Autobiography

Dr Karan Singh was born in 1931 as heir to the then princely state of Jammu and Kashmir and was catapulted into political life at the early age of eighteen. In 1949 he was appointed Regent by his father Maharaja Hari Singh at the intervention of Jawaharlal Nehru, and thereafter he was continuously Head of Jammu and Kashmir for a further eighteen years - as Regent up to 1952, as elected Sadar-i-Riyasat from 1952 to 1965, and as Governor from 1965 to 1967. In 1967 Dr Karan Singh was inducted into the Union Cabinet and, at thirty-six, was the youngest person ever to become a Central Cabinet Minister in India. On this appointment, he resigned his Governorship and was elected to Parliament. He was a member of Parliament for the next eighteen years and held several major Cabinet posts.