It is not often that one comes across a statesman who has completed seventy-five splendorous years in the service of India and her people. Indeed the only example I can think of is that of the unparalleled Dr Karan Singh, whom I have forever looked up to as an elder statesman and guiding light, and who recently marked 75 years since he first ascended the throne of Kashmir at the age of 18 in 1949, in the turbulent aftermath of Independence and Partition.

At first, he served the people of his home state of Jammu and Kashmir as Regent, then as the first and only Sadar-i-Riyasat, and eventually as the first Governor. Yet far from being an imperious royal, Dr Singh early on interpreted his pedigree and prestige in terms of how much he could give back to society, especially to the people of Jammu and Kashmir, through both scholarship and philanthropy.

Born into luxuries and riches few can fathom, he cast them all to the winds -- much to the dismay of his father, Maharaja Hari Singh -- and followed in the footsteps of his idol and guru, Jawaharlal Nehru, who had similarly forsaken his family's immense wealth and leapt into the greatest political ferment of his age: India's freedom struggle. Nehruji interceded on his behalf with the Maharaja, convincing him to let "Tiger", as Dr Singh was endearingly known, join electoral politics.

That Dr Karan Singh is a Renaissance man is indisputable. But he has also been a steadfast, unwavering conscience keeper of the Republic of India. Instead of the glittering imperial gaddi of his family, Karan Singh chose to preside over a kingdom of ideas. This explains the fact that Dr Singh was the lone former ruler of a princely state who voluntarily relinquished his privy purse, even before Prime Minister Indira Gandhi abolished the privy purses in 1971.

As other rajas and maharajas moved the courts against this order, clamouring to get their entitlements reinstated, Dr Singh poured his hereditary wealth into the Hari-Tara Charitable Trust, instituted in homage to his parents, so that it may be used for the betterment of India's impoverished masses.

The humanist-altruist in Dr Karan Singh is, in my view, the most vigorous facet of his personality, and he is a statesman who, soaring high above petty politics, embodies the Nehruvian credos of peace, pluralism, and progress. But that is not all. His immersion into Sri Aurobindo's thought, political as well as philosophical, started with a doctoral thesis at the University of Delhi, and he remained enthralled by the Cambridge-educated maverick who began as an extremist political revolutionary and ended up as an other-worldly spiritual giant. Much like Sri Aurobindo, Dr Singh has never just been concerned with individual salvation, but rather with the spiritual evolution of the human race as a whole.

While this is amply manifest in his prodigious scholarship, in more prosaic terms it may be understood as his dogged belief in public service, politics, and political power being a means to an end -- the end always being "wiping every tear from every eye," as Mahatma Gandhi sought to, and serving India and her people and the "still larger cause of humanity," as Prime Minister Nehru wanted us to.

From Member of Parliament -- of both Houses -- to the youngest ever Union Cabinet Minister, from Ambassador of India to the United States to member of the Congress Working Committee, Dr Singh has appeared in every political avatar one can conceive of; yet not once has he sacrificed either his rectitude or the integrity of the offices he has held at the altar of material gains or personal ambitions, of which he has remarkably expressed none. Nor did he ever take a penny in salary from the taxpayers, nor accept government accommodation in any of his positions in India.

Perhaps the fact that I share my birthday with Dr Singh, being born on the 9th of March (25 years later!), made me all the more conscious of how great a privilege (and unalloyed pleasure) it was to serve with Dr Karan Singh in the Parliamentary Standing Committee on External Affairs, and glory in the radiance of his internationalism and staunch commitment to protecting and promoting the interests of our country on the world stage.

He represented, in many ways, the foreign policy of a newly free India, steadily coming into her own, who spoke on behalf of the decolonised world, championing the causes of the suffering and oppressed the world over. In an age where India's heart and mind are greatly needed, the gentle wisdom of Dr Singh could still illumine our path, guiding us towards the India our founding fathers envisaged.

Dr Singh's trademark humility was especially manifest in the External Affairs Committee. For here was a man who was a Cabinet Minister when I was a mere student -- and yet, even in his eighties, as a member of the committee I was chairing, he would unfailingly rise every time I entered the committee room, out of respect for my position and despite my protestations and intense embarrassment!

Such was his heart-warming courteousness, born of deep, ingrained civilisational traditions. I wistfully remember Dr Singh's contributions to the Committee, especially his interventions when its reports were to be adopted; his mastery of the English language meant that every editorial suggestion he made vastly improved the acuity of the text. His departure from our ranks left the whole committee saddened, for we all looked upon Dr. Karan Singh as a guiding light, an internationalist par excellence. As I start my second round in the chair, I shall miss no presence more than his.

I shall also be eternally grateful to Dr Karan Singh for graciously launching my book 'Why I Am A Hindu' in New Delhi in 2018. Indeed, had it not been for his magisterial scholarship on the Hindu faith, I might well not have been able to deepen my own understanding of Hinduism. Through this book and his own lectures and writings, I have tried to understand for myself the extraordinary wisdom and virtues of the faith we share. What I find particularly fascinating about Dr Karan Singh's study of Hinduism are the five major principles he has identified in our religion, that remain relevant and valid to it in today's world, when an unrelenting effort is being made to narrow its capaciousness into something altogether intolerant and vengeful.

At the risk of inadequate paraphrase, these five major principles are, according to Dr Singh: the recognition of the unity of all mankind, epitomized in the Rig Vedic phrase 'vasudhaiva kutumbakam', the world is one family; the harmony of all religions, epitomized in that Rig Vedic statement that was Swami Vivekananda's favourite, 'ekam sat, vipra bahuda vadanti'; the divinity inherent in each individual, transcending the social stratifications and hierarchies that have all too often distorted this principle in Hindu society; the creative synthesis of practical action and contemplative knowledge, science and religion, meditation and social service, in the faith; and finally, the cosmic vision of Hindu philosophy, incorporating the infinite galaxies of which the Earth is just a tiny speck.

To understand this message is, in my view, the mark of his remarkable Hindu-ness (as opposed to "Hindutva"); to spend a lifetime writing about it, seeking to embed it in India's national consciousness, is an even greater attainment. I first met and heard him in person when he spoke at the United Nations in New York one lunchtime on Hinduism at an interfaith gathering. As with all great Hindus, Dr Singh has been a lifelong advocate of acceptance and mutual respect, an inveterate pluralist, as manifest in his boundless devotion to the Temple of Understanding, a leading global interfaith organisation. Ultimately, Dr Karan Singh’s scholarship testifies to his acute awareness of the perils and pitfalls that await the people who politicise their faith.

Dr Karan Singh is a statesman beyond compare, and he shall always be high on everyone’s list of the Best Presidents India Never Had. That, undoubtedly, was our Republic's loss; more so because it is unlikely that someone of his calibre, acumen, erudition, and moral probity will easily re-appear in the Indian political firmament, that too while looming like a colossus -- a gentle one, of course -- over the social, cultural, and intellectual realms of Indian life. I will always regret that Rashtrapati Bhavan never was illuminated with his scholarly luminosity, wisdom, grace, and desire to better the life of the ordinary Indian citizen.