Jaswant Singh - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

For the Indian author, see Lt Col Jaswant Singh Marwah.

Jaswant Singh (born January 3, 1938) is an India

India

India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...

n politician and Member of Parliament from Darjeeling parliamentary constituency. He is a Rajput from Jodhpur in the Indian State of Rajasthan

Rajasthan

Rājasthān the land of Rajasthanis, , is the largest state of the Republic of India by area. It is located in the northwest of India. It encompasses most of the area of the large, inhospitable Great Indian Desert , which has an edge paralleling the Sutlej-Indus river valley along its border with...

and was an officer in the Indian Army

Indian Army

The Indian Army is the land based branch and the largest component of the Indian Armed Forces. With about 1,100,000 soldiers in active service and about 1,150,000 reserve troops, the Indian Army is the world's largest standing volunteer army...

in the 1960s and is an alumnus of Mayo College

Mayo College

Mayo College is a public school founded by the 6th Earl of Mayo, who was Viceroy of India from 1869 to 1872.The school is located in Ajmer, in the state of Rajasthan, India....

and the National Defence Academy (India), Khadakwasla. He served as Finance minister

Finance Minister of India

The Minister of Finance, also known as the Finance Minister of India is a cabinet position in the Government of India and heads the Ministry of Finance. He drafts the general budget of the country, and is in charge of the national economy. Currently, Pranab Mukherjee holds the charge of finance...

in the short-lived government of Atal Bihari Vajpayee

Atal Bihari Vajpayee

Atal Bihari Vajpayee is an Indian statesman who served as the tenth Prime Minister of India three times – first for a brief term of 13 days in 1996, and then for two terms from 1998 to 2004. After his first brief period as Prime Minister in 1996, Vajpayee headed a coalition government from...

, which lasted just from May 16, 1996, to June 1, 1996. After Vajpayee became Prime Minister again two years later, he became Minister for External Affairs of India, serving from December 5, 1998 until July 1, 2002. Responsible for foreign policy

Foreign policy

A country's foreign policy, also called the foreign relations policy, consists of self-interest strategies chosen by the state to safeguard its national interests and to achieve its goals within international relations milieu. The approaches are strategically employed to interact with other countries...

, he dealt with high tensions between India and Pakistan

Pakistan

Pakistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is a sovereign state in South Asia. It has a coastline along the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman in the south and is bordered by Afghanistan and Iran in the west, India in the east and China in the far northeast. In the north, Tajikistan...

. In July 2002 he became Finance Minister again, switching posts with Yashwant Sinha

Yashwant Sinha

Yashwant Sinha is an Indian politician and a former finance minister of India and foreign minister in Atal Bihari Vajpayee's cabinet...

. He served as Finance Minister until the defeat of the Vajpayee government in May 2004 and was instrumental in defining and pushing through the market-friendly reforms of the government. Known for his moderate political views, he is a self-described liberal

Liberalism

Liberalism is the belief in the importance of liberty and equal rights. Liberals espouse a wide array of views depending on their understanding of these principles, but generally, liberals support ideas such as constitutionalism, liberal democracy, free and fair elections, human rights,...

democrat

Democracy

Democracy is generally defined as a form of government in which all adult citizens have an equal say in the decisions that affect their lives. Ideally, this includes equal participation in the proposal, development and passage of legislation into law...

even though the Bharatiya Janata Party

Bharatiya Janata Party

The Bharatiya Janata Party ,; translation: Indian People's Party) is one of the two major political parties in India, the other being the Indian National Congress. Established in 1980, it is India's second largest political party in terms of representation in the parliament...

is often described as a right-wing nationalist organization. He was conferred the Outstanding Parliamentarian Award

Outstanding Parliamentarian Award

The Outstanding Parliamentarian Award is an award given by the Indian Parliamentary Group to an outstanding sitting Member of the Indian Parliament. It was instituted in 1995 by Shivraj Patil who was then the Speaker, Lok Sabha from 1991-96.-Past recipients:...

for the year 2001. On 19 August 2009, he was expelled from BJP after criticism over his remarks in his book which allegedly praised the founder of Pakistan

Pakistan

in his book Jinnah - India, Partition, Independence.

Career

He is one of the few Indian politicians to have been the Minister for Defence, Finance and External Affairs.

He started the new government of Vajpayee, which lasted its full term, as the External Affairs Minister and later on switched his ministry to Finance with Yashwant Sinha. He was also the Defence Minister when George Fernandes

George Fernandes

George Mathew Fernandes is an Indian trade unionist, politician, journalist, agriculturist, and member of Rajya Sabha from Bihar. He is a key member of the Janata Dal , and was the founder of the Samata Party...

was forced to resign after the Tehelka

Tehelka

Tehelka is an Indian weekly political magazine under the editorship of Tarun Tejpal known for its undercover exposé style of journalism. Its cover price is Rs 20 per issue. The publication began in 2000 as a news website, Tehelka.com...

exposure.

