First among equals President of India by Scharada Dubey

Author:Scharada Dubey [Dubey, Scharada]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Mobilism
Publisher: Westland Publishing
Published: 2012-05-22T00:00:00+00:00

A Scholar and a Rebel

Giani Zail Singh

Term of Office: 25 July 1982–25 July 1987

Being able to stand up to injustice throughout one’s life, in the midst of great social change and upheaval, requires a robust and unconquerable spirit. One president of modern India had such spirit in ample measure. In his lifetime, he challenged feudal princely power and foreign domination, and fought against communalism and social injustice. He was recognised as a learned and aristocratic personality, but was also someone who was completely unassuming and a friend of the poor and downtrodden. The man who successfully combined all these exceptional qualities was Giani Zail Singh, the seventh president of the Republic of India.

Giani Zail Singh, one of three sons of Sardar Kishan Singh, a farmer, was born on 5 May 1916 in a mud house in Sandhwan village of Faridkot district. His humble origins as well as his family’s background of being artisans in previous generations meant that Zail Singh grew up with a healthy respect for work done with one’s hands. He learnt to stitch clothes, crush stones, plough fields, lay roads and dig wells, understanding the needs and aspirations of the common man like few others have done in childhood. His basic education included studying the Koran, Bhagavad Gita and Ramayana besides the Sikh scriptures.

Showing a pronounced thirst for knowledge uncommon in boys of his age, Zail Singh had completed the study of Sikh religion, Sikh history and Sikh scriptures by the age when most complete only their school education. This earned him the respectful honorific title of ‘Giani’, or scholar. He was fluent in Hindi and Urdu, although not as comfortable in English. Zail Singh’s entire personality commanded respect by its example of self-reliance and resolute determination, enabling him to carve a solid reputation for himself in public life.

Zail Singh’s earliest inspiration came from the martyrdom of Bhagat Singh and his companions on 23 March 1931. The young Giani, then only sixteen, was very much moved. Some years later, in 1938, he set up a branch of the All India Congress in the state of Faridkot. This was then a princely state, and its ruler, the maharaja, crushed any sign of revolt against the British. Because of his attempts to bring the Congress to Faridkot, Zail Singh was proclaimed and treated as an ordinary criminal. He was sentenced to five years in solitary confinement — a form of punishment that could have broken a lesser man. His crime: founding the office of the Congress in Faridkot to spearhead the freedom struggle.

When he was released after five years, he spent some time outside the state because of continued harassment by the maharaja’s administration. Typically, he used this time to canvass support for the freedom movement among the people. At the same time, he came under the influence of Mahatma Gandhi and his message of nonviolence.

Zail Singh returned to Faridkot in 1946 to resume the struggle for independence — this time on the lines indicated by Mahatma Gandhi.

One of the first issues that united the people of Faridkot was the question of raising the national flag.

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