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== A brief life history of Charan Singh == [[File:Charan Singh A brief life history English.jpg|thumb|A brief life history of Charan Singh]] <center>'''A brief life history of Charan Singh, published by the Charan Singh Archives'''</center> This brief life history of Charan Singh, published by the Charan Singh Archives, takes the reader through the early influences of Swami Dayanand and Mohandas Gandhi on Singh, his immersion in the freedom struggle, his long political life in Uttar Pradesh and subsequently in Delhi, and his abiding importance as an organic intellectual of village India with a complex, sophisticated and coherent strategy for India’s development at variance from all post-Independence governments. A detailed chronology of Singh’s life is a fascinating glimpse of politics in India from the Forties till the Mid-Eighties. Singh was a man of simplicity, virtue and morals in the Gandhian mould, his upright character and honesty recognised by all. This enabled him a reputation as a strong administrator, an upholder of the law of the land. He believed in a fundamentally democratic society of small producers and small consumers brought together in a system neither socialist or capitalist but one that addressed the uniquely Indian problems of poverty, unemployment, inequality, caste and corruption. Each of these issues remains intractable today, and his solutions as fresh and relevant to their amelioration and ultimate eradication. A scholar of extraordinary capability, Singh wrote a number of books, political pamphlets and numerous articles in English on his belief of the centrality of villages and agriculture in India’s political economy which are even more relevant to India today as we struggle with an agrarian crisis and 67% of our population in the villages. His first publication was the 611-page report of the Zamindari Abolition and Land Reforms Committee in Uttar Pradesh in 1948. He also wrote, amongst others, Abolition of Zamindari: Two Alternatives (1947), Joint Farming X-Rayed: The Problem and Its Solution (1959), India’s Poverty and Its Solution (1964), India’s Economic Policy: The Gandhian Blueprint (1978) and Economic Nightmare of India: Its Cause and Cure (1981). “Charan Singh's political life and economic ideas provide an entry-point into a much broader set of issues both for India and for the political and economic development of the remaining agrarian societies of the world. His political career raises the issue of whether or not a genuine agrarian movement can be built into a viable and persistent political force in the 20th century in a developing country. His economic ideas and his political programme raise the question of whether or not it is conceivable that a viable alternative strategy for the economic development of contemporary agrarian societies can be pursued in the face of the enormous pressures for industrialisation. Finally, his specific proposals for the preservation and stabilisation of a system of peasant proprietorship raise once again one of the major social issues of modern times, namely, whether an agrarian economic order based upon small farms can be sustained against the competing pressures either for large-scale commercialisation of agriculture or for some form of collectivisation. ”Brass, Paul. Economic & Political Weekly, 25 Sept 1993. Chaudhuri Charan Singh: An Indian Political Life. ---- CSA https://www.charansingh.org/ https://www.facebook.com/charansingharchives/ Now buy Charan Singh’s life history in English on Amazon at https://www.amazon.in/dp/9387280411?ref=myi_title_dp '''Note''': It it with deep sadness that we inform our readers that Prof. Paul R Brass, an acknowledged American scholar of Indian society and politics, based away on 31 May 2022. He was 85. Paul commenced his academic study of India in 1961 when he first met Chaudhary Charan Singh who was then the Home and Agriculture Minister of Uttar Pradesh. Post this, over the course of the next 3 decades, he formed a close intellectual and personal bond with Chaudhary sahab. This association resulted in one of Paul’s seminal works, a three volume biography of Charan Singh (between 2011 and 2014). Paul was a friend, supporter and an inspiration for the Charan Singh Archives. We will miss Paul.
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