Former Rajya Sabha MP Subramaniam Swamy, turned 83, on Thursday, 15 September 2022. Swamy is often known as one man army and he is one of the most admired politicians in India after independence. Swamy is not just a politician but a professor, an economist, and a statistician. A five-time parliamentarian, Subramaniam Swamy has worked as a professor at Harvard and the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi. A Tamil Brahmin, Swamy, was a long-term member of the Janata party and has written on foreign affairs of India dealing with China, Pakistan, and Israel. On the occasion of Swamy's birthday, here we bring to you 10 lesser-known facts about Subramaniam Swamy :
Subramaniam Swamy was born in Mylapore, Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India. His father Sitaraman Subramanian was a bureaucrat and his mother, Padmavathi, was a homemaker.
He completed his graduation in Mathematics from Hindu College and finished third in Delhi University.
Swamy completed his Ph.D. from Harvard at a very young age. In two and a half years, Swamy completed his Ph.D. at 24 years of age.
He also co-authored a Paper with Paul Samuelson. Paul is the 1st American who won the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences. The paper was published in 1974.
In 1970, India’s only woman Prime Minister Indira Gandhi called Swamy ‘Santa Claus with Unrealistic Ideas’. Swamy fought against the Emergency and flew to America after attending the Parliament session despite the arrest Warrant against him.
In 1972, he was expelled from IIT without any notice. It is said that he was terminated because of his criticism of then prime minister Indira Gandhi's economic policies. After losing his job with IIT, Swamy came in contact with RSS ideologue Nanaji Deshmukh under whose influence he joined Bharatiya Jana Sangh, the previous avtar of the BJP.
In 1974, he was elected to the Rajya Sabha from Uttar Pradesh on Jana Sangh ticket. He represented Mumbai North East parliamentary constituency in Lok Sabha twice on Janata Party ticket after 1977 and 1980 general elections. Swamy served as Janata Party president until 2013 when he joined the Bharatiya Janata Party. In 2016, he was nominated to Rajya Sabha by the Narendra Modi government.
He served as Union Minister of Commerce and Law during 1990-91 when Chandra Shekhar was the prime minister. Prime Minister PV Narasimha Rao, in 1994, appointed Swamy as Chairman with the Commission of Labor Standards and International Trade with a cabinet rank.
Subramaniam swamy also received an invitation from Amartya Sen to join the Delhi School of Economics. He accepted the offer and traveled to India but the appointment was cancelled allegedly due to his views on the nuclear capabilities of India nad his advocacy for free market economy.
He married Roxna in 1966, an Indian Parsi who he met while studying at Harvard. Swamy has two daughters Gitanjali Swamy and Suhasini Haidar.
