Zail Singh

He was married to Pardhan Kaur and was blessed with one son and three daughters.

He was involved in a vehicle accident in November 1994 in which he was seriously hurt. He succumbed to his injuries on 25 December 1994.

He was born in a mud house to a poor family in Faridkot district in Punjab, India. His father’s name was Bhai Kishan Singh while his mother was Mata Ind Kaur. His father worked as the village carpenter.

He was the youngest among six siblings who included five brothers and a sister. Tragedy struck the close-knit family when his mother died when he was just a child. The children were later brought up by their mother’s sister.

His family, though humble also had a small piece of land to till. Zail Singh was brought up in a religious environment by his family and became well versed in the holy scriptures of the Sikhs by an early age.

As a teenager he was accepted into the Shahid Sikh Missionary College at Amritsar in spite of the fact that he did not have a matriculation certificate. However, he was a very confident young man highly skilled in the art of public speaking.

While in college he acquired the title “Gyani” because of his knowledge of the Guru Granth Sahib and because of his extensive training in religious studies. He was very fluent in Punjabi and Urdu and could hold his audience in a trance with his oratory skills.

He was actively involved in politics from his teenage and had joined the Shiromani Akali Dal when he was just 15. By the time he reached his 20s in the late 1930s, his political aspirations had begun to take on a new fervor.

In 1938 he established the Praja Mandal, which was a political organization allied to the Congress party in Faridkot. This did not go down well with the Maharaja of Faridkot who saw the opening of a Congress branch in the city as a threat to his power.

Zail Singh was captured and imprisoned. For five years he was kept in solitary confinement and was also tortured for his political activities. Yet the young man never lost heart and held on strongly to his ideals.

After India became independent, he was appointed as the Revenue Minister of the recently formed Patiala and East Punjab States Union (PEPSU). His contributions to the farmers of PEPSU in removing inequalities and providing them their rights was immense.

After his able leadership as the Revenue Minister of PEPSU, he was made the Minister of Agriculture in 1951.

Gyani Zail Singh served as the seventh President of India from 1982 to 1987. He was the first Sikh to hold this position. His presidency was, however, marked by several controversial issues like Operation Blue Star and anti-Sikh riots following the assassination of Indira Gandhi.