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Giani Zail Singh (, born Jarnail Singh; 5 May 1916 – 25 December 1994) was an Indian politician from Punjab who served as the president of India from 1982 to 1987 and chief minister of Punjab. He was the first Sikhs to become president.
Born in Sandhwan in the princely state of Faridkot State, Singh trained to be a granthi and was given the title of Gyani, meaning a learned man, while training at the Sikh Missionary School in Amritsar. Singh was associated with peasant agitations and the movement seeking a representative government in Faridkot. His political activism in the Praja Mandal, an organisation allied with the Indian National Congress, saw him sentenced to solitary confinement between 1938 and 1943. He led a Flag Satyagraha and formed a Parallel state in Faridkot State which were called off only after the intervention of Jawaharlal Nehru and Vallabhbhai Patel. The stints in jail inspired him to change his name to Zail Singh.
After independence, Faridkot was merged with the Patiala and East Punjab States Union and Singh served as its minister of revenue and agriculture during 1949–51 and oversaw the introduction of in Punjab. Singh was a member of the Rajya Sabha during 1956–62 and member of the Punjab Legislative Assembly during 1962–67 during which time he served briefly as a minister under Partap Singh Kairon. He had served as president of PEPSU Pradesh Congress Committee during 1955–56 and became president of Punjab Pradesh Congress Committee in 1966 serving in that post until his election as chief minister of Punjab in 1972.
As chief minister, Singh is credited with having established India’s first semiconductor manufacturing unit in Mohali, legislating the Punjab Land Reforms Act of 1972, ensuring reservation for and Balmikism in education and public employment and repatriating the remains of Udham Singh which were then cremated in Punjab with state honours. Singh’s policies aimed to undercut the influence of the Shiromani Akali Dal party by championing Sikh religious causes. Following the defeat of the Congress party in the elections of 1977, Singh and Sanjay Gandhi extended political and financial support to Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale, a radical Sikh preacher. Bhindranwale soon became the flagbearer of Sikh separatism and an insurgency seeking the establishment of Khalistan broke out in Punjab.
Elected to the Lok Sabha in 1980, Singh was appointed India’s home minister by Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. His tenure witnessed the worsening of the insurgency in Punjab where his rivalry with the state's Darbara Singh and support for Bhindranwale prevented resolute action against the insurgents. In 1982, he was elected president of India, succeeding Neelam Sanjiva Reddy. The initial years of his presidency saw the Operation Blue Star, the assassination of Indira Gandhi, and the 1984 anti-Sikh riots. After Rajiv Gandhi became prime minister, relations with Singh turned frosty as Gandhi refused to meet with or inform Singh on matters of policy and placing curbs on his foreign and domestic travels. Singh hit back by questioning government policy and subjecting proposals sent to him to minute scrutiny. In 1986, he employed a pocket veto on the Indian Post Office (Amendment) Bill passed by Parliament. Bofors scandal in the procurement of from Bofors, the government’s refusal to furnish the documents sought for by President Singh and his much-publicized reproach to the government led to speculation that Singh intended to dismiss the government of Rajiv Gandhi. Singh however retired at the end of his tenure in 1987 and was succeeded as president by R. Venkataraman.
Singh died in 1994 of injuries sustained in a road accident. His samadhi is at the Ekta Sthal in Delhi. Singh’s memoirs were published in 1997. His birth centenary was celebrated in 2016 when a documentary film and a book on his life were released.
In 1946, he launched a satyagraha against the Faridkot government and was involved in the Flag agitation of that year for which he was imprisoned. The flag agitation ended with the Nehru-Harinder Pact by which the maharaja agreed to the formation of political associations in the state and revoked the ban on hoisting the Congress flag in Faridkot. The maharaja's failure to fully implement the pact led to a renewed agitation in the state in 1948 when Praja Mandal activists besieged the state's secretariat and Singh declared the formation of a Parallel state in Faridkot. The agitation ended only after the intervention of Vallabhbhai Patel with the maharaja agreeing to free Singh and three other ministers of the parallel government from prison besides Praja Mandal activists arrested for their participation in the agitation. In 1948, the States Ministry of India merged Faridkot with the other Phulkian sardars to form the Patiala and East Punjab States Union.
