2019 – Posted in: Press Information Bureau

Giani Zail Singh

(President’s Secretariat)

WHAT

The President of India, Shri Ram Nath Kovind, paid floral tributes to Giani Zail Singh, former President of India, on his birth anniversary (May 5, 2019).

GAINI ZAIL SINGH

Gyani Zail Singh, born Jarnail Singh in Sandhwan, Faridkot district on 5 May 1916 – 25 December 1994 was the seventh President of India serving from 1982 to 1987.

Prior to his presidency, he was a politician with the Indian National Congress party, and had held several ministerial posts in the Union Cabinet, including that of Home Minister.
Zail Singh was elected as a Congress Chief Minister of Punjab in 1972.
He also served as the Secretary-General of the Non-Aligned Movement from 1983 to 1986.
His presidency was marked by Operation Blue Star, the assassination of Indira Gandhi, and the 1984 anti-Sikh riots.

BACKGROUND

He was named Jarnail, meaning “General”, but as a young man, he changed his first name to Zail after being imprisoned several times for opposing the rule of the maharajah of Faridkot.

He was a Sikh by religion, was given the title of Gyani, as he was educated and learned about Guru Granth Sahib at Shaheed Sikh Missionary College in Amritsar.

On 29 November 1994, Zail Singh suffered multiple injuries following a motor accident near Kiratpur Sahib in Ropar district when a truck driving down the wrong side of the road hit the car he was travelling in.

Singh died in Chandigarh where he had been undergoing treatment on Christmas Day in 1994, aged 78.

PRESIDENT OF INDIA

In 1982 he was unanimously nominated to serve as the President.
He took the oath of office on 25 July 1982.
He was the first Sikh to hold the office.

Zail Singh was awarded the Order of St. Thomas (the highest honorary award conferred by the Indian Orthodox Church) by Catholicos of the East Baselios MarThoma Mathews I during the Catholicate Platinum jubilee celebratory meeting held at Kottayam Nehru Stadium on 12 September 1982.

Source: PIB

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