, is a collegiate central university located in New Delhi, India. It was founded in 1922 by an Act of the Central Legislative Assembly and is recognized as an Institute of Eminence (IoE) ...

. In 1950, the 19-year-old Karan Singh was married to 13-year-old Yasho Rajya Lakshmi, granddaughter of Mohan Shumsher Rana, Maharajah of Nepal, belonging to the Rana dynasty of

Nepal Nepal (; ne, नेपाल ), formerly the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal ( ne, सङ्घीय लोकतान्त्रिक गणतन्त्र नेपाल ), is a landlocked country in South Asia. It is mai ...

. Her father, General Maharajkumar Sharada Shumsher Jung Bahadur Rana, was a son of Mohan Shumsher. The match, arranged by their families in the usual Indian way, lasted all their lives. The couple had three children: *''

Vikramaditya Singh Vikramaditya Singh may refer to: * Vikramaditya Singh (Maharana) (1517–1534), Maharana of Mewar Kingdom from 1531–1534 * Vikramaditya Singh (politician, born 1964), Indian businessman and politician * Vikramaditya Singh (Himachal Pradesh politi ...

, elder son and crown prince; married Chitrangada Scindia, the daughter of Madhavrao Scindia of Gwalior, in 1987. * Ajatshatru Singh, second son; took to politics, was elected to the state assembly from the Nagrota constituency and became a minister in the state government. His wife is the daughter of an army officer. * Jyotsna Singh, only daughter, married to Dhirendra Singh Chauhan, belonging to Mainpuri in

Uttar Pradesh Uttar Pradesh (; , 'Northern Province') is a state in northern India. With over 200 million inhabitants, it is the most populated state in India as well as the most populous country subdivision in the world. It was established in 1950 ...

Political career

In 1949, at age of eighteen, Singh was appointed as the Prince Regent of

state after his father stepped down as the ruler, following the state's accession to India. From that point, he served successively as regent, the ''Sadr-i-Riyasat'', and the first governor of the state of Jammu and Kashmir from 1965 to 1967. On 8 August 1953 as the President (

) of Jammu and Kashmir, Karan Singh backed a coup d'etat against the elected Prime Minister Sheikh Abdullah, allegedly for harboring independent ambitions for Kashmir, which led to the imprisonment of Abdullah for eleven years following the

Kashmir Conspiracy Case Kashmir Conspiracy Case was the legal case filed by Government of Kashmir and Investigations Department of the Government of India, by which Sheikh Abdullah and others were arrested and jailed. Abdullah along with Mirza Afzal Beg and 22 others, w ...

. In 1967, he resigned as Governor of Jammu and Kashmir, and became the youngest-ever member of the Union Cabinet, holding the portfolios of Tourism and Civil Aviation between 1967 and 1973. Two years later, he voluntarily surrendered his privy purse, which he had been entitled to since the death of his father in 1961. He placed the entire sum into a charitable trust named after his parents. In the 26th amendment to the

Constitution of India The Constitution of India (IAST: ) is the supreme law of India. The document lays down the framework that demarcates fundamental political code, structure, procedures, powers, and duties of government institutions and sets out fundamental ri ...

promulgated in 1971, the Government of India, of which Karan Singh was a Union cabinet minister, abolished all official symbols of princely India, including titles, privileges, and remuneration ( privy purses). During the conclusion of the

Cold War The Cold War is a term commonly used to refer to a period of geopolitical tension between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc. The term '' cold war'' is used because the ...

, he was India's ambassador to the

USA The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...

. Singh received the Padma Vibhushan in 2005.In 1971, he was sent as an envoy to the Eastern Bloc nations to explain India's position with regard to East Pakistan, then engaged in civil war with West Pakistan. He attempted to resign following an aircraft crash in 1973, but the resignation was not accepted. The same year, he became the Minister for Health and Family planning, serving in this post until 1977. Following the Emergency, Karan Singh was elected to the Lok Sabha from Udhampur in 1977 on a Congress ticket

he party had not split into Congress(I) and Congress(U) factions till then He or HE may refer to: Language * He (pronoun), an English pronoun * He (kana), the romanization of the Japanese kana へ * He (letter), the fifth letter of many Semitic alphabets * He (Cyrillic), a letter of the Cyrillic script called ''He'' in ...