During 1956 to 1962, he served as Member of Parliament in the Rajya Sabha. He resigned his membership in March 1962 to contest the Punjab Legislative Assembly elections and won from the Faridkot constituency. He briefly served as a minister in the Partap Singh Kairon ministry but resigned in the wake of the Sino-Indian War and the reduction in size of the ministry. In 1966, he became president of the Punjab Pradesh Congress Committee, a post he held until his appointment as chief minister in 1972. Although he did not contest the election of 1967, he was re-elected to the Punjab Assembly from Anandpur Sahib through a by-election in 1970.
From the outset Singh projected himself as a champion of the Sikhism, in part, because he did not belong to the dominant Jats and also to counter the Akali Dal party. As part of this policy, he inaugurated the Guru Gobind Singh Marg – a highway linking Punjab’s most prominent Gurdwara, renamed several government hospitals after Sikh gurus, started the Guru Nanak Dev University in Amritsar and renamed a town near Chandigarh after one of Guru Gobind Singh’s sons. In response to their electoral setbacks, Akali Dal politicians gathered at Anandpur Sahib in October 1972 and passed a resolution demanding greater autonomy to Punjab and self-determination for the Sikhs.
Singh’s government enacted the Punjab Land Reforms Act, 1972, which fixed Land reform at per family. Several key provisions of the Act were struck down the following year by the Punjab and Haryana High Court prompting a further appeal by the state government in India's Supreme Court. The Act, which also provided for redistribution of surplus land, failed in its implementation and consequently there was little change in Land tenure.
Singh introduced a scheme for life-long pension for participants in India’s independence movement. In 1974, he repatriated the remains of Udham Singh from the United Kingdom which were then taken in a procession to Punjab, cleverly utilising the media attention and popular interest in it to burnish his credentials. The remains were cremated in Sunam with full State funeral and Singh himself lit the Pyre. He also took to honouring the legacy of Bhagat Singh, declaring a gazetted holiday on his birthday, converting his ancestral home at Khatkar Kalan into a museum and honouring his mother with the title of ‘Punjab Mata’.
He was also responsible for getting the Department of Electronics to establish the Semiconductor Complex Limited at Mohali in 1974 overriding their preferred choice of Chennai (now Chennai). This was India’s first semiconductor fabricating unit. It became operational in 1983 and manufactured integrated chips using American know-how. In 1975, Singh introduced a reservation of fifty per cent of jobs for Balmikism and under the quota of jobs reserved for the scheduled castes. The move aimed to consolidate the dalit vote behind the Congress party and enhanced his own standing among them.
Following the imposition of the Emergency of 1975, Singh zealously implemented the policies of Sanjay Gandhi’s five point program. The national population policy with its focus on compulsory sterilisation was implemented often through coercive steps of the police and administration. Singh was forced to implement the policy, in part, to retain favour with Sanjay Gandhi, whom he had once described as his saviour, and to stave off the challenge to his leadership from other Congress leaders of Punjab, notably Mohinder Singh Gill who was the party’s president.
In the general elections of 1977 that followed the Emergency, the Congress party for the first time failed to win even a single seat from Punjab. Singh’s tenure as chief minister ended on 30 April 1977 when Punjab was placed under President's rule. In the elections to the state Assembly held in June 1977, the Shiromani Akali Dal was elected to office winning 58 out of 104 seats in the Legislative Assembly.
The defeat of the Congress party in the elections of 1977 led Sanjay Gandhi and Singh to look for a Sikh leader who would weaken the Akali Dal by espousing a strident stand on matters of Sikh faith thus undercutting the Akalis. The tactic was inspired partly by Partap Singh Kairon who, as chief minister, had propped up Fateh Singh as a counter to the Akali leader Tara Singh during the 1960s. Their choice was Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale who was then a little known Sikh preacher but would go on to be a Frankenstein's monster for his patrons. Bhindranwale came to limelight in 1978 when a clash between his followers and Nirankari Sikhs led to the death of a dozen people. The Congress party lionised Bhindranwale and helped him establish the Dal Khalsa party. In the general elections of 1980, Bhindranwale even campaigned for Congress candidates.
