Karan Singh (born 9 March 1931) is an Indian politician and philosopher. He is the son of the last ruling
Maharaja of the
princely state of
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 ...
,
Sir Hari Singh. He was the
prince regent of
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 ...
until 1952. From 1952 to 1965 he was the ''
Sadr-i-Riyasat'' (President) of the state of
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 ...
in the Republic of India.
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, representing the national capital territory of
Delhi. 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 ...
party who served successively as President (''
Sadr-i-Riyasat'')
and
Governor of the former state of Jammu and Kashmir. He was a life trustee and president of
India International Center
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
Banaras Hindu University (BHU) IAST: kāśī hindū viśvavidyālaya International Phonetic Alphabet, IPA: /kaːʃiː hɪnd̪uː ʋɪʃwəʋid̪jaːləj/), is a Collegiate university, collegiate, Central university (India), central, and Re ...
for three terms until 2018 when he was succeeded by
Giridhar Malaviya. 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 commune located in the Alpes-Maritimes department, and host city of the annual Cannes Film Festival, Midem, and Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity. The ...
,
France, into the
Dogra dynasty
The Dogra dynasty of Dogra Rajputs from the Shiwalik Himalayas created Jammu and Kashmir when all dynastic kingdoms in India were being absorbed by the East India Company. Events led the Sikh Empire to recognise Jammu as a vassal state in 1820 ...
. He was the only son of
Sir Hari Singh,
Maharaja of Jammu and Kashmir
The Dogra dynasty of Dogra Rajputs from the Shiwalik Himalayas created Jammu and Kashmir when all dynastic kingdoms in India were being absorbed by the East India Company. Events led the Sikh Empire to recognise Jammu as a vassal state in 1820 ...
. His mother, Maharani Tara Devi, who was the fourth wife of his father, was the daughter of a landowning
Katoch Rajput family and came from (Vijaypur near
Bilaspur) in
Kangra district of
Himachal Pradesh.
Singh was educated at
Doon School
The Doon School (informally Doon School or Doon) is a selective all-boys boarding school in Dehradun, Uttarakhand, India, which was established in 1935. It was envisioned by Satish Ranjan Das, a lawyer from Calcutta, who prevised a school mod ...
,
Dehra Dun, 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.
Bachelor of arts (BA or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts degree course is generally completed in three or four years ...
degree from
Jammu and Kashmir University,
Srinagar, and subsequently an
M.A.
A Master of Arts ( la, Magister Artium or ''Artium Magister''; abbreviated MA, M.A., AM, or A.M.) is the holder of a master's degree awarded by universities in many countries. The degree is usually contrasted with that of Master of Science. ...
degree in Political Science and a
PhD degree 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, daughter of a nobleman belonging to the
Rana family of
Nepal. Her father, General Sharada Shumsher Jung Bahadur Rana, was a senior army officer and the son of
Mohan Shumsher Jang Bahadur Rana, the last Rana Prime Minister of
Nepal. The match, arranged by their families in the usual Indian way, was entirely harmonious and lasted all their lives. The couple had three children:
*''
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 ...
''
Vikramaditya Singh, elder son and crown prince; married
Chitrangada Scindia, the daughter of
Madhavrao Scindia
Madhavrao Jivajirao Scindia (10 March 1945 – 30 September 2001) was an Indian politician and a minister in the Government of India. He was a member of the Indian National Congress party.
Scindia was the son of Jiwajirao Scindia, the last ru ...
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, from a Chauhan family belonging to
Mainpuri
Mainpuri is a city in Mainpuri district in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh. It is the administrative headquarters of Mainpuri district and is situated to the north-east of Agra and is 270 km from New Delhi. Mainpuri forms part of the an ...
in
Uttar Pradesh.
Political career
In 1949, at age of eighteen, Singh was appointed as the Prince Regent of
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 ...
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 August 8, 1953 as the President (
Sadr-i-Riyasat) 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.
In 1967, he resigned as
Governor of Jammu and Kashmir
The governor of Jammu and Kashmir was the head of the Indian state Jammu and Kashmir.
