View source for Brajesh Singh

{{Short description|Indian politician}}
{{Distinguish|Brijesh Singh}}
{{Infobox royalty
| name= Brajesh Singh
| title= 
| image= Brajesh Singh.jpeg
| caption = 
| reign= 
| coronation= 
| religion= [[Hinduism]]
| predecessor= Raja Ramesh Singh
| successor= 
| spouse= Kunwarani Laxmi Devi<br/>Leela (an Austrian woman)
| issue= Asha Pal<br/>Usha Pande<br/>Victor Singh
| royal house= 
| father= Raja Ramesh Singh
| mother=
| birth_date= 
| birth_place= 
| death_date= 1966
| death_place= 
| place of burial=[[Kalakankar]]
|}}
{{Use Indian English|date=December 2015}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=August 2021}}
'''Brajesh Singh''' ({{lang-hi|ब्रजेश सिंह}}, '''Kunwar Brijesh Singh''' or '''Brajesh Singh Lal''';<ref name="kate"/>{{rp|28}} died 31 October 1966) was an Indian politician belonging to the [[Communist Party of India]] (CPI). He hailed from the royal family of [[Kalakankar]] near [[Prayagraj]] and his nephew [[Dinesh Singh (Uttar Pradesh politician)|Dinesh Singh]] was a minister in the Indian cabinet.<ref name=ind>{{cite news |title=Obituary: Dinesh Singh |url=https://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/obituary-dinesh-singh-1523677.html |work=[[The Independent]] |date= 2 December 1995|access-date=27 August 2021}}</ref>

His first wife was Kunwarani Laxmi Devi, followed by Leela, an Austrian woman with whom he had a son named [[Victor Singh]]. Victor later moved to England where he became a photographer. In 1963, while recuperating from [[bronchitis]], he met [[Svetlana Alliluyeva]], the only daughter of [[Joseph Stalin]].<ref name="Sullivan">{{cite book|last=Sullivan|first=Rosemary|author-link=Rosemary Sullivan|date=2015|title=Stalin's Daughter: The Extraordinary and Tumultuous Life of Svetlana Alliluyeva|publisher=HarperCollins|location=Toronto|isbn=978-1-44341-442-5|url =https://books.google.com/books?id=QCSlBAAAQBAJ |access-date=27 August 2021|via=Google Books}}</ref>{{rp|11}} The two fell in love while Singh was critically ill with [[bronchiectasis]] and [[emphysema]]. The romance deepened while the couple were recuperating in [[Sochi]] near the [[Black Sea]].

Singh returned to Moscow in 1965 to work as a translator, but he and Alliluyeva were not allowed to marry. He died the following year, on 31 October 1966. She was permitted to carry his ashes to [[India]] so that his family could pour them into the [[Ganges]] river. In an interview on 26 April 1967, she said that she considered Singh to be her husband but that [[Aleksei Kosygin]] never allowed them to legally marry.<ref name="Sullivan" />{{rp|347—}} She gained international notoriety<ref name="kate" />{{rp|33}} when she defected to the United States in 1967, where she died in 2011.<ref>{{cite news |title=Stalin's Daughter Called Indian Village a Paradise |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1967/03/20/archives/stalins-daughter-called-indian-village-a-paradise.html |work=[[The New York Times]] |date=20 March 1967 | first=J. Anthony | last=Lukas|access-date=27 August 2021|via=New York Times}}</ref><ref name="Svetlana">{{cite book|title=Only one year|chapter= Brajesh Singh in Moscow|edition=1st|first= Svetlana|last=Allilueva|author-link=Svetlana Alliluyeva|url=https://archive.org/details/onlyoneyear00alli|date=September 1969|translator-last1=Chavchavadze|translator-first1=Paul |publisher=Harper & Row|location=New York|access-date=27 August 2021|isbn=0060101024|via=Internet Archive}}</ref><ref name="nytimes">{{Cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/29/world/europe/stalins-daughter-dies-at-85.html|title=Lana Peters, Stalin's Daughter, Dies at 85|first=Douglas|last=Martin|newspaper=The New York Times|date=28 November 2011}}</ref>

