Charan Singh

No national leader was identified so closely with the interests of the peasantry. He doggedly sought to protect the interests of peasant proprietors against the inexorable juggernaut, as he saw it of collectivism.

After graduation I was offered a post as Vice-Principal at the Jat High School but in that there was the name of a caste and I could not accept that. I have always been opposed to this social system since my childhood.

Our poverty has to be eliminated and the basic necessities of life made available to every single citizen. Political leadership of the country must remember that nothing mocks our values and our dreams more than the desperate struggle of our people for existence; nothing could therefore be more poignant than the look of despair in the eyes of a starving child. Nothing could therefore be a more patriotic objective for our political leaders than to ensure that no child will go to bed hungry, that no family will fear for its next day's bread and that the future and capacities of not a single Indian will be allowed to be stunted by malnutrition.

Contrast his uncompromising honesty and unquestionable abilities with his characterization as Jat leader, casteist, windbag, stubborn, opportunist and now obscurantist

He studied law, but unlike many Indian leaders who rose to political power as practicing lawyers, he became known not as a lawyer but as a politician.

He withdrew his parliamentary support in the summer of 1979 with the aim of becoming prime minister himself, just as he had become Chief Minister of UP by depriving state governments of legislative majorities...He briefly became caretaker prime minister, supported by Congress (I) as part of his deal with Indira, betraying the millions of UP men and women who had voted to get rid of her and Sanjay.

There have been two most athletic figures in Indian politics, Gulzari Lal Nanda, the Prime-Minister-in-waiting or permanent prime minister pro-tem some times called the “stepney prime minister” and Charan Singh had set his sights on prime minisitership in 1974 and would have sold his soul to the devil for it.

That abolition of the privy purse will strengthen and ensure success of democracy is pure bunkum. Advanced countries like Britain and Japan are not less democratic or less progressive for the maintenance of their kings and princes. Royalty was not abolished even by socialist parties when they came to power in these countries.

Political leadership of the country must remember that nothing mocks our values and dreams more than the desperate struggle of our people for existence. Nothing could, therefore be more poignant than the look of despair in the eyes of a starving child. Nothing could therefore, be a more patriotic objective for our political leaders than to ensure that no child will go to bed hungry, that no family will fear for its next day's bread and that the future and capacities of not a dingle Indian will be allowed to be stunted by mal-nutrition.

The Jat community votes for non-sectarian in lines far greater proportion than any other in Meerut. They are un-educated, live in villages, have no pull in the public, economic or administrative life of the country and yet would not reconcile themselves to an inferior position in society. They would not put with the taunt of being a Jat. Fifty percent of the Hindu Jats within a short period of 40 years (1891-1931) left their old faith to turn Sikhs or Muslims so that nobody could any longer treat them with contempt.

The true India resides in its villages.

He was different. He had little taste for the finer side of the politics no interest in political philosophy; and he had hardly any values. In any scheme of things, his one target was personal interest. He was anti-Nehru, anti-Indira, anti-Desai, anti-Ramon carrying it, ignoble. He was also given to anger.

Non-Jats also vote for him. How many districts are there in UP and how many districts are there in which in which this animal of a Jat is found? Is there anything in my life to suggest that I am casteist? In 1954, I wrote a letter to Nehru, it is on record, in which I suggested that all candidates for gazette jobs must marry outside their own caste. And if a man married inside his caste while holding such a job, he would have to resign.