Giani Zail Singh was the seventh President of India serving from 1982 to 1987. He also served as the chairman of the Non-Aligned Movement from 1983 to 1986. Prior to his presidency, he was a politician with the Indian National Congress Party and had held several ministerial posts in the Union Cabinet, including that of Home Minister. In 1972 he was elected Chief Minister of Punjab.
He was born on May 5, 1916, in a Sikh family of a small village called Sadhvan, near Kot Kapura, in the princely state of Faridkot. Sardar Zail Singh was educated at Shaheed Sikh Missionary College Amritsar. He was a devoted Sikh and was known in the countryside for his simple and upright manner. When he was barely 15 years old, he became active in the politics of Shiromani Akali Dal that joined the Indian National Congress in opposing British rule in India. In 1938, he established Praja Mandal, a political organization allied to the Congress Party in the Faridkot area. Zail Singh was named Jarnail Singh, but he changed his first name to Zail Singh after being imprisoned several times for opposing the rule of the Raja of Faridkot. He pursued traditional principles from Sikh holy books and earned the title Giani.
In 1947, with the reorganization of India along secular lines, he opposed Raja of Faridkot State and was incarcerated and tortured for many years. He became Revenue Minister in 1949 in PEPSU (Patiala and East Punjab States Union) and later became Minister of Agriculture in 1951. Giani Zail Singh was a member of the Rajya Sabha from April 1956 to March 1962. He was elected as a Congress Chief Minister of Punjab in 1972. He inaugurated a highway Guru Gobind Singh Marg and created a lifelong pension scheme for the freedom fighters of the State. He repatriated the remains of Udham Singh and armaments and articles belonging to Guru Gobind Singh from London.
In 1980, Sardar Zail Singh was elected to the seventh Lok Sabha and appointed as Minister of Home Affairs. In 1982 he was unanimously nominated as the President. He was the first Sikh to be President of India. On May 31, 1984, the day before Operation Blue Star, he met with Indra Gandhi for more than an hour, but she omitted even sharing a word about her plan. Had she discussed with him then the damage of Harmander Sahib and the killing of innocent Sikhs, the assassination of Indra Gandhi and the anti-Sikh riot in Delhi and other places would have been avoided and the situation of the country would have been different. Giani Zail Singh was well aware of the situation of Punjab and he could have solved the problem in an amicable way. After the assassination of Indra Gandhi on October 31, 1984, her elder son Rajiv Gandhi was appointed as Prime Minister. During the anti-Sikh riots in Delhi, many important persons like A K Gujral, General Arora, and Khushwant Singh asked the president to call the army and control the riots but he could not do it and he showed his helplessness. In 1986, he exercised the pocket veto with respect to the Indian Post Office Bill, passed by Rajiv Gandhi, and imposed restrictions on the freedom of the press.
Giani Zail Singh was awarded the Order of St. Thomas by Catholics on September 12, 1982, during the Platinum Jubilee at Nehru Stadium. He always remained loyal to the Nehru Family, but Rajiv Gandhi did not respond accordingly when he took over the charge of the Prime Minister. On November 29, 1994, Zail Singh suffered multiple injuries following a car accident near Kiratpur Sahib in Roper district and he died in P.G.I. Chandigarh on December 25, 1994. The Government of India announced seven days of official mourning following his death. He was cremated at Raj Ghat Memorial in Delhi. A commemorative postage stamp was issued by India's Department of Posts on the occasion of Singh's first death anniversary in 1995.
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