When India became independent, Hari Singh was the Maharaja of the Princely State of Jammu and Kashmir. Technically he remained so until 17 November 1952, ...
, 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 promulgated in 1971, the Government of India, of which Karan Singh was a
Union cabinet
The Union Council of Ministers Article 58 of the '' Constitution of India'' is the principal executive organ of the Government of India, which is responsible for being the senior decision making body of the executive branch. It is chaired by ...
minister, abolished all official symbols of
princely India, including titles, privileges, and remuneration (
privy purses). During the conclusion of the
Cold War, he was India's ambassador to the
USA. Singh received the
Padma Vibhushan
The Padma Vibhushan ("Lotus Decoration") is the second-highest civilian award of the Republic of India, after the Bharat Ratna. Instituted on 2 January 1954, the award is given for "exceptional and distinguished service". All persons without ...
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 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
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 ...
. Later, he was a
Rajya Sabha member from 28 January 2000 to 27 January 2018 representing
INC. He is known for switching his loyalties from one political party to another quite frequently. He has served as Chancellor of
Banaras Hindu University
Banaras Hindu University (BHU) IAST: kāśī hindū viśvavidyālaya International Phonetic Alphabet, IPA: /kaːʃiː hɪnd̪uː ʋɪʃwəʋid̪jaːləj/), is a Collegiate university, collegiate, Central university (India), central, and Re ...
, 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 an ...
, 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 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 Manmohan Singh 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 legisl ...
and
Rajya Sabha TV
Rajya Sabha TV was an Indian public cable television network channel owned and operated by Rajya Sabha that covered the proceedings of Rajya Sabha (the Upper House of the Parliament of India). It has now been replaced by Sansad TV. Apart from ...
) as a Guest Anchor along with some other senior celebrated experts from diverse fields such as
Bibek Debroy
Bibek Debroy is an Indian economist, serving as the chairman of the Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister of India. Debroy has made significant contributions to game theory, economic theory, income and social inequalities, poverty ...
,
Amitabh Kant,
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
Banaras Hindu University (BHU) IAST: kāśī hindū viśvavidyālaya International Phonetic Alphabet, IPA: /kaːʃiː hɪnd̪uː ʋɪʃwəʋid̪jaːləj/), is a Collegiate university, collegiate, Central university (India), central, and Re ...
for three terms up until 2018. In 2008, he awarded an honorary doctorate to the then prime minister
Manmohan Singh, and in 2016, he was asked by university administration to award an honorary doctorate to prime minister
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:
*
Padma Vibhushan
The Padma Vibhushan ("Lotus Decoration") is the second-highest civilian award of the Republic of India, after the Bharat Ratna. Instituted on 2 January 1954, the award is given for "exceptional and distinguished service". All persons without ...
(2005).
Servare et Manere:
*
Memorial Medal of Tree of Peace
The Memorial Medal of Tree of Peace ( Slovak: ''Pamätná medaila Stromu pokoja'') is the second highest award awarded since 2020 by Servare et Manere, the Slovak non-governmental organization. The award was first awarded on September 28, 202 ...
. International peace award granted by a
Slovak non-governmental organization (2021).
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
is a Japanese Buddhist philosopher, educator, author, and nuclear disarmament advocate. He served as the third president and then honorary president of the Soka Gakkai, the largest of Japan's new religious movements. Ikeda is the founding pr ...
. 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 ed. Raghav Verma. Harper Collins, 2019.
See also
*
Instrument of Accession (Jammu and Kashmir) to the
Dominion of India
The Dominion of India, officially the Union of India,* Quote: “The first collective use (of the word "dominion") occurred at the Colonial Conference (April to May 1907) when the title was conferred upon Canada and Australia. New Zealand and N ...
*
List of topics on the land and the people of Jammu and Kashmir
References
Detailed Profile: Dr. Karan Singh''
Government of India'' portal
Further reading
* An Examined Life: Essays and Reflections by Karan Singh, ed. Raghav Verma. Harper Collins, 2019.
External links
Dr. Karan Singh's Official WebsiteFilm: I Believe: Universal Values for a Global Societywith Dr. Singh and 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 ...
.
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
Jawaharlal Nehru University faculty
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