Siddhartha Shankar Ray

Siddhartha Shankar Ray was a Congress politician and lawyer, a grandson of the freedom fighter Deshbandhu Chittaranjan Das and a confidant of Indira Gandhi in the 1970s. He was born in Calcutta on 20 October 1920 and died at his south Kolkata home on 6 November 2010, aged 90. He appears in this record as the Governor of Punjab during the peak years of the counter-insurgency, after earlier posts that included the 1975 Emergency.

Key moments

• 1971: Indira Gandhi appoints him Union minister in charge of West Bengal affairs.
• 20 March 1972 to 30 April 1977: Chief Minister of West Bengal. Wikipedia says that in these years he oversaw a crackdown on the Naxalite movement and, citing Granville Austin, records extrajudicial killings by state police. Somnath Chatterjee, a CPM leader and Ray's political opponent, wrote in 2010 that those years were unfortunate for Bengal and that Ray could not control events.
• 8 January 1975: he writes Indira Gandhi a three-page letter urging quick action towards an internal Emergency, which Outlook obtained. The Emergency is imposed on 25 June 1975. Outlook says his role in it is very well known. After falling out with Sanjay Gandhi's group he later testified against the Emergency before the Shah Commission.
• 2 April 1986: becomes Governor of Punjab and Administrator of Chandigarh, succeeding Shankar Dayal Sharma. The Tribune's 2010 profile says he opened Raj Bhavan to anyone willing to negotiate and pressed for economic revival. In this term the Barnala ministry sends police into the Golden Temple complex (30 April 1986) and is dismissed (11 May 1987), and Operation Black Thunder clears the complex (May 1988).
• 8 December 1989: his Punjab term ends. Wikipedia says he took a proactive role against the armed Sikh groups and was accused of police brutality during President's Rule.
• 1992 to 1996: Ambassador to the United States.

Two views of the Punjab years. The Tribune's 2010 profile calls him Punjab's friendly troubleshooter and says he acted against abuses by the state and did not interfere in the work of the security forces. Wikipedia reports the accusation of police brutality. The Tribune describes him as a shrewd politician and an able administrator; Chatterjee called the Punjab governorship a dubious distinction given his close association with the Emergency.