and became Minister of Education and Culture in 1979 in Charan Singh's cabinet, representing Congress(U), which had split from Indira's Congress. Notably, Charan Singh became Prime Minister after the fall of Janata Party government headed by Morarji Desai. And Charan Singh himself resigned without facing Parliament even for a day as he was not sure of having a confidence motion passed in his favour. Karan Singh contested the 1980 Lok Sabha election on a Congress(U) ticket and won. In 1989–1990, he served as Indian Ambassador to the US, and this experience became the subject of a book he wrote, "Brief Sojourn". From 1967 to 1984, Karan Singh was a member of the Lok Sabha. In 1984, he contested the Lok Sabha polls as an independent candidate from Jammu but lost the election. He was a member of the Rajya Sabha from 30 November 1996 to 12 August 1999, representing National Conference, a Muslim dominated party active in

. Later, he was a

member from 28 January 2000 to 27 January 2018 representing

INC Inc. or inc may refer to: * Incorporation (business), as a suffix indicating a corporation * ''Inc.'' (magazine), an American business magazine * Inc. No World, a Los Angeles-based band * Indian National Congress, a political party in India * I ...

. He is known for switching his loyalties from one political party to another quite frequently. He has served as Chancellor of Banaras Hindu University, Jammu and Kashmir University,

Jawaharlal Nehru University Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) is a public major research university located in New Delhi, India. It was established in 1969 and named after Jawaharlal Nehru, India's first Prime Minister. The university is known for leading faculties and r ...

, and NIIT University. File:The Prime Minister, Dr. Manmohan Singh addressing at the launch of a film - "I Believe Universal Values for a Global Society", by Raja Choudhury based on the beliefs of Dr. Karan Singh, in New Delhi on March 09, 2011.jpg, Prime Minister

Manmohan Singh Manmohan Singh (; born 26 September 1932) is an Indian politician, economist and statesman who served as the 13th prime minister of India from 2004 to 2014. He is also the third longest-serving prime minister after Jawaharlal Nehru and Indir ...

addressing at the launch of a film - ''I Believe Universal Values for a Global Society'', by

Raja Choudhury Raja Choudhury (born Ranjit Choudhury, 11 June 1964) is a National Film Award (India) winning documentary film maker, architect, public speaker, spiritual teacher on The Shift Network, and designer of multimedia installations and events and Web s ...

based on the beliefs of Dr. Karan Singh in 2011. File:Manmohan Singh presenting the “Rajiv Gandhi National Sadbhavana Award” to Dr. Kiran Seth of SPIC MACAY, at a function, in New Delhi. The President of ICCR, Dr. Karan Singh and the Member of Parliament.jpg, Dr. Karan Singh, along with Prime Minister

and Rahul Gandhi present the

Rajiv Gandhi National Sadbhavana Award Rajiv Gandhi National Sadbhavana Award (English: Rajiv Gandhi National Communal Harmony Award) is an Indian award given for outstanding contribution towards promotion of communal harmony, national integration and peace. The award was instituted ...

to Dr. K iran Seth in 2011. File:Hillary Clinton with Sonia and Rahul Gandhi.jpg, Dr. Karan Singh meets Hillary Clinton along with Congress party President Sonia Gandhi, and Rahul Gandhi. July 2009

Later life

He has been engaged by

Sansad TV ''Sansad'' or ''Sangsad'' is the word for "Assembly", association, council or "Parliament" in several Indo-Aryan languages, derived from a Sanskrit root. It may also mean: National parliament Bangladesh * Jatiya Sangsad ("National Parliament" of ...

(a merged Global TV Channel of

Lok Sabha TV Lok Sabha TV was an Indian public cable television network channel that offered coverage of central government proceedings and other public affairs programming. Its remit was to make accessible to all the work of the parliamentary and legislat ...

and Rajya Sabha TV) as a Guest Anchor along with some other senior celebrated experts from diverse fields such as Bibek Debroy,

Amitabh Kant Amitabh Kant (born 1 March 1956) was the second chief executive officer of NITI Aayog, a public policy think tank of the Government of India. He is a retired member of the Indian Administrative Service (IAS), the central civil service of the Gov ...

, Shashi Tharoor,

Hemant Batra Hemant Batra (born 15 August 1967) is an Indian business, public policy, corporate and commercial senior practicing lawyer, newspaper – columnist writer author, TV anchor/Host, public speaker, commentator (law & public policy), mentor, and leg ...