==Biography==
Singh was born to Raja Ramesh Singh, the [[taluqdar]] royal of the [[Kalakankar]]. His birthdate is uncertain.<ref name="kate"/>{{rp|24}}{{efn|Svetlana once stated in her memoir ''Only one year'' that Singh was older than her by seventeen years.<ref name="Svetlana"/>{{rp|29}}Since She was born in 1926,that would make 1909 as his possible birth year. }} His father Raja Rampal Singh was a founding member of the [[Indian National Congress]] (INC) and his grandfather [[Lal Pratap Singh]] was a leader in the [[Indian Rebellion of 1857]].<ref name="Fitzpatrick">{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=b1iYDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA263|title=On Stalin's Team: The Years of Living Dangerously in Soviet Politics|first=Sheila|last=Fitzpatrick|date=30 May 2017|page=263|publisher=Princeton University Press|isbn=9780691175775|access-date=27 August 2021|via=Google Books}}</ref>

Singh studied English at a college in [[Lucknow]]. He later moved to Berlin, to pursue an engineering education.<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=t8YXAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA96|title=Age of Entanglement|first=Kris|last=Manjapra|date=6 January 2014|publisher=Harvard University Press|isbn=9780674726314|access-date=27 August 2021|via=Google Books}}</ref> In 1928, [[M. N. Roy]] was expelled from the [[Communist International]], he then moved to Berlin and from there he enlisted the help of several Indian students. Singh was one of those students who became an active communist and began closely working with him{{efn|other students working closely with Roy included Tayab Shaikh, Anadi Bhaduri, and Sundar Kabadi.}}<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=pOYJEAAAQBAJ&pg=PT108|title=M. N. Roy: Marxism and Colonial Cosmopolitanism|first=Kris|last=Manjapra|date=29 November 2020|publisher=Taylor & Francis|isbn=9781000083644|page=108|access-date=27 August 2021|via=Google Books}}</ref> to establish the ''Group of Oppositional Indian Communists'' that would be affiliated with the [[Communist Party of Germany (Opposition)|Communist Party of Germany Opposition]] and [[Indian National Congress|INC]]. The primary reason for the establishment of the organisation was to protest the [[Ultra-leftism|Ultra-leftist]] attitude of the Communist International in India. While in India, Roy also suggested that Indian communists were distancing themselves from the [[Indian independence movement|Nationalist movement]].

During the course of this campaign, Singh served as Roy's right-hand man. He also financed Roy's health care in Switzerland and his trip to India. However in 1931 when Roy was arrested in India,<ref>{{cite book|title=The Right Opposition: The Lovestoneites and the International Communist Opposition of the 1930's
|first1=Robert|last1=Jackson Alexander|first2= Jay|last2=Lovestone|editor1=Robert S.|editor2=Alley|publisher=Greenwood Press|date= 1981|isbn=9780313220708|page=244|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=MnoEAQAAIAAJ|access-date=27 August 2021|via=Google Books}}</ref> Singh decided to relinquish Roy's principles and defected back to the orthodox communist stronghold in Europe. When he arrived in London in September 1932, he came across his brother [[Raja Awadhesh Singh]], who had been regularly commuting from London to [[Dublin]]. Brajesh's previous passport was impounded in India, so he had been to Ireland using his brother's passport. While he was crossing over to Ireland, the [[Indian Political Intelligence Office|Indian Political Intelligence]] was actively monitoring Singh's activities.<ref name="kate" />
{{Blockquote|It will be seen from independent information that ''BRAJESH SINGH LAL'' and his brother are actively supporting the Indian-Irish Independence League in Dublin, which is under the control of the group composed of V. J. Patel, R. B. Lotwala and I. K. Yajnik.}}

After arriving in Dublin, Singh applied for an Irish Free State emergency passport that would be valid for five years, which provided him with ample time in Europe. Later he managed to make his way back to Berlin. The [[Indian Political Intelligence Office|IPI]] failed to prove his fraudulent use of passports in order to revoke his emergency passport, and concluded that it was better to have him outside India, because his financial assets in support of the [[Communist Party of India|CPI]] would cause difficulties for the [[British Raj]]. His file was closed in the mid-1930s.<ref Name="kate">{{cite book|title=Ireland, India and Empire: Indo-Irish Radical (1919–64) Volume 70 of Studies in Imperialism|first =Kate| last= O'Malley|publisher=Manchester University Press|date=2008|isbn=9780719077517|url= https://books.google.com/books?id=fPwLAQAAMAAJ|location=New York|chapter=The communist menace|pages=20–33|access-date=27 August 2021|via=Google Books}}</ref><ref name="Sullivan"/>{{rp|451}} Singh's nephew [[Dinesh Singh (Uttar Pradesh politician)|Dinesh Singh]] become the successor after his father, [[Raja Awadhesh Singh]].<ref name="Sullivan"/>{{rp|382}}

