Swaran Singh

Sardar Swaran Singh
Born	Swaran Singh Purewal (1907-08-19)19 August 1907 Shankar Village, Punjab, India
Died	New Delhi, India
Cause of death	Cardiac Attack
Nationality	Indian
Citizenship	India
Education	Randhir College, Kpurthala, Government College Lahore
Occupation	Politician
Years active	1952–1975
Spouse(s)	Charan Kaur
Children	Param Panag, Sat Boparai, Iqbal Sidhu, Jasvinder Kaur
Parent(s)	Sardar Pratap Singh Purewal

Sardar Swaran Singh was an Indian politician. He was India's longest-serving union cabinet minister.

Early life

Singh was born on 19 August 1907 in Shankar Village in Jalandhar district of Punjab. He was born into an agricultural family.

He completed his intermediate (High school) at Randhir College in Kapurthala. He then joined Government College, Lahore and completed a degree in Physics with honors.

He then worked as a lecturer in Physics in Lyallpur Khalsa College. After leaving this job he studied law in Government law college in Lahore and received his L.L.B in 1932.

He started a law practice near his birth village in the nearby town of Jallandhar - he specialised in criminal suits.

Political career

The early days

In 1930s he joined the Akali Dal political party and by the mid forties he was a prominent leader in the mid-1940s. He played an important role in the compromise between the Indian national congress party and the Akali Dal in the early 1940s.

Just before the 1946 elections, the Panthic Party was formed with Baldev Singh as the leader and Singh was elected its deputy leader. In 1946 he was elected a member of the Punjab legislative assembly. He then became parliamentary secretary to the Punjab Coalition government.

He was a member of the Punjab Partition Committee where he played an important role.

On 15 August 1947, the day of Indian Independence he was sworn in as Home Minister in the cabinet of the state of Punjab. At the same time the capital of the Punjab was shifted from Shimla to Jallandhar.

On 13 May 1952 he resigned his position here when Jawaharlal Nehru included him in the central cabinet.

In the central government

He entered the cabinet of India's first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, in 1952, and was that government's last surviving member. He remained in successive governments until he resigned in November 1975.

He was elected to the Lok Sabha in 1957, 1962, 1967 and 1972.

Cabinet positions

To this date he is the longest-serving union cabinet minister in India. Babu Jajgivan Ram holds the record for maximum duration as cabinet minister i.e. around 30 years but the record for consistent and uninterrupted membership of the cabinet in continuation is held by Mr. Swarn Singh.

Ministry	Date
Works, Housing and Supplies	1952–1957
Steel Mines and Fuel	1957–1962
Agriculture	1962
Railways	1962–1963
External Affairs	1964–1966
Defense	1966–1970
External Affairs	1970–1974
Defense	1974–1976

He is best known for his role as India's foreign minister.

He was also president of the National Congress in 1969, and 1978.

External Affairs Minister

He visited the USSR in July 1966 along with then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi.

Swaran Singh Committee

Mohammad Amir Khatamiو his wife and Asadollah Alam , Indira Gandhi and Sardar Swaran Singh during his trip to Iran

Sardar Swaran Singh was chairperson of the committee entrusted with the responsibility of studying the Constitution of India in 1976 during the national emergency. Soon after the declaration of the national emergency, Indira Gandhi constituted a committee under the Chairmanship of Sardar Swaran Singh to study the question of amending the constitution in the light of past experiences. Based on its recommendations, the government incorporated several changes to the Constitution including the Preamble, through the Forty-second Amendment of the Constitution of India (passed in 1976 and came into effect on 3 January 1977)

Awards

He was awarded Padma Vibhushan award in 1992.[1]

The Eminent Persons Group on South Africa

Sardar Swaran Singh met with Nelson Mandela in prison three times in the mid 1980s. He was a member of the eminent persons group on South Africa sponsored by the Commonwealth Institute that consisted of Malcolm Fraser who had been Prime Minister of Australia for eight years, General Obasanjo of Nigeria, Lord Barber who had been Edward Heath's Chancellor of the Exchequer and was also chairman of the Standard Chartered Bank, Dame Nita Barrow, Reverend Scott and John Malecela, a Tanzanian former government minister. The group went to South Africa and spent five weeks there to collect information, interact with local people, met with Nelson Mandela and the ANC - their findings were published by the Commonwealth Institute entitled 'MISSION TO SOUTH AFRICA:THE COMMONWEALTH REPORT'

UNESCO Boards of Directors

Sardar Swaran Singh served as a member of board of directors from 1985 - 1989 for sessions 123 - 132.

Personal life

He was married in 1925 to Charan Kaur and had four daughters.

External links

• Obituary
• On Swaran Singh at Sikh-History.com
• Detailed Article on his life history [2]

Preceded by Lal Bahadur Shastri	Minister for External Affairs of India 1964–1966	Succeeded by M C Chagla
Preceded by Dinesh Singh	Minister for External Affairs of India 1970–1974	Succeeded by Yashwantrao Chavan