Rajnath Singh (; born 10 July 1951) is an Indian politician and lecturer who is serving as the 29th Minister of Defence since 2019 and as the Deputy Leader of the House, Lok Sabha since 2014. He is a Member of Parliament from Lucknow since 2014. He previously served as the 25th Union Minister of Home Affairs in the first Modi ministry from 2014 to 2019, making him the first person born after Indian independence to hold the office. He was President of the Bharatiya Janata Party from 2005 to 2009 and again from 2013 to 2014. Singh is a veteran leader of the BJP who started his career as a swayamsevak of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh.
Singh previously served as the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh from 2000 to 2002 and a Cabinet Minister for Road Transport and Highways in the Vajpayee Government from 1999 to 2000 and the minister of Agriculture from 2003 to 2004. He was the President of Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha from 1988 to 1990. He was a member of the Uttar Pradesh Legislative Assembly from Haidergarh constituency twice. He previously represented Ghaziabad in the Lok Sabha from 2009 to 2014. He was also a member of Rajya Sabha from 2002 to 2008 and from 1994 to 2001.
Early life Rajnath Singh was born in Bhabhaura village of Chandauli district, Uttar Pradesh to father Ram Badan Singh and mother Gujarati Devi. He was born into a family of farmers. He received his primary education from a local school of his village and went on to secure a master's degree in physics, acquiring first division results from Gorakhpur University. From childhood he was inspired by the ideology of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh. He worked as a lecturer of physics at K.B. Post-Graduate College Mirzapur, Uttar Pradesh.
Early political career Entry into politics Singh had been associated with the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh since 1964, at the age of 13 and remained connected with the organisation. He also became Shakha Karyavah (General Secretary) of Mirzapur in the year 1972. After 2 years in the year 1974, he entered politics. Between 1969 and 1971 he was the organizational secretary of the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (the student wing of the RSS) in Gorakhpur. He became the general secretary of the RSS's Mirzapur branch in 1972. In 1974, he was appointed secretary for the Mirzapur unit of the Bharatiya Jana Sangh, predecessor of Bharatiya Janata Party. In 1975, aged 24, Singh was appointed District President of the Jana Sangh.
JP Movement and Emergency In the 1970s, Singh was influenced by the JP Movement of Jayaprakash Narayan. He was also arrested in the year 1975 during the state of National Emergency for associating with JP Movement and was detained for a time period of 2 years.
Entry into electoral politics After being released from jail, Singh joined the Janata Party founded by Jayprakash Narayan and contested legislative assembly elections from Mirzapur in 1977. He successfully fought the election and was elected as a Member of Legislative Assembly from Mirzapur.
Rise within BJP At that time he gained the popularity in state politics and then joined BJP in the year 1980 and was one of the initial members of the Party. He became the State President of the BJP youth wing in 1984, the National general secretary in 1986 and the National President in 1988. He was also elected into the Uttar Pradesh Legislative Council.
Early ministerial roles
Education Minister (1991–1992) In 1991, when the Bharatiya Janata Party formed its first government in Uttar Pradesh under chief minister Kalyan Singh, he was appointed education minister of Uttar Pradesh. He held the education portfolio for a tenure of two years. Major highlights of his tenure as education minister included the controversial Anti-Copying Act, 1992, which made copying a non-bailable offence, modernising science texts, and incorporating vedic mathematics into the curriculum.
Anti-Copying Act, 1992
Singh helped push the controversial Anti-Copying Act in response to perceived widespread cheating in schools and colleges in Uttar Pradesh. when Mulayam Singh Yadav became the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, heading Bahujan Samaj Party in the year 1993 he repealed the Act.
Modernising the education system In 1991, Singh led a partial rewrite of history textbooks used in government schools and introduced vedic mathematics into the curriculum. Seen as loyal to the RSS, a Hindu nationalist organisation, Singh's changes to state education policy were widely perceived to have been motivated by his RSS affiliation and ideological kinship with the organisation's leadership. As minister, he also focused on promoting the usage of Indian languages instead of English in courses and instruction. At the same time, he stated his appreciation for knowledge of modern languages.
Union Transport Minister (1999–2000) In April 1994, he was elected into the Rajya Sabha (Upper House of the Parliament) and became involved with the Advisory Committee on Industry (1994–96), Consultative Committee for the Ministry of Agriculture, Business Advisory Committee, House Committee and the Committee on Human Resource Development. On 25 March 1997, he became the President of the BJP's Uttar Pradesh unit and in 1999 became the Union Cabinet Minister for Surface Transport.
Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh (2000–02)
In 2000, he became chief minister of Uttar Pradesh and was twice elected as MLA from Haidergarh in 2001 and 2002. He was preceded by Ram Prakash Gupta and succeeded by Mayawati after 56 days of President's rule.List of chief ministers of Uttar Pradesh He was also the last chief minister of Undivided U.P. Contributing to his appointment as state minister were his prior experience as education minister and his grassroots support from his involvement in the anti-corruption JP Movement in the 1970s. At that time there also many leaders in BJP from Uttar Pradesh, but very few had a strong support at the ground level."The politics of Uttar Pradesh was like a Jungle trap"-The Betrayal of Indian Democracy. He was at that time very much close to Atal Bihari Vajpayee and had a very clean image among the people of the State. He also popular among Rajputs (Thakur), a significant community in the state, like Bhairon Singh Shekhawat. Even unlike, L. K. Advani and Kalyan Singh, he was not a leader of Firebrand Hindutva ideology and was a very soft-spoken person.
Notable reforms as chief minister As chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, he accused the Samajwadi Party of favouring certain communities for jobs. Singh had said that discrimination in job opportunities should end in the state. He tried to rationalise the reservation structure in government jobs by introducing the most Backward Classes among the OBC and SC, so that the reservation system could favour those at the bottom of society.
When Singh took office as chief minister, Uttar Pradesh had the highest state crime rate in India. Singh thus made establishing law and order a key part of his policy. However, after the 2002 Gujarat riots a large portion of the Indian public saw the BJP as complicit in the riots, which undermined the image of Singh's party and contributed to the loss of his position.
On 7 February 2001, Singh inaugurated the DND Flyway which connects Delhi to Noida.
Resignation In the year 2002, Singh resigned from the position of chief minister after a 2-year tenure because at that time, the state BJP Government held only a minority government. After his resignation, the state was under President's rule for 56 days, until the 14th Legislative Assembly appointed Mayawati to the position of chief minister for the 3rd time.
Rise in national politics
Union Agriculture Minister (2003–04) In 2003, Singh was appointed as the Minister of Agriculture and subsequently for Food Processing in the NDA Government led by Atal Bihari Vajpayee, and was faced with the difficult task of maintaining one of the most volatile areas of India's economy. During this period he initiated a few epoch-making projects including the Kisan Call Centre and Farm Income Insurance Scheme."Shri Rajnath Singh, MP (Ghaziabad)" . wikimapia.org He brought down interest rates on Agriculture loans and also established Farmer Commission and initiated Farms Income Insurance Scheme."Achievements" . rajnathsingh.in
National President of the BJP First time (2005–2009)
After the BJP lost power in the 2004 general elections, it was forced to sit in the Opposition. After the resignation of prominent figure Lal Krishna Advani due to controversial statements over Muhammad Ali Jinnah, and the murder of strategist Pramod Mahajan, Singh sought to rebuild the party by focusing on the most basic Hindutva ideologies. He announced his position of "no compromise" in relation to the building of a Ram Temple in Ayodhya at any cost and commended the rule of Vajpayee as Prime Minister, pointing towards all the developments the NDA made for the ordinary people of India.Rajnath Singh is new BJP President . indianewsdiary.com He also criticised the role of the English language in India, claiming that most of Indian population is unable to participate in Indian economy and cultural discourse due to extreme preferences shown to English at the expense of native languages."BJP chief claims English bad for India, triggers outrage." The Times of India. 20 July 2013 Singh also suspended Jaswant Singh from the party for praising Jinnah and disrespecting the policies of Jawaharlal Nehru, which also led to a wave of controversies as Jaswant Singh was a very senior leader of the party. Singh had held many positions for the RSS and the BJP, including serving as the Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh and the President of the BJP's youth wing. He advocated a return to a Hindutva platform. Singh resigned after the NDA lost the 2009 Indian general election.
He became the BJP National President on 31 December 2005, a post he held till 19 December 2009. In May 2009, he was elected MP from Ghaziabad in Uttar Pradesh.
Second time (2013–2014) On 24 January 2013, following the resignation of Nitin Gadkari due to corruption charges, Singh was re-elected as the BJP's National President.
Singh was on record shortly after the law Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code was re-instated in 2013, claiming that his party is "unambiguously" in favour of the law, also claiming that "We will state (at an all-party meeting if it is called) that we support Section 377 because we believe that homosexuality is an unnatural act and cannot be supported." Singh was elected president for his second term after Gadkari stepped down in 2013. Singh played a large role in the BJP's campaign for the 2014 Indian general election, including declaring Narendra Modi the party's Prime Ministerial candidate despite opposition from within the BJP. After the party's landslide victory, Singh resigned the party presidency to assume the position of Home Minister.
He contested the 2014 Lok Sabha elections from Lucknow constituency and was subsequently elected as a Member of the Parliament."Rajnath Singh surpasses Vajpayee's victory margin in Lucknow" . The Hindu. 18 May 2014
Union Home Minister (2014–19)
Rajnath Singh was appointed the Union Minister of Home Affairs in the Narendra Modi government and was sworn in on 26 May 2014. At the time he was the former president of the party and was the one who named Narendra Modi as the prime ministerial candidate for the party. After the win of the party in 2014 Lok Sabha election he took over the position from Sushilkumar Shinde as the Minister of Home Affairs from the year 2014–2019. He has also been the current Deputy Leader of Lok Sabha since 2019.
JNU incident