Singh's first wife was Kunwarani Laxmi Devi, followed by Leela, an Austrian Jewish woman from [[Vienna]]<ref name="Gulf">{{cite web|url=https://gulfnews.com/world/asia/india/stalin-daughters-passage-to-india-1.946628|title=Stalin's daughters passage to India|website=Gulf News|access-date=27 August 2021|via=Gulf News}}</ref> whom Singh married during the [[Second World War]]. Singh and Leela both fled to India to escape Nazi persecution, where they lived for 16 years. After the war, Leela moved to England with their son Victor. Singh followed her, but due to his inability to find work in England, he returned back to India after divorcing her. While there, his son Victor became a photographer.<ref name="Sullivan"/>{{rp|352–}}<ref name="Svetlana"/>{{rp|28}}<ref name="Patrika"/>

===Stay in Soviet Union===
In October 1963, while recuperating from [[bronchitis]] at Kuntsevo Hospital, Singh met [[Svetlana Alliluyeva]],<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.amherst.edu/system/files/media/1274/Lana%252520Peters%252520Papers.pdf |title=Lana Peters (Svetlana Alliluyeva) Papers |website=Amherst Center for Russian Culture|access-date=27 August 2021}} (Donated by [[Thomas P. Whitney|Thomas Whitney]] in 1991).</ref>{{rp|2}} who was there for a [[tonsillectomy]].<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ks75ZhymrZAC|title=Svetlana: The Story of Stalin's Daughter|first=Martin|last=Ebon|date=15 August 1967|access-date=27 August 2021|via=Google Books}}</ref>{{rp|11}} At the time, Svetlana was reading a biography on [[Mahatma Gandhi]] and wanted to ask an Indian like Singh about the subject. After bumping into each other in the corridors, they took a seat on a nearby couch and had keen conversation for an hour.<ref name="Sullivan"/>{{rp|351}}<ref name="telegraph">{{Cite web|url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/politics-obituaries/8922681/Lana-Peters.html|title=Lana Peters|website=The Telegraph|access-date=27 August 2021|via=Telegraph}}</ref>

A romantic relationship followed.<ref name="Sullivan"/>{{rp|353–}}<ref name="Nordlinger">{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=u3ULDgAAQBAJ&pg=PT39|title=Children of Monsters: An Inquiry into the Sons and Daughters of Dictators|first=Jay|last=Nordlinger|date=10 January 2017|publisher=Encounter Books|isbn=9781594039003|access-date=27 August 2021|via=Google Books}}</ref><ref name="newyorker">{{Cite magazine|url=https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/03/31/my-friend-stalins-daughter|title=My Friend, Stalin's Daughter|date=23 March 2014|magazine=The New Yorker|access-date=27 August 2021|via=The New Yorker}}</ref> As per the terms of his visa, Singh's return to India was scheduled after he was discharged from the Kuntsevo Hospital. However, he and Svetlana came up with a new plan, where Singh would go to Russia from India and work as a translator of Russian texts into [[Hindi]]. He left for India in December 1963 and went to Russia in March 1965. He landed in [[Sheremetyevo Airport]] on 7 April and was welcomed by Svetlana and her son [[Joseph Alliluyev|Joseph]].<ref name="Sullivan"/>{{rp|356–}}<ref name="Nordlinger"/> Joseph's remarks regarding meeting Singh is quoted below:
{{blockquote|Singh was a nice sort of person, cultured, kind. . . . It was very enjoyable to be with him. . . . He was calm and patient and also knew how to look upon things with a certain sense of humour. . . . He came to live with us, and to Katya{{efn|Yekaterina "Katya" Zhdanova (b. 1950) was the daughter of Svetlana and [[Yuri Zhdanov]] and worked as a volcanologist in Kamchatka}} and he was our mother's husband, and we treated him with respect. I think she was happy.}}<ref name="Sullivan"/>{{rp|359}}<ref name="Patrika">{{Cite web|url=https://www.patrika.com/pratapgarh-up-news/love-story-of-stalins-daughter-svetlana-and-kunwar-brajesh-singh-1972250/|title=सोवियत तानाशाह की बेटी स्वेतलाना को भारतीय राजकुमार से हुआ था प्यार, अधूरा रह गया था सपना|website=Patrika News|language=Hindi|access-date=27 August 2021|via=Patrika News}}</ref>

