Y. V. Chandrachud administering the
oath of office of the President of India to Zail Singh, 1982 In June 1982, Singh was chosen by the Congress party to be its candidate for the
presidential election to succeed
Neelam Sanjiva Reddy, rejecting a proposal by the opposition to have a consensus candidate. A group of ten opposition parties decided to field the Communist politician
Hiren Mukherjee as their candidate. Singh’s nomination was seen as a gesture to the Sikhs at a time when the separatist agitation for Khalistan was gaining popularity. However, it was also aimed at keeping Singh out of active politics allowing Singh’s bête noire Darbara Singh to run the Punjab government without interference from the Centre. Singh’s loyalty to the prime minister was another reason for his nomination as the Congress party was unsure of its prospects in the general elections scheduled for 1985. 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.
Indira Gandhi ministry (1982–84) and
Prince Philip visited India in 1983 and were hosted at the
Rashtrapati Bhavan by President Zail Singh.|left Singh was known for his loyalty to Prime Minister
Indira Gandhi and had remarked that he would pick up a broom and become a sweeper if she were to ask him to do so. It was reported that Singh would walk down to the South Court of
Rashtrapati Bhavan to receive her when she called on him, even opening her car door in breach of all protocol. In 1983,
New Delhi hosted both the
seventh summit of the Non-Aligned Movement and the
Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting.
Queen Elizabeth II and
Prince Philip arrived on a
state visit in November 1983, as the guests of President Singh and stayed at the
Rashtrapati Bhavan. As president, he spoke out against the Akali Dal’s assertion that Sikhs were being discriminated against in India, challenged the rule of
jathedars and the role of religious leaders in the separatist movement in Punjab, and criticised the use of
Sikh shrines 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. founder
Bhim Singh at the
Rashtrapati Bhavan 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
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.
Rajiv Gandhi ministry (1984–87) to Rajiv Gandhi in December 1984|left Indira Gandhi’s assassination was followed by
anti-Sikh rioting across India which lasted for four days till 3 November 1984. Although constitutionally the supreme commander of the
Indian Armed Forces, Singh was unable to act to stop the violence.
Tarlochan Singh, President Singh’s
press secretary, later alleged that although the president had tried to talk to the prime minister regarding the rioting in Delhi, Rajiv Gandhi never got back to him whereas
Home Minister P. V. Narasimha Rao told him that the government was busy arranging
Indira Gandhi’s funeral. Singh later admitted that his commitment to the Congress party and to the
Indian Constitution were severely tested by these events but he chose to remain in his post. Rajiv Gandhi soon called for
parliamentary elections which were held between
24 and 28 December 1984. The Congress party won 404 out of the 514 seats, the highest number ever won by a party in India’s general elections. A forty member council of ministers with Gandhi as the prime minister were sworn in on 31 December 1984. 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 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
allegations of corruption began to surface in the procurement of
Bofors howitzers 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.
State visits Singh led state visits to
Bahrain,
Czechoslovakia, and
Qatar in 1983; to
Argentina,
Mauritius,
Mexico,
North and
South Yemen in 1984. Singh was in
Aden, Yemen when Indira Gandhi was assassinated. He also made visits to
Greece,
Nepal,
Poland, and
Yugoslavia 1986. As the relationship between Rajiv Gandhi and Singh soured, the government began sending
Vice-President R. Venkataraman on trips abroad in place of Singh. Even visits to nations which were customarily made by the
head of state began to be made by the vice-president or the prime minister and some, such as a visit to
Zimbabwe, which had been finalised were cancelled. Consequently, Singh became one of the least travelled presidents of India. ==Later life and death==