Mr. Singh is widely regarded for his handling of relations with the United States which were strained after the 1998 Indian nuclear tests

Pokhran-II

Pokharan-II refers to test explosions of five nuclear devices, three on 11 May and two on 13 May 1998, conducted by India at the Pokhran test range. These nuclear tests resulted in a variety of sanctions against India by a number of major states....

but which ameliorated soon after culminating in the visit of U.S. President Bill Clinton

Bill Clinton

William Jefferson "Bill" Clinton is an American politician who served as the 42nd President of the United States from 1993 to 2001. Inaugurated at age 46, he was the third-youngest president. He took office at the end of the Cold War, and was the first president of the baby boomer generation...

to India. His skill as a negotiator and diplomat during talks with the United States has been well acknowledged by his U.S. counterpart Strobe Talbott

Strobe Talbott

Nelson Strobridge "Strobe" Talbott III is an American foreign policy analyst associated with Yale University and the Brookings Institution, a former journalist associated with Time magazine and diplomat who served as the Deputy Secretary of State from 1994 to 2001.-Early life:Born in Dayton, Ohio...

.

Jaswant Singh is also the most influential person in the BJP not from a RSS

Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh

Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh or National Patriotic Organization), also known the Sangh, is a right-wing Hindu nationalist, paramilitary, volunteer, and allegedly militant organization for Hindu males in India...

background.

Jaswant Singh has been criticized by Political parties frequently for escorting terrorist to Kandhar

Kandhar

Kandhar is a town and a municipal council in Nanded district in the Indian state of Maharashtra. It lies near the western shore of Manyad Reservoir.-History:...

, Afghanistan

Afghanistan

Afghanistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country located in the centre of Asia, forming South Asia, Central Asia and the Middle East. With a population of about 29 million, it has an area of , making it the 42nd most populous and 41st largest nation in the world...

who were released by Government of India in exchange of passengers from the hijacked Indian Airlines plane. However, an all party meeting was called by the Indian government during that time and the decision taken was mutual by bringing all political parties in confidence.

In 2009 general election, he won as a candidate of BJP from Darjeeling parliamentary constituency under the state of west Bengal. He replaced the already declared candidate of BJP Mr. Dawa Sherpa, an ex IPS officer.

His candidature was the outcome of long political discussion between BJP and Gorkha Janamukti Morcha(GJM), an outfit demanding separate statehood for Hilly and Foothills of Darjeeling and Jalpaiguri districts in the name of Gorkhaland.

The outfit, presumably having good support base in hills, offered its support in the election to different political wings including Indian National Congress, BJP or NCP of Mr. P A Sangma in Darjeeling. In return, they wanted inclusion of the demand of separate Gorkhaland statehood in the parties Election Manifesto. They have also put an additional condition for BJP to replace their declared candidate Mr. Sherpa.

After lot of turmoils and discussion, on the 2nd April late evening, finally BJP declared its decision to go with GJM. It was also accepted to give sympathetic consideration to Gorkhaland issue. Against this, GJM offered their support to BJP in two additional adjoining PCs in foothills- Alipurduar and Jalpaiguri.

After 1and half years on date 25 June 2010 Jaswant Singh again joined the BJP in the presence of President Nitin Gadkari and Lal Krishna Advani

Since 2011, Jaswant Singh also acts as an Advisor to Fair Observer, focusing on on international diplomacy, foreign policy, and issues particular to the Indian subcontinent.

Books and controversies

In July 2006, Singh released a book titled A Call to Honour: In Service of Emergent India. A controversy erupted immediately after the release of the book, in which Singh insinuated that a mole had existed in the Prime Ministerial Office during the tenure of Prime Minister P. V. Narasimha Rao, who had leaked information to American sources. Soon after, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh

Manmohan Singh

Manmohan Singh is the 13th and current Prime Minister of India. He is the only Prime Minister since Jawaharlal Nehru to return to power after completing a full five-year term. A Sikh, he is the first non-Hindu to occupy the office. Singh is also the 7th Prime Minister belonging to the Indian...

challenged him to name the mole. In response, Singh sent a letter to him. The letter, Singh said later, had no signature, and no name of any mole. Jaswant Singh then backed off, saying his views on the subject were based on a "hunch".

Controversy hovered around him again when on 17 August 2009 another book of his titled Jinnah: India-Partition-Independence
Jinnah: India-Partition-Independence
Jinnah: India-Partition-Independence is a book written by Jaswant Singh, a former Finance Minister of India and an External Affairs Minister, on Pakistan's founder Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah and the politics associated with the partition of British India...

was released in which he claimed Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru's centralised polity was responsible for partition. He was later expelled from the primary membership of BJP as a result of the ensuing controversy. In interviews with media he quoted BJP as narrow-minded and to have limited thought. His book was later banned in Gujarat. Singh said of the ban "The day we start banning books, we are banning thinking". He has since been readmitted to BJP in 2010.

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.

Career

Books and controversies

See also

External links