Read Bharat Ratna 2024 Investiture Ceremony Citation

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Bharat Ratna Award-2024
Investiture Ceremony
Rashtrapati Bhawan, Durbar Hall
March 30, 2024 

'Bharat Ratna', the highest civilian award of the country, is awarded for exceptional service /performance of the highest order in any field of human endeavour. 

Bharat Ratna
Chaudhary Charan Singh (Posthumous) 

1. Chaudhary Charan Singh was a multi-faceted personality and an ardent patriot, an able administrator, an astute statesman and above all, a man of character, integrity and humanist inclinations.

2. Born on 23 December 1902 in a peasant family at Noorpur Village in Meerut District of United Province (Uttar Pradesh), Chaudhary Charan Singh had his primary education in the nearby village school at Jani Khurd and matriculation from Meerut. He graduated in Science in 1923 and secured his Master's degree from Agra College, Agra. He qualified for law degree in 1926 from Meerut College, Meerut.

3. Chaudhary Charan Singh was a founder member of the Ghaziabad Town Congress Committee from 1929 to 1939. He shifted to Meerut in 1939 and served as Treasurer, General Secretary and President of the Meerut District Congress Committee from 1939 to 1946. He was greatly influenced by the teachings of Mahatma Gandhi and Maharishi Daya Nand. At the call of Mahatma Gandhi, he joined the freedom struggle and was sentenced to jail three times - in 1930, 1940 and 1942 respectively.

4. Chaudhary Charan Singh was elected for the first time to the Legislative Assembly of the United Province from Ghaziabad-Baghpat constituency in Meerut District in 1937. He continued to be a legislator till 1977. He played a pivotal role in the eradication of the Zamindari System in Uttar Pradesh. Between 1951 and 1967, except for a short period, he functioned as a member of the State Council of Ministers holding important portfolios.

5.After the 1967 general elections, Chaudhary Charan Singh accompanied by 16 of his followers, quit the Congress and set up a group called the Jan Congress. Later, the entire opposition came together to form the Samyukta Vidhayak Dal (SVD). As a leader of SVD, Chaudhary Charan Singh was appointed as the Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh on 3rd April 1967. Inner strains and squabbles led to the downfall of the SVD Government and the State was placed under President's rule. In the course of subsequent turn of events in the Assembly, he once again became the Chief Minister in February 1970.

6.Chaudhary Charan Singh was elected to the Lok Sabha for the first time in 1977 as Janata Party candidate and was appointed as Home Minister in Shri Morarji Desai Government. He resigned from Home Ministership in protest against the removal of Shri Raj Narain from the Government. However, without him, the Government found it difficult to function. He was again inducted into the Desai Government and he was appointed Deputy Prime Minister with Finance as his portfolio.

7. Due to new developments in Janata Party, Shri Morarji Desai resigned from the Prime Minister's post on 15thJuly, 1979. After a series of consultations, the then President, Dr. Neelam Sanjiva Reddy invited Chaudhary Charan Singh to form the government. He was sworn in as the Prime Minister on 28th July, 1979.

8.Chaudhary Charan Singh was a great scholar of Indian economics and planning. His books 'India's Economic Policy - the Gandhian Blueprint' and 'Economic Nightmare of India - Its Cause and cure' are masterpieces on the Indian agrarian theme. Some of his important publications include: 'Abolition of Zamindari', 'Co-operative Farming X- rayed', 'India's Poverty and its Solutions', 'Agrarian Revolution in Uttar Pradesh' and 'Land Reforms in UP and the Kulaks'. In 1942, he wrote a unique book on Indian etiquette in Barreilly Central Jail. This book was published later with the title 'Shishtachar'.Chaudhary Charan Singh passed away on 29th May 1987. His quest for the betterment of the farming community caused his memorial in New Delhi to be named as 'Kisan Ghat'.