Kunwar Natwar Singh, IFS (16 May 1931 – 10 August 2024) was an Indian diplomat and politician who served as the Minister of External Affairs from May 2004 to December 2005.

However, 18 months later, he had to resign after the United Nations' (UN) Volcker committee named both he and the Congress party to which he belonged as beneficiaries of illegal pay-offs in the scandal related to the UN's Oil-for-Food Programme.

[7] He attended Mayo College, Ajmer and Scindia School, Gwalior, both traditional educational institutions for Indian princely clans and nobles.

[10] In 1984, after resigning from the Indian Foreign Service, Singh joined the Congress party and was elected to the 8th Lok Sabha from Bharatpur constituency in Rajasthan.

In that capacity, he was elected President of the UN Conference on Disarmament and Development held in New York in 1987, and also led the Indian delegation to the 42nd Session of the UN General Assembly.

Singh remained a minister of state for external affairs until the Congress party lost power after being defeated in the general elections of 1989.

On 27 October 2005, while Singh was abroad on an official visit, the Independent Inquiry Committee headed by Paul Volcker released the report on its investigation of corruption in the Oil-for-Food Programme.

It stated inter alia that "India's Congress party" and Singh's family were non-contractual (corrupt) beneficiaries of the Oil-for-Food Programme.

[2] In February 2008, Singh announced he quit Congress at a Bharatiya Janata Party-sponsored rally of Jat community held at Jaipur in the presence of Vasundhara Raje, then Chief Minister of Rajasthan.

In fact, Singh had been demanding a Rajya Sabha seat (which had apparently been promised before he joined the party) and Mayawati had changed her mind on that matter.

It also describes the changing contours of Singh's close but complex political relationship with Indian National Congress president Sonia Gandhi over the years.

[23] The book presents Singh's account of the Volcker report and the various political motions that took place in the background leading up to his resignation.

[24] Kallol Chakraborty writing for the Amar Ujala noted that the book fraught with the one-sided narrative may create sensation for sometime but it cannot achieve heights in the long run.