Singh was awarded the Padma Shri in 1959, India's fourth-highest civilian honour, in recognition of his sporting achievements.

The race for which Singh was best remembered is his fourth-place finish in the 400 metres final at the 1960 Olympic Games, which he had entered as one of the favourites.

Various records were broken in the race, which required a photo-finish and saw American Otis Davis being declared the winner by one-hundredth of a second over German Carl Kaufmann.

[7] His birthplace was Govindpura,[8] a village 10 kilometres (6.2 mi) from Muzaffargarh city in Punjab Province, British India (now Kot Adu district, Pakistan).

[4][8][9][10] Escaping the troubles in Punjab, where killings of Hindus and Sikhs were continuing,[9] by moving to Delhi, India, in 1947, Singh lived for a short time with the family of his married sister[8] and was briefly imprisoned at Tihar jail for travelling on a train without a ticket.

[8] Milkha became disenchanted with his life and considered becoming a dacoit[b] but was instead persuaded by one of his brothers, Malkhan, to attempt recruitment to the Indian Army.

He successfully gained entrance on his fourth attempt, in 1951, and while stationed at the Electrical Mechanical Engineering Centre[12] in Secunderabad and he was introduced to athletics.

[13] His inexperience meant that he did not progress from the heat stages but a meeting with the eventual 400m champion at those Games, Charles Jenkins, both inspired him to greater things and provided him with information about training methods.

[14] Singh was persuaded by Jawaharlal Nehru to set aside his memories of the Partition era to race successfully in 1960 against Abdul Khaliq in Pakistan, where a post-race comment by the then General Ayub Khan led to him acquiring the nickname of The Flying Sikh.

[25] He met Nirmal Saini, a former captain of the Indian women's volleyball team in Ceylon in 1955; they married in 1962[8] and had three daughters and a son, the golfer Jeev Milkha Singh.

[12] Singh was promoted from the rank of sepoy to junior commissioned officer in recognition of his successes in the 1958 Asian Games.

[27] In 2001, he turned down an offer of the Arjuna Award from the Indian government, arguing that it was intended to recognise young sports people and not those such as him.

[30] In 2012, he donated the Adidas shoes that he had worn in the 1960 400m final to be sold in a charity auction organised by actor Rahul Bose.

[42] In September 2017, Singh's wax statue – created by sculptors of Madame Tussauds in London – was unveiled at Chandigarh.

[44] After winning India's first track and field gold medal at the 2020 Olympics, Neeraj Chopra dedicated his victory to Singh.