The factionalism in the Congress and the political feuding between Zail Singh and Darbara Singh further complicated the situation in Punjab and prevented resolute administrative action against the insurgents. Bhindranwale was able to use the discord between the central and state governments to his advantage. He was suspected of involvement in the murders of the Nirankari guru Gurbachan Singh in April 1980 and of the newspaper magnate Lala Jagat Narain in September 1981. Even though arrest warrants were issued against him, who was then in the state of Haryana, Bhindranwale was able to escape to his gurudwara in the Punjab in an official car provided to him by the Haryana Chief Minister Bhajan Lal on the instructions of Singh. Bhindranwale gave himself up for arrest later that month but was released from jail in October following widespread unrest in the Punjab and after Singh declared in Parliament that Bhindranwale was not involved in Narain’s murder. In each of these instances even as Darbara Singh wanted to crack down on Bhindranwale, Zail Singh intervened on his behalf in the hope of using him as a pawn in his political battle against Darbara Singh.
Bhindranwale's release served to demoralise the Punjab Police as they now became targets for Sikh extremists and furthered emboldened Bhindranwale. Similarly, requests to ban the Dal Khalsa by the state government were stonewalled by the Union Home Ministry before the prime minister intervened to have the ban imposed. Singh’s tenure as India’s home minister has generally been viewed unfavourably. He was seen as a weak and inept minister who was appointed to prevent him from developing strong base in Punjab and as someone who mishandled crises in the Punjab, Kashmir and the Northeast India.
The opposition’s original candidate was dropped as Mukherjee was not a registered voter, which is a prerequisite for any person contesting a presidential election. Hans Raj Khanna, a former judge of the Supreme Court of India who had defended fundamental rights and championed the inviolability of the basic structure of the constitution during the Emergency and was subsequently overlooked for appointment as Chief Justice, became the opposition candidate.
The election was held on 12 July 1982 with the electoral college comprising 756 members of Parliament and 3827 members of legislative assemblies. When the votes were counted on 15 July, Singh emerged the winner with 754,113 votes, or 72.7 per cent, against Khanna’s 282,685 votes and was declared elected the same day by the returning officer. Singh won a majority in each of India’s state assemblies except for West Bengal and Tripura. He was sworn in the seventh president of India on 25 July 1982. He was the first Sikh as also the first person from a backward caste to become president.
As president, he spoke out against the Akali Dal’s assertion that Sikhs were being discriminated against in India, challenged the rule of and the role of religious leaders in the separatist movement in Punjab, and criticised the use of Gurdwara as sanctuaries by criminals. In June 1984, the Indian Army launched Operation Blue Star to neutralise Sikh militants based in the Golden Temple complex in Amritsar. Singh was not appraised of these plans neither when Punjab was brought under President’s rule nor when Prime Minister Gandhi met him for a routine briefing the day before the operation was launched. When Singh visited the Golden Temple complex on 8 June, he was shot at by a sniper. Although he was not hit, his security officer was seriously injured. Singh was deeply upset at the damage done to the temple complex. Singh later justified the military operation saying bloodshed could have been avoided had militants surrendered and urging all Sikhs to ensure that their temples would not in the future be used to house arms and material not sanctioned by Sikh tradition. In September, the Akal Takht, the highest temporal body in Sikhism, condemned Singh for his alleged role in the military operation and held him guilty of religious misconduct. He was exonerated 24 days later by the Sikh high priests after he expressed contrition and sought forgiveness before the Akal Takht for the ‘unfortunate incidents’ that had happened there.
In August 1984, Rashtrapati Bhavan became the venue of an unusual political gathering when N. T. Rama Rao, who had been dismissed as chief minister of Andhra Pradesh by the governor, met Singh with over 160 members of the Legislative Assembly. The Governor Thakur Ram Lal had appointed N. Bhaskara Rao as the new chief minister and provided him a month’s time to prove his majority in the assembly despite the ousted chief minister’s claim of being able to prove his own majority in two days’ time and evidence that he was supported by a majority of legislators. Following widespread protests, the governor was recalled and Rama Rao returned as chief minister following a vote of confidence. The Singh presidency saw similar dismissal of state governments and imposition of President’s rule in Jammu and Kashmir and in Sikkim.
Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was assassinated on 31 October 1984 by her Sikh bodyguards. Her son Rajiv Gandhi and Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee were in West Bengal campaigning for upcoming Assembly elections while Singh was on a state visit to North Yemen. He returned to Delhi the same evening and visited the All India Institute of Medical Sciences where Indira Gandhi had been admitted. The presidential cavalcade was pelted with stones en route and violence against Sikhs began in Delhi. After the deaths of prime ministers Jawaharlal Nehru in 1964 and Shastri in 1966, the president had appointed the senior most Cabinet minister, Gulzarilal Nanda, as the acting prime minister while the Congress Parliamentary Party went about electing a new leader who would then become prime minister. That convention would have required Singh to appoint Pranab Mukherjee as the acting prime minister. However, the Congress Parliamentary Board, the executive committee of the parliamentary party, nominated Rajiv Gandhi for appointment as prime minister. Accordingly, Singh swore Rajiv Gandhi in as prime minister the same evening (31 October). The choice of Rajiv Gandhi was unanimously approved by the Congress Parliamentary Party three days later.
The relationship between President Singh and Prime Minister Gandhi quickly turned sour. Gandhi viewed Singh as a rustic parvenu whose actions were partly responsible for the imbroglio in the Punjab that had led to his mother’s assassination. As prime minister, Gandhi called on Singh only once before the elections and dispensed with the practice of calling on the president to discuss matters of state entirely. Following his cue, union ministers too stopped calling on Singh, a situation that lasted for almost two years before Gandhi gave-in and called on Singh in March 1987. Singh was known for also attending political iftars, offering Muslim prayers even though he was Sikh. Gandhi stopped briefing Singh about matters of domestic and foreign policy and refused to sanction official visits abroad for Singh and Congress governments in the states began to put off visits by the president. Singh retaliated by subjecting all proposals sent to him to minute scrutiny, seeking explanations from the government on not formulating a policy on judicial appointments, questioning its television coverage policy and cautioning the governor of Andhra Pradesh, Kumudben Joshi, to desist from interfering in the state’s politics besides seeking an explanation from the Chief Election Commissioner of India about the delay in holding scheduled elections in the state of Haryana. These interventions caused the government considerable embarrassment.
Singh is also remembered for his stance on the Indian Post Office (Amendment) Bill, 1986. The bill, passed by both houses of Parliament, empowered central and state governments to intercept, inspect and detain any items in the post perceived to be a threat to national security. In effect, the bill gave the government unbridled powers to surveil postal communication and violated citizens’ rights. Singh, instead of returning the bill to Parliament for its reconsideration, decided to withhold his assent to it. If the bill were to be sent back to Parliament, in which the Congress party held an overwhelming majority, it could have reiterated its support for the bill which would have forced Singh to give it his assent. As the Constitution places no time limit within which presidential assent is to be given to legislation sent to him, Singh decided to keep it in abeyance – thus effecting a pocket veto. The bill remained unsigned even by his successor who returned it to the Rajya Sabha for its reconsideration.
During 1986–87, as Bofors scandal began to surface in the procurement of Bofors by the Indian government; Singh sought information regarding the matter from the government. Gandhi took the stance that the president did not have the right to know every classified matter made available to the prime minister or the Council of Ministers and the Cabinet passed a resolution rejecting Singh’s demand. In Parliament, however, Gandhi stated that the "president was being fully informed", a patently false statement. Singh responded by writing to the prime minister narrating specific instances where no information had been furnished despite repeated demands. A copy of the letter was leaked to the press. This allegation by the head of state against the head of government served to further reduce the government’s credibility.
By 1987, it was widely speculated that Singh intended to dismiss the Rajiv Gandhi ministry and appoint in its place a caretaker ministry under either R. Venkataraman or P. V. Narasimha Rao. As Singh’s tenure was drawing to a close, it was thought that such a move would lead to a second term in office for him with support from the opposition and members of the Congress party opposed to Gandhi. Gandhi, who had strained relations with the Chief of the Army Staff General Sundarji and his Defence Minister Arun Singh, was opposed to giving Singh a further term in office. Singh, however, never acted on the plan and decided not to seek a second term as he failed to get the open support of the opposition and feared it could lead to an army takeover.
Singh was severely injured in a road accident when his car collided with a truck at Kiratpur Sahib in the Ropar district of Punjab on 29 November 1994. He was admitted to the Postgraduate Institute of Medical Education and Research in Chandigarh where he died on 25 December 1994, aged 78. The Government of India declared 7 days of national mourning. His cremation was held on 26 December in Delhi where his samadhi is located at Ekta Sthal.
Singh's autobiography, The Memoirs of Giani Zail Singh, was published in 1996.
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