Charan Singh

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.

The first thing our leadership in 1947 should have done was to delegalize all communal bodies. All organizations whose membership was confined to a particular caste or religion should have been disallowed from the political field.

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.

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.

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.

The area [Bagpat Parliamentary constituencies and nearby areas where Jats dominate] is also known for the absence of landlordism. It was he who was instrumental in abolishing landlordism which concentrated economic and political power in a few families. Yet, he and his son Ajit Singh have succeeded in muster in sufficient support from Jats and others to be repeatedly elected.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Big leaders , said Niccolo Machiavelli, should inspire both love and fear. He [Chaudhry Charann Singh] had that ability. He was the ‘dictatot’ within the area of his political influence but he also enjoyed a ‘reputation for integrity’

He could not check every conductor, but everybody from chaprasi [peon] to the Chief Secretary, from constable to IG [Inspector General of Police] knew that if he is caught he would not be spared. That is the kind of reputation he got.

...quite a number of Congressmen are disguised as communists. They will go with Mrs Gandhi to the ultimate end. They have always been enemies of democracy. Behind-them is the Right CPI and behind it is Soviet Russia.