Rajnath Singh

Rajnath Singh (born 10 July 1951) is an Indian politician and lecturer who is serving as the 29th Defence Minister of India since 2019.

Singh had been associated with the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh since 1964, at the age of 13 and remained connected with the organisation.

Between 1969 and 1971 he was the organizational secretary of the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (the student wing of the RSS) in Gorakhpur.

In the 1970s, Singh was influenced by the JP Movement of Jayaprakash Narayan.

He also became Shakha Karyavah (General Secretary) of Mirzapur in the year 1972.

He became the general secretary of the RSS's Mirzapur branch in 1972.

After 2 years in the year 1974, he joined the politics.

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.

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.

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.

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.

He was the President of Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha from 1988 to 1990.He was a member of Uttar Pradesh Legislative Assembly from Haidergarh (assembly constituency) twice, being Chief minister.

In 1991, when Bharatiya Janata Party formed its first government in Uttar Pradesh, he was appointed Education Minister.

He held the education portfolio for a tenure of two years.

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 culturalist 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 an effort to promote instruction and learning in the mother tongue.

At the same time, he stated his appreciation for knowledge of modern languages.

Major highlights of his tenure as Education Minister included Anti-Copying Act, 1992, which made copying a non-bailable offence, modernising science texts and incorporating vedic mathematics into the syllabus.

Singh helped push the controversial Anti-Copying Act in response to perceived widespread cheating in schools and colleges in Uttar Pradesh.

After the fall of Kalyan Singh government in the year 1992, when Mulayam Singh Yadav became the Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh, heading Bahujan Samaj Party in the year 1993 he repealed the Act.

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.

Singh has previously served as the 19th 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 also a member of Rajya Sabha from 2002 to 2008 and from 1994 to 2001.

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 the 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, UP.

He also has a brother, Jaipal Singh.

He was the 8th President of Bharatiya Janata Party from 2005 to 2009 and again from 2013 to 2014.

He is a veteran leader of the BJP who started his career as a RSS Swayamsevak.

He is currently the deputy Leader of the House, Lok Sabha since 2014.

He was the 30th Home Minister in the First Modi Ministry from 2014 to 2019, and also was the first to serve in position born after the country's independence in 1947.

He has also served the party in the Uttar Pradesh state from where he started his political career.

He was a member of Lok Sabha from Lucknow since 2014 and Ghaziabad from 2009 to 2014.