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List of Prime Ministers of India
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Narendra Modi is the current (14th) Prime Minister of India, since 26 May 2014
The Prime Minister of India is the chief executive of the Government of India. In India's parliamentary system, the Constitution names the President as head of state de jure, but his or her de facto executive powers are vested in the Prime Minister and his Council of Ministers. Appointed and sworn-in by the President, the Prime Minister is usually the leader of the party or alliance that has a majority in the Lok Sabha, the lower house of India's Parliament.[1]
Since 1947, India has had fourteen Prime Ministers, fifteen including Gulzarilal Nanda who twice acted in the role. The first was Jawaharlal Nehru of the Indian National Congress party,[2] who was sworn-in on 15 August 1947, when India gained independence from the British. Serving until his death in May 1964, Nehru remains India's longest-serving prime minister. He was succeeded by fellow Congressman Lal Bahadur Shastri, whose 19-month term also ended in death. Indira Gandhi, Nehru's daughter, succeeded Shastri in 1966 to become the country's first woman premier. Eleven years later, she was voted out of power in favour of the Janata Party, whose leader Morarji Desai became the first non-Congress prime minister. After he resigned in 1979, his former deputy Charan Singh briefly held office until Indira Gandhi was voted back six months later. Indira Gandhi's second stint as Prime Minister ended five years later on the morning of 31 October 1984, when she was gunned down by her own bodyguards. That evening, her son Rajiv Gandhi was sworn-in as India's youngest premier, and the third from his family. Thus far, members of Nehru–Gandhi dynasty have been Prime Minister for a total of 37 years and 303 days.[3]
Rajiv's five-year term ended with his former cabinet colleague, V. P. Singh of the Janata Dal, forming the year-long National Front coalition government in 1989. A six-month interlude under Prime Minister Chandra Shekhar followed, after which the Congress party returned to power, forming the government under P. V. Narasimha Rao in June 1991. Rao's five-year term was succeeded by four short-lived governments—the Bharatiya Janata Party's Atal Bihari Vajpayee for 13 days in 1996, a year each under United Front prime ministers H. D. Deve Gowda and I. K. Gujral, and Vajpayee again for 19 months in 1998–99. After Vajpayee was sworn-in for the third time, in 1999, he managed to lead his National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government to a full five-year term, the first non-Congressman to do so. Vajpayee was succeeded by Congressman Manmohan Singh, the first Sikh premier, whose United Progressive Alliance government was in office for 10 years between 2004 and 2014.
The incumbent Prime Minister of India is Narendra Modi who has headed the BJP-led NDA government since 26 May 2014 which is India's first non-Congress single party majority government.[4]
Prime Ministers of India (by state of birth)
Contents
[hide]
1 Key
2 Prime Ministers of India
3 See also
4 References
4.1 General
4.2 Specific
Key
Colour key for party of the prime ministers
Bharatiya Janata Party
Indian National Congress
designated Indian National Congress (I) 1977–1996[5]
Janata Dal
Janata Party
Janata Party (Secular)
Samajwadi Janata Party
Other key
№: Incumbent number
† Assassinated or died in office
§ Returned to office after a previous term
RES Resigned
NC Resigned following a no-confidence motion
Prime Ministers of India
№
Name
(birth–death)
Portrait
Prior Office
Party
(Alliance)
Elected constituency
Term of office[6]
Appointed by
1
Jawaharlal Nehru
(1889–1964) Vice President of Executive Council Indian National Congress Phulpur, Uttar Pradesh 15 August
1947 27 May
1964[†] 16 years, 286 days Lord Mountbatten
Rajendra Prasad
–
Gulzarilal Nanda (acting)
(1898–1998) Minister of Labour and Employment Indian National Congress Sabarkantha, Gujarat 27 May
1964 9 June
1964 13 days Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan
2
Lal Bahadur Shastri
(1904–1966) Minister of Home Affairs Indian National Congress Allahabad, Uttar Pradesh 9 June
1964 11 January
1966[†] 1 year, 216 days Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan
–
Gulzarilal Nanda (acting)
(1898–1998) Minister of Home Affairs Indian National Congress Sabarkantha, Gujarat 11 January
1966 24 January
1966 13 days Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan
3
Indira Gandhi
(1917–1984) Minister of Information and Broadcasting
Prime Minister (Re-elected)
Indian National Congress Rajya Sabha MP for Uttar Pradesh 24 January
1966 24 March
1977 11 years, 59 days V. V. Giri
4
Morarji Desai
(1896–1995) Minister of Finance and Deputy Prime Minister of India before he resigned in 1969 Janata Party Surat, Gujarat 24 March
1977 28 July
1979[RES] 2 years, 126 days B. D. Jatti
(acting President)
5
Charan Singh
(1902–1987) Minister of Finance Janata Party (Secular)
with INC Baghpat, Uttar Pradesh 28 July
1979 14 January
1980[RES] 170 days Neelam Sanjiva Reddy
6
Indira Gandhi
(1917–1984) Former Prime Minister Indian National Congress (I) Medak, Andhra Pradesh 14 January
1980[§] 31 October
1984[†] 4 years, 291 days Neelam Sanjiva Reddy
7
Rajiv Gandhi
(1944–1991) MP for Amethi Indian National Congress (I) Amethi, Uttar Pradesh 31 October
1984 2 December
1989 5 years, 32 days Zail Singh
8
Vishwanath Pratap Singh
(1931–2008) Minister of Defence Janata Dal
(National Front) Fatehpur, Uttar Pradesh 2 December
1989