K Natwar Singh, a Congress and former External Affairs Minister, passed away on Saturday at the age of 93 after a prolonged illness. Singh breathed his last at Gurugram’s Medanta Hospital, where he had been admitted for the past two weeks.
His family members, including his son Jagat Singh, were present during his passing, news agency PTI reported quoting sources, who added that the Congress stalwart’s other relatives are coming to Delhi from his native state Rajasthan for the last rites planned in Delhi.
Born in 1931 in Rajasthan’s Bharatpur district, Singh was a career diplomat, who brought a wealth of experience in diplomacy to his political career. He studied history at St. Stephen’s College in Delhi. For his higher education, he went to Cambridge in the UK and Peking University in China.
During his distinguished career, Singh wore many hats. He was selected into the Indian Foreign Service in 1953, which he quit in 1984 when he contested from Bharatpur in Rajasthan on a Congress ticket and became a Lok Sabha MP. In 1985, he was sworn in as a Minister of State (MoS) and allotted the portfolios of Steel, Coal and Mines, and Agriculture. In 1986, he became MoS for External Affairs.
He served as the External Affairs Minister in 2004-05 during the UPA-I government led by the then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.
He also served as ambassador to Pakistan and was attached to the office of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi from 1966 to 1971. Singh was elected President of the UN Conference on Disarmament and Development held in New York in 1987 and also led the Indian delegation to the 42nd Session of the UN General Assembly.
He was also a prolific author on subjects ranging from the life of a maharaja to nuances of foreign affairs. Singh authored around a dozen books, including ‘The Legacy of Nehru: A Memorial Tribute’, ‘Tales from Modern India’, ‘Treasured Epistles’, and his autobiography ‘One Life is Not Enough’.
He was awarded the Padma Vibhushan – the highest civilian award in India — after he served as the head of the preparatory committee of the Non-Alignment Summit in New Delhi in 1983.
Senior politician Randeep Surjewala paid tribute to the former external affairs minister in a post on X. “The news of the demise of former Foreign Minister Natwar Singh ji is sad. May God give strength to his family to bear this loss and grant peace to the departed soul,” he wrote on the social media platform in Hindi and also posted a photograph of Singh.
