ABSTRACT
I. Origins, social background and early influences Charan Singh was born on 23 December 1902, in the village of Noorpur, in Meerut district of western UP (then the United Provinces of British India). He tells us, through an anonymous interlocutor, that 'a man's ways, views and attitudes owe their origins, to a large extent, to his social background. So do those of Charan Singh'. One can accept both the general proposition and the particular application in Charan Singh's case. There may, however, be dispute over the relevant, determining constituents of social background. Charan Singh chose to emphasise that he was born: 'in a peasant's home under a thatched roof supported by kachcha mud walls, with a kachcha well in front of the residential compound of the family, used for drinking water as well as for irrigation' (Singh, 1986:1). That, no doubt, is so. Other aspects of his 'social background' may, however, have had equal, or greater, significance in moulding his 'ways, views, and attitudes'. In this respect, one may consider both certain generic characteristics of the community into which he was born and the particular circumstances of Charan Singh's family. The reality of Charan Singh was altogether more complex 111an that rendered by the image of son of a simple peasant family, reared in humble surroundings.
