Charan Singh was born on 23 December 1902 in the village Noorpur, Meerut district, United Provinces of Agra and Oudh (present-day Uttar Pradesh). He was a good student, and received a Master of Arts (MA) degree in 1925 and a law degree in 1926 from Agra University. He started practice as a civil lawyer at Ghaziabad in 1928.

Charan Singh followed Mahatma Gandhi in non-violent struggle for independence from the British Government, and was imprisoned several times. In 1930, he was sent to jail for 6 months by the British for contravention of the salt laws. He was jailed again for one year in November 1940 for individual Satyagraha movement. In August 1942 he was jailed again by the British under DIR and released in November 1943.

In February 1937 he was elected from the constituency of Chhaprauli (Baghpat) to the Legislative Assembly of the United Provinces at the age of 34. In 1938 he introduced an Agricultural Produce Market Bill in the Assembly which was published in the issues of The Hindustan Times of Delhi dated 31 March 1938. The Bill was intended to safeguard the interests of the farmers against the rapacity of traders. The Bill was adopted by most of the States in India, Punjab being the first state to do so in 1940.

Charan Singh left the Congress party in 1967, and formed his own political party, Bharatiya Kranti Dal. With the help and support of Raj Narain and Ram Manohar Lohia, he became Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh in 1967, and later in 1970. In 1975, he was jailed again, but this time by then Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, daughter of his former rival Nehru. She had declared the state of emergency and jailed all her political opponents. In the 1977 general elections, the Indian populace voted her out, and the opposition party, of which Chaudhary Charan Singh was a senior leader came into power. He served as Deputy Prime Minister, Home Minister and Finance minister in the Janata government headed by Morarji Desai.

Singh had six children with wife Gayatri Devi. Gayatri Devi was an MLA from Iglas in 1969, from Gokul in 1974, then elected to Lok Sabha from Kairana in 1980, and lost Lok Sabha election from Mathura in 1984. His son Ajit Singh is currently the president of a political party Rashtriya Lok Dal and a former Union Minister and a many times Member of Parliament. Ajit Singh’s son Jayant Chaudhary was elected to 15th Lok Sabha from Mathura, which he lost to Hema Malini in the election of 2014.

When the Janata Party won the Lok Sabha elections in 1977, its MPs authorized Congress elders Jayaprakash Narayan and Acharya Kripalani to choose the Prime Minister. Morarji Desai was chosen and he named Singh Home Minister. Singh was asked to resign in June 1978 following disagreements with Desai, but was brought back to the cabinet as Deputy Prime Minister in January 1979. The truce did not last long, and a mutiny reduced the government to a minority. Charan Singh was sworn in as Prime Minister on 28 July 1979, with outside support from Indira Gandhi’s Congress (I) party and with Yeshwantrao Chavan of the Congress (Socialist) party as his Deputy Prime Minister. Just before he was to confirm his majority in the Lok Sabha, Indira Gandhi withdrew support to his government. He resigned on 20 August 1979, after just 23 days in office, becoming the only Prime Minister never to obtain the confidence of Parliament. Singh then advised President Neelam Sajiva Reddy to dissolve the Lok Sabha. Janata Party leader Jagjivan Ram challenged that advice and sought time to cobble support, but the Lok Sabha was dissolved, and Charan Singh continued as caretaker Prime Minister until January 1980.

Singh suffered a stroke on 29 November 1985. He could not completely recover from the condition despite being treated the following March at a hospital in the US. At 11:35 p.m. (IST) on 28 May 1987 doctors were called for to his residence in New Delhi, after his respiration was found “unsteady”. Efforts to revive him failed and was declared dead at 2:35 a.m. (IST) the following morning after a “cardiovascular collapse”.