Svetlana had hastily married three times before making the urgent decision to marry Singh due to his critical health; Singh also had refused to return to India without her, and she was required to be his wife to travel with him.<ref name="Sullivan"/>{{rp|360—}}<ref name="Fitzpatrick"/> To register for marriage due to being a foreigner, he and Svetlana had visited Moscow office on 3 May. The next day Svetlana was ordered to summon to [[Alexei Kosygin]]’s office in Kremlin.<ref name="Nordlinger"/> After arriving in the office which once belonged to [[Stalin|her father]], she was asked why she had stopped attending party meetings. Svetlana answered that "she had to take care of her family and now she had a sick husband."<ref name="Sullivan"/>{{rp|361—}} Angered at the word husband, Kosygin is recorded to have said about Singh:<ref name="Nordlinger"/>
{{Blockquote|What have you cooked up? You, a young healthy woman, a sportswoman, couldn't you have found someone here, I mean someone young and strong? What ''do you want with this old sick Hindu?'' No, we are all positively against it, positively against it!}}
Svetlana was officially disallowed the right to register to marry Singh. Due to the turmoil and unrest in the Gorky institution due to it publishing anti-Soviet propaganda and organising political rallies where Svetlana worked.<ref name="Sullivan"/>{{rp|361—}}<ref name="newyorker"/> Singh was isolated after falling under the government's scrutiny, his Indian friends in Moscow stopped visiting him. Indian Ambassador to Moscow, [[Triloki Nath Kaul]] and Ambassador of [[UAE]], [[Mohammed Murad Ghaleb|Murad Ghalib]] were the only friends who continued to visit. Dinesh Singh, his nephew, who under the pro-Soviet government headed by [[Indira Gandhi]], had become the deputy minister of the Department of Foreign Affairs stopped responding to him. Only Suresh Singh, his brother, continued to write from [[Kalakankar]].<ref name="Sullivan"/>{{rp|369—}}

The translation work Singh did for the publishing house ''Progress'' also came under the scrutiny of Vladimir N. Pavlov, the English Division's chief editor and former translator at [[Yalta]] and correspondent to [[Churchill]] under Stalin. It had now become increasingly clear to Singh that political machinations were trying to disrepute him as being incompetent so that his legal right to stay in the USSR could be revoked. Singh soon became critically ill. After being admitted and wrongly diagnosed with tuberculosis at Intourist Polyclinic, he was taken back into Kuntsevo Hospital by Svetlana. She began spending her entire day with him at the hospital, where they talked about India and sometimes read the [[Vedas|Vedic hymns]]. Singh was also visited by his ambassador friends during his stay at the hospital. But despite all the visits made, each time he became more ill.<ref name="Sullivan"/>{{rp|369–70}}

===Singh's death===
On Sunday 30 October, after being visited by his friends and colleagues from the publishing house, Singh had a dream of a white bullock pulling a cart. Afterward he told Svetlana that in India, the dream was considered as an omen of approaching death, "Sveta, I know that I will die today." At 7 A.M, Monday, 31 October 1966, Singh while pointing at his heart and then at his head, said that he felt something throbbing, and then he passed away at his home.<ref name="Patrika"/> Singh's death was quick and calm. Svetlana did not weep at Singh's death and shortly afterward she contacted his Indian friends who lived in Russia. When Singh's friends arrived, they burned [[sandalwood]], recited verses from the [[Bhagavad Gita]], and the next day they took Singh's body to the crematorium.<ref name="Sullivan"/>{{rp|372}}<ref name="newyorker"/>

