Subramanian Swamy

Subramanian Swamy Biography

Subramanian Swamy was born in Mylapore, Chennai in Tamil Nadu on 15 September, 1939. His father, Sitaraman Subramanian, was a bureaucrat while his mother, Padmavathy, was a homemaker. Swamy completed his Masters in Mathematics from University of Delhi and went on to do Ph.D. in Economics from Harvard University. Swamy married Roxna, an Indian woman of Parsi origin who also studied at Harvard, in 1966. The couple have two daughters, Gitanjali Sarma and Suhasini Haider.

Subramanian Swamy is an Indian economist, mathematician and politician who serves as a Member of Parliament in Rajya Sabha, the upper house of the Indian Parliament.

Political Career of Subramanian Swamy:

Subramanian Swamy began his political career with his participation in the Sarvodaya movement. This apolitical movement eventually led to the creation of Janata Party. He was expelled from his teaching position at Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Delhi for promoting liberal economic policies. This heralded the beginning of his active political career. He was a stiff opponent of Indira Gandhi. He became a Rajya Sabha MP on right wing political party Jansangh's backing. 

 

During the Emergency, he fled to the United States and helped organize an underground movement. In 1976, while the Emergency was still in force, an arrest warrant had been issued in his name. In a unique act of defiance, Swamy came to the Parliament, attended a session and managed to escape the country after the session was adjourned. After this incident, Indira Gandhi was made to realise that the Emergency had become a farce and she was compelled to declare the next general elections which she eventually lost. 

 

In November 1978, Swamy was member of the Group which prepared a report of the United Nations (UNCTAD) on Economic Co-operation between Developing countries (ECDC) in Geneva. He worked on simplifying trade procedures and designed a new export policy which pioneered the trade reforms adopted subsequently. In 1994, the then Prime Minister P. V. Narasimha Rao appointed him as the Chairman of the Commission on Labour Standards and International Trade. 

 

Swamy was one of the founding members of Janata Party. He served as the party's president since its inception in 1990 till 2013 when it got merged with the BJP. He was elected to the Lok Sabha five times between 1974 and 1999. During 1990 and 1991, Swamy served as member of the Planning Commission and also as Cabinet Minister of Commerce and Law. 

 

Swamy, the activist politician, filed a case in the Supreme Court to prosecute A. Raja in the 2G Spectrum scam in 2012. He also sought to prosecute the then Union Minister of the UPA cabinet P. Chidambaram and Congress chief Sonia Gandhi, in the scam. 

Swamy hit the headlines recently for making unflattering remarks against outgoing RBI Governor Raghuram Rajan, Chief Economic Advisor Arvind Subramnian and Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley for which he went out of favour for many and snubbed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi himself. 

Removal From Harvard:

In July 2011, as a result of his "reprehensible" views in the articles, more than 400 students of Harvard University signed a petition demanding Mr Swamy's removal after the university had initially decided to stand by him. Later the university cancelled two economics courses taught at the university by Swamy, after the faculty of Arts and Sciences voted with an "overwhelming majority" against him in its meeting.

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Updated: September 30, 2017