Maroof Raza Maroof Raza (born 1959) is a retired Indian Army officer with experience in counter-insurgency operations. He is a well known media commentator on global, military and security issues. His ‘talks’ range from the ‘threats of terrorism’ t ...

and

Sanjeev Sanyal Sanjeev Sanyal is an Indian economist and popular historian. He is a member of the Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister of India, and has helped prepare six editions of the Economic Survey of India starting in 2017. Sanyal has ...

to present some flagship programmes.

Academic career

Karan Singh served as the chancellor of Banaras Hindu University for three terms up until 2018. In 2008, he awarded an honorary doctorate to the then prime minister

, and in 2016, he was asked by university administration to award an honorary doctorate to prime minister

Narendra Modi Narendra Damodardas Modi (; born 17 September 1950) is an Indian politician serving as the 14th and current Prime Minister of India since 2014. Modi was the Chief Minister of Gujarat from 2001 to 2014 and is the Member of Parliament from ...

, that the prime minister declined.

Honours and awards

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

: * Padma Vibhushan (2005).

Views

On population

"In 1974, I led the Indian delegation to the World Population Conference in Bucharest, where my statement that 'development is the best contraceptive' became widely known and oft quoted. I must admit that 20 years later I am inclined to reverse this, and my position now is that 'contraception is the best development'.”

Bibliography

*''Towards A New India'' (1974) *''Population, Poverty and the Future of India'' (1975) *''One Man's World'' (1986) *
Essays on Hinduism
'. Ratna Sagar. 1987. . *''Humanity at the Crossroads'', with Daisaku Ikeda. Oxford University Press, 1988. *''Autobiography'' (2 vols.)(1989) *''Brief Sojourn'' (1991) *''Hymn to Shiva and Other Poems'' (1991) *''The Transition to a Global Society'' (1991) *''Mountain of Shiva'' (1994) *''Autobiography''. Oxford University Press, 1994. . *
Hinduism
'. Sterling Publishers Pvt. Ltd, 2005. *''Mundaka Upanishad: The Bridge to Immortality''. *''Ten Gurus of the Sikhs Their Life Story'', Tr. into English Pramila Naniwadekar & Moreshwar Naniwadekar. *''Nehru's Kashmir''. Wisdom Tree. . *''A Treasury of Indian Wisdom''. Penguin Ananda, 2010. . *

An Examined Life ''An Examined Life: Essays and Reflections by Karan Singh'' is a collection of life writings by Karan Singh, the erstwhile prince and son of Hari Singh, Maharaja Hari Singh of Dogra dynasty of royal house of Jammu and Kashmir. The book is a colle ...

ed. Raghav Verma. Harper Collins, 2019.

References

External links

Detailed Profile: Dr. Karan Singh
''

Government of India The Government of India (ISO: ; often abbreviated as GoI), known as the Union Government or Central Government but often simply as the Centre, is the national government of the Republic of India, a federal democracy located in South Asia, c ...

'' portal
Dr. Karan Singh's Official Website

Film: I Believe: Universal Values for a Global Society
with Dr. Singh and by

.
Proclamation of May 1, 1951 on Jammu & Kashmir Constituent Assembly by Yuvraj (Crown Prince) Karan Singh from the Official website of Government of Jammu and Kashmir, India
{{DEFAULTSORT:Singh, Karan 1931 births Scholars from Jammu and Kashmir Indian religious writers Living people The Doon School alumni Delhi University alumni Governors of Jammu and Kashmir Academic staff of Jawaharlal Nehru University Recipients of the Padma Vibhushan in public affairs Ambassadors of India to the United States Maharajas of Jammu and Kashmir Indian Hindus Dogra people Indian autobiographers Indian National Congress politicians from Jammu and Kashmir Rajya Sabha members from Delhi India MPs 1967–1970 India MPs 1971–1977 India MPs 1977–1979 Lok Sabha members from Jammu and Kashmir Health ministers of India Civil aviation ministers of India Education ministers of India 20th-century Indian historians Indian political writers Writers from Jammu and Kashmir Rajya Sabha members from Jammu and Kashmir India MPs 1980–1984 University of Kashmir alumni Indian National Congress (U) politicians