Charan Singh
Chaudhary Charan Singh
Born: December 23, 1902, Nurpur, United Provinces, British India
Died: May 29, 1987
Functions: Politician, Former Prime Minister of India
Chaudhary Charan Singh was an Indian politician and the fifth Prime Minister of the country. In India, he is seen as a leader who raises the voice of farmers. Although he became the Prime Minister of India, his tenure was very short. Before becoming the Prime Minister, he also served as the Home Minister and Deputy Prime Minister of India.
He was also the Chief Minister of the State of Uttar Pradesh twice, and before that, he had also taken charge of other Ministries. He remained the country’s prime minister for only five months and a few days and resigned before proving the majority.
Early Life
Chaudhary Charan Singh was born on December 23, 1902, in a peasant family in the village of Nurpur in the United Provinces (now Uttar Pradesh). His family was related to Raja Nahar Singh of Ballabhgarh, who had made a unique contribution to the revolution of 1887. The British government hung Nahar Singh at Chandni Chowk in Delhi. Nahar Singh’s supporters and Chaudhary Charan Singh’s grandfather went to the Bulandshahr district of Uttar Pradesh to escape the tyranny of the British.
Chaudhary Charan Singh received an educational environment from the very beginning, due to which he had an additional tendency towards education. His primary education took place in Nurpur itself, and after that, he was enrolled in a government high school in Meerut for matriculation. In 1923, Charan Singh graduated in science, and two years later, in 1925, he passed the post-graduate examination in the art class. After this, he studied law at Agra University and then after passing the law examination; he started practicing law in Ghaziabad in 1928. He was known for his honesty, clarity and conscientiousness during his advocacy. Chaudhary Charan Singh used to accept those cases in which the client’s side seemed fair to him.
Political Life
After the Lahore session of the Congress (1929), he formed the Congress Committee in Ghaziabad. In 1930, Charan Singh was sentenced to 6 months for breaking the ‘salt law’ during the civil disobedience movement. After his release from jail, he devoted himself entirely to the freedom struggle of the country.
In 1937, at the age of just 34, he was elected to the Vidhan Sabha from Chhaprauli (Baghpat) and introduced a bill in the Vidhan Sabha to protect farmers’ rights. This bill was related to the destruction of crops grown by farmers. After this, this bill was adopted by all the states of India.
Charan Singh was also arrested in Gandhiji’s ‘Personal Satyagraha’ in 1940, after which he was released in October 1941. During the year 1942, there was dissatisfaction in the whole country, and Mahatma Gandhi had called for ‘Do or Die’ through the ‘Leave India’ movement.
During this time, Charan Singh went underground and formed a secret revolutionary organization by roaming in Ghaziabad, Hapur, Meerut, Mawana, Sarathna, Bulandshahr etc. The police were lying behind Charan Singh, and he was eventually arrested. The British government sentenced him to one and a half years. In prison, he wrote a book entitled “Etiquette”.
After Independence
Chaudhary Charan Singh opposed Nehru’s economic reforms based on the Soviet system because he believed that cooperative farming could not succeed in India. Charan Singh, who belongs to a farming family, thought that progress could be made in this area only if the farmer had ownership of the land. It is believed that opposition to Nehru’s principles affected his political career.
After the country’s independence, Charan Singh won the assembly elections of 1952, 1962 and 1967 and was elected to the state assembly. In the government of Pandit Govind Vallabh Pant, he was made the ‘Parliamentary Secretary’. In this role, he discharged his responsibilities in Revenue, Justice, Information, Medicine and Health. In 1951, he was given the post of Cabinet Minister in the Government of Uttar Pradesh, under which he assumed the Department of Justice and Information’s responsibility.
In the government of Dr Sampurnanand in 1952, he got the Department of Revenue and Agriculture’s responsibility. Charan Singh was also a farmer by nature, so he continued to strive for the interests of the farmers. When Chandrabhanu Gupta became the Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh in 1960, he was given the Ministry of Agriculture.
Charan Singh left the Congress party in 1967 and formed a new political party, the Bharatiya Kranti Dal. With the help of leaders like Raj Narayan and Ram Manohar Lohia, he created the government in Uttar Pradesh and became the state’s Chief Minister in 1967 and 1970.
In 1975, Indira Gandhi declared a state of emergency and imprisoned all political opponents, including Charan Singh. In the post-emergency 1977 elections, Indira Gandhi was defeated, and a Janata Party government was formed at the Center under the leadership of Morarji Desai. Charan Singh was the Home Minister and Deputy Prime Minister in this government.
As Prime Minister
Morarji Desai’s government fell due to a mutual quarrel in the Janata Party, after which the Congress and C. P. I. Charan Singh were sworn in as the Prime Minister on July 28, 1979. President Neelam Sanjeev Reddy proved him a majority
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