Kalyan Singh

Kalyan Singh (born 5 January 1932 – 21 August 2021) is former Governor of Rajasthan. Prior to that, he was a politician of the Bharatiya Janata Party from the state of Uttar Pradesh in India.

Kalyan Singh

Quotes

• I would call it divine providence. In 1528, Mughal ruler Babar’s general Mir Baqi demolished the Ram temple at Ayodhya not because he wanted to build another place of worship, but because he wanted to insult Hindus. Maybe it was destined that the dhaancha (structure) would be demolished with me as chief minister. Had there been no demolition, probably the courts too would have ordered status quo. So, in a sense, it was the demolition that actually has paved the way for the August 5 bhumi pujan and naturally, I am elated.
  • Interview, Hindustan Times, [1]

• It (firing on kar sewaks) was wrong then (1990). Killing people is no joke.
  • Interview, Hindustan Times, [2]

Interview, 2009

NDTV interview in 2009, Kalyan Singh. quoted in When NDTV wanted 1000 karsevaks to be murdered in a storm of bullets to protect the secular fabric of the country

Interviewer: You decided to divide crores of people for saving lives of just a few thousands of karsevaks?

Kalyan Singh: Lakhs of karsevaks were present at the site but I had given explicit orders to the police that no bullets will be fired at them.

Kalyan Singh: If I had allowed it to happen, thousands of people would have died from bullets and stampede, and the structure still wouldn’t have survived.

Kalyan Singh: I am not sorry for the demolition of the structure. Nor do I feel any contrition for it. No regrets, no repentance, no sorrow, no grief. Following the demolition of the controversial structure, many regard the event as a matter of national shame but I say that it is a matter of national pride.”