K.R. Narayanan (1920–2005): Death of former President and champion of Dalits a great loss for India

New Delhi – Former President of India, K. R. Narayanan, died on November 9 after prolonged illness at the Army Research and Referral Hospital in New Delhi.

Mr. Narayanan, 84, was suffering from pneumonia and renal failure, according to a Defence Ministry spokesman.

Born on October 27, 1920 in Kerala, Shri Kocheril Raman Narayanan assumed office as President of India in 1997 and was at the helm till 2002.

A bookish and thoughtful figure, KR Narayanan was as much an academic and diplomat as he was a national figurehead.

Besides, being the 10th President of India, Mr. Narayanan also had the distinction of being the first Dalit or “untouchable” to hold the highest political office in the country.

Born in 1920 and hailing from a humble origin, Narayanan became a civil servant under the leadership of then prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru in 1948.

For the next 30 years he worked as a diplomat in embassies from Tokyo to London and capped his career with postings as Indian ambassador to Thailand, Turkey and the People's Republic of China (PRC).

It was Nehru's daughter, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, who brought the nominally–retired K.R. Narayanan into the political sphere.

After appointing him ambassador to the United Nations in 1980, she persuaded him to stand for the lower house of the Indian Parliament, the Lok Sabha.

Narayanan represented a Kerala constituency as a Congress party member and held a number of cabinet posts under Rajiv Gandhi.

Having been elected Vice President in 1992, Narayanan became President of India in July 1997.

At his inauguration, he spoke of his own humble origins, saying, "the concerns of the common man have now moved to the centre stage of our social and political life."

As President, he presided over the golden jubilee celebrations of Indian independence and threw precedent out of the window by queuing up to vote in the country's general election in 1998.

A champion of human rights, Narayanan always spoke out for the weak and downtrodden and against injustice. When the news of the brutal killings of Australian missionary, Graham Staines, and his two sons who were torched to death by Hindu fanatics in 1999 in Orissa rocked the whole world, Narayanan said, “That someone who spent years caring for patients of leprosy, instead of being thanked and appreciated as a role model should be put to death in this manner is a monumental aberration from the traditions of tolerance and humanity for which India is known. A crime that belongs to the world’s inventory of black deeds.”

But it was during 2002, his final year in office, that President Narayanan was drawn into political controversy after communal violence in Gujarat that left at least 1,000 Muslims dead. He had wanted the army to intervene to protect the minority Muslim population.

In an interview earlier this year, he complained that this plan had been scuttled by the right–wing Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party, which he also accused of blocking his second term as India’s President.

K.R. Narayanan is survived by his wife. Smt. Usha Narayanan and two daughters, one of whom has served as India's ambassador to Sweden and Turkey.