===Funeral===
Svetlana had made a resolution that she would personally immerse Singh's ashes into the [[Ganges|Ganga]].<ref name="TOI">{{Cite web|url=https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/lucknow/when-stalins-daughter-came-to-kalakankar/articleshow/61513443.cms?|title = When Stalin's daughter came to Kalakankar &#124; Lucknow News – Times of India|access-date=27 August 2021|via=Times of India}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.thehindu.com/society/history-and-culture/from-moscow-to-princeton/article19434801.ece?|title = From Moscow to Princeton|newspaper = The Hindu|date = 5 August 2017|last1 = Narasimhan|first1 = Sakuntala|access-date=27 August 2021}}</ref> She was given special permission by Kosygin to go to India on a condition that she would avoid contact with foreign press.<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-15936172|title=How Stalin's daughter defected in India|work=BBC News|date=6 March 2012|access-date=27 August 2021}}</ref> Dinesh Singh, his nephew, wrote to Svetlana, stating that she was invited to stay at his house and that he had managed to secure a funeral in traditional manner. Although her passport for India was issued on 11 November. Dinesh Singh requested her to delay her visit until next month, on 12 December, when he would be free from parliamentary work.<ref name="Sullivan"/>{{rp|372–375}}<ref name="Fitzpatrick"/><ref name="newyorker"/><ref name="Enzo">{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=QCB3QgAACAAJ|title=Svetlana: The Inside Story|first=Enzo|last=Biagi|date=15 August 1967|publisher=Hodder & Stoughton|isbn=9780340044711|access-date=27 August 2021|via=Google Books}}</ref>{{rp|114}}<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=34r1DwAAQBAJ&pg=PA237|title=Neutral Countries as Clandestine Battlegrounds, 1939–1968: Between Two Fires|first1=André|last1=Gerolymatos|first2=Denis|last2=Smyth|date=30 September 2020|publisher=Rowman & Littlefield|isbn=9781498583213|access-date=27 August 2021|via=Google Books}}</ref>

After landing at Lucknow airport, they drove to Raj Bhavan, the palace of the royal family of [[Kalakankar]]. After their arrival, the urn containing Singh's ashes was handed over to Suresh Singh, who led a group of men onto the sandy shore. From there boats sailed to the middle part of the Ganges, where the ashes were slowly immersed per Hindu customs, Svetlana along with other women observed from the terrace since only men were allowed to carry the ashes.<ref name="Sullivan"/>{{rp|383}}<ref name="newyorker"/>

===Namesake hospital===
{{Blockquote|You know, what does the medical help mean for a large rural area, where thousands of people—women and children—have no doctor. This hospital will provide for them a free treatment. It makes me feel perfectly satisfied that after all—I have done something for the real people.|Svetlana Alliluyeva, in a letter to Joan Kennan,dated Oct. 29, 1968}}<ref name="Sullivan"/>{{rp|523}}
While in Kalakankar with its improvised and rural streets, Svetlana thought of building a hospital in Brajesh Singh's name. After her defection to the USA she established the Alliluyeva Charitable Trust and the Alliluyeva Trust to help build the Brajesh Singh Hospital, which had 35 beds. Its foundation was laid down by [[Sumitra Nandan Pant]] in May 1969.<ref name="TOI"/> The charitable trust paid $200,000 with an additional $250,000 as investments for the hospital's maintenance. Her trust sustained the hospital for 20 years, until the late 1970s.<ref name="Sullivan"/>{{rp|447,523,808}}

Brajesh Singh Memorial Hospital building now serves as a private school due to Svetlana's inability to provide funds for it during her financial crisis.<ref name="Patrika"/><ref name="TOI"/><ref name= "The Print">{{cite web| url=https://theprint.in/politics/modi-govt-sent-back-dubai-princess-but-indiras-india-didnt-deport-stalins-daughter/161177/|title=Indira's India didn't deport back stalin's daughter|website=The Print|date=10 December 2018|access-date=27 August 2021}}</ref>

===Notes===
{{notelist}}

==References==
{{reflist}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Singh, Brajesh}}
[[Category:1966 deaths]]
[[Category:Anti-revisionists]]
[[Category:Indian communists]]
[[Category:Indian expatriates in the Soviet Union]]
[[Category:Communist Party of India politicians from Uttar Pradesh]]
[[Category:People from Pratapgarh, Uttar Pradesh]]
[[Category:Year of birth missing]]