K Natwar Singh

Select Language Afrikaans Albanian Arabic Armenian Azerbaijani Basque Belarusian Bulgarian Bengali Catalan Chinese (Simplified) Chinese (Traditional) Croatian Czech Danish Dutch English Estonian Filipino Finnish French Galician Georgian German Greek Gujarati Haitian Creole Hebrew Hindi Hungarian Icelandic Indonesian Irish Italian Japanese Javanese Kannada Khmer Korean Latvian Lithuanian Macedonian Malay Maltese Marathi Nepali Norwegian Persian Polish Portuguese Punjabi Romanian Russian Serbian Slovak Slovenian Spanish Swahili Swedish Tamil Telugu Thai Turkish Ukrainian Urdu Vietnamese Welsh Yiddish

This is a collection of articles archived for the excellence of their content. Additional information may please be sent as messages to the Facebook community, Indpaedia.com. All information used will be gratefully acknowledged in your name.

A brief biography

August 12, 2024: The Times of India

New Delhi : He could have been anything and he did become everything. A royal who wore many hats and a diplomat who was witty and also excelled at arts and letters. A politician who had the free pass as someone “close” to four generations of the Gandhi family, starting with Nehru. Natwar Singh achieved so much and more, that his death could have been a glowing celebration across partisan lines.


But when Singh did depart at the ripe age of 93, he was remembered as a bitter man who had a sad falling out with the Gandhi family, with a cloud of corruption over his head, and his counter charges against Congress and its leadership. And, as a man who shook hands with “communal forces” out of personal pique.


Singh’s journey from Congress towards BJP dominated his obituaries, when the man could have been toasted just for the breadth of his experiences, nicely compressed in his book ‘Profiles and Letters’ about his elite acquaintances, that included EM Forster and Rajagopalachari.


Singh was a member of the Congress’s “charmed circle”, since he joined politics and became an MP and minister in 1984, after a rich life as diplomat of IFS who had served key postings in China, the US, Pakistan and the UK. He was close to Indira Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi, and then to Sonia Gandhi. But the dominant and defining chapter of his life came with the Volcker Report and the allegations about his having benefitted from ‘Oil for Food’ programme of the UN by using his acquaintance with then Iraqi strongman Saddam Hussein. That sparked a furore under the initial days of the UPA govt led by Manmohan Singh. Interestingly, the timing of the case in 2001 was when Congress was in the opposition and Singh was the head of the party’s foreign affairs cell.


Aniel Matherani, who in 2005 was ambassador to Croatia, and two other Congressmen were said to have gone to Iraq as part of the party delegation. Matherani laid the blame on Singh, and “corroborated” the allegations that the veteran had laid the ground for benefitting his son and son’s friend. Singh contested the claims and pointed out that Congress too was named in the annexures of the Volcker report.


Singh left the govt and the party, and quickly turned into a paraiah. The Justice RS Pathak Committee was, as was reported, said to have fixed the responsibility with Singh. He always countered the view and insisted that he had been exonerated, as per his interviews and press reports.
From charmed circle to persona non grata, Singh lived his later years with bitterness, his comments about Sonia Gandhi, and even barbs at other members of the family betraying his peeve.


On Sunday, Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge paid tributes to Singh, writing on X: “Our deepest condolences on the passing away of Former Union minister K Natwar Singh. An acclaimed intellectual and a Padma Bhushan recipient, he made a profound contribution to India’s diplomacy and external affairs. Our thoughts are with his family, friends and followers.”


Praising his personality and achievements, Jairam Ramesh said, “He was truly someone who has left behind his ‘footprints on the sands of time’.”