File:President_Giani_Zail_Singh_(cropped).jpg · Wikimedia Commons · See Wikimedia Commons
Zail Singh was an Indian politician who served as the President of India, the country's ceremonial head of state, from 1982 to 1987. As president during an important period in independent India's history, he held one of the nation's highest constitutional offices, though executive power rested with the Prime Minister.
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Wikidata facts
- Instance of
- human
- Family name
- Singh
- Gender
- male
- Citizenship
- Dominion of India
- Place of death
- Chandigarh
- Occupation
- freedom fighter
- Political party
- Indian National Congress
- Languages spoken
- Hindi
- Religion
- Sikhism
- Image
- Giani Zail Singh 1995 stamp of India.jpg
Show 6 more facts
- Commons category
- Giani Zail Singh
- date of birth
- 1916-05-05
- date of death
- 1994-12-25
- name in native language
- ਗਿਆਨੀ ਜ਼ੈਲ ਸਿੰਘ
- cause of death
- traffic collision
- candidacy in election
- 1982 Indian presidential election
Sources (2)
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Encyclopedic overview
Giani Zail Singh (pronunciation, born Jarnail Singh; 5 May 1916 – 25 December 1994) was an Indian politician who served as President of India from 1982 to 1987 and chief minister of Punjab in the 1970s. He was the first Sikh to become president.
Born in Sandhwan in the princely state of Faridkot, Singh trained to be a granthi and was given the title of giani, 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 government 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.
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Zail Singh” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.