Rajnath Singh (Hindi pronunciation: [ɾɑːd͡ʒnɑːt̪ʰ sɪŋɡʱ] ⓘ; born 10 July 1951) is an Indian politician and lecturer who is serving the Defence Minister of India since 20 May 2019.

He also served the Home Minister in the first Modi ministry from 2014 to 2019, making him the first person born after India obtained independence to hold that position.

He received his primary education from a local school of his village and went on to secure a master's degree in physics, acquiring first division results from Gorakhpur University.

[15] After being released from jail, Singh joined the Janata Party founded by Jayprakash Narayan and contested legislative assembly elections from Mirzapur in 1977.

[18] Major highlights of his tenure as education minister included the controversial Anti-Copying Act, 1992, which made copying a non-bailable offence,[19] modernising science texts, and incorporating vedic mathematics into the curriculum.

[5] Singh helped push the controversial Anti-Copying Act in response to perceived widespread cheating in schools and colleges in Uttar Pradesh.

[15][20][21] when Mulayam Singh Yadav became the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, heading Bahujan Samaj Party in the year 1993 he repealed the Act.

[22][23] In 1991, Singh led a partial rewrite of history textbooks used in government schools and introduced vedic mathematics into the curriculum.

[26] On 25 March 1997, he became the President of the BJP's Uttar Pradesh unit and in 1999 became the Union Cabinet Minister for Surface Transport.

After his resignation, the state was under President's rule for 56 days, until the 14th Legislative Assembly appointed Mayawati to the position of chief minister for the 3rd time.

[12] In 2003, Singh was appointed as the Minister of Agriculture and subsequently for Food Processing in the NDA Government led by Atal Bihari Vajpayee, and was faced with the difficult task of maintaining one of the most volatile areas of India's economy.

[42] During this period he initiated a few epoch-making projects including the Kisan Call Centre and Farm Income Insurance Scheme.

[43] He brought down interest rates on Agriculture loans and also established Farmer Commission and initiated Farms Income Insurance Scheme.

After the resignation of prominent figure Lal Krishna Advani due to controversial statements over Muhammad Ali Jinnah,[45] and the murder of strategist Pramod Mahajan, Singh sought to rebuild the party by focusing on the most basic Hindutva ideologies.

[46] He announced his position of "no compromise" in relation to the building of a Ram Temple in Ayodhya at any cost[46] and commended the rule of Vajpayee as Prime Minister, pointing towards all the developments the NDA made for the ordinary people of India.

[51]On 24 January 2013, following the resignation of Nitin Gadkari due to corruption charges, Singh was re-elected as the BJP's National President.

After the win of the party in 2014 Lok Sabha Election he took over the position from Sushilkumar Shinde as the Minister of Home Affairs (India) from the year 2014–2019.

[57] He gave the statement when there was an Anti-National speeches in the JNU Delhi over the anniversary of hanging of Kashmiri Separist Maqbool Bhat and Afzal Guru on 9 February 2016.

[58] After the statement there was also a vast protest against Singh and after the arrests of Umar Khalid and Kanhaiya Kumar, he made meeting with many left leaders.

[63] On 9 April 2017, he launched Bharat Ke Veer Web portal and Application with Bollywood actor Akshay Kumar.

[64] Bharat Ke Veer is a fund-raising initiative by the Ministry of Home Affairs, Government of India on behalf of members of the Indian paramilitary Forces.

[66] An official anthem was launched on 20 January 2018 for the cause 'Bharat Ke Veer' by him along with film star Akshay Kumar, and other ministers Kiren Rijiju, Hansraj Ahir.

[70] On 9 October 2017 China announced that it was ready to maintain peace at frontiers with India reacting to Indian Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman and Rajnath Singh visit to Nathu La.

As Union Home Minister, Rajnath Singh attended the passing out parade of 241 Bastariya Battalion of CRPF in Ambikapur, Chhattisgarh on 21 May 2018.

"Dassault Rafale is a fighter plane of French origin whose deal was signed by then Minister of Defence (India), Manohar Parrikar in 2016 to increase the strength of the Indian Air Force.

[94][95] Then again from the date of 30 August 2020, People's Liberation Army started the controversy of Ladakh area by putting a large number of troops over the controversial area and over this Chinese Communist Party leader Yang Jiechi and People's Liberation Army General Wei stated that the matter was started by the Indian Armed Forces.

[96] Chinese General Wei Fenghe and his Indian counterpart Singh held a talk, on 4 September in Moscow, on the sidelines of a Shanghai Cooperation Organisation meeting.

Railways were set on fire and suffered losses in Bihar, Telangana and West Bengal;[106] the opposition also called it as an RSS agenda based scheme.

The Ministry called it a long pending reform, in the defence field to lower the average of the total military age.

[107] Further the Delhi High Court also stated that it finds no reason to interfere in the process and the government has brought this "In national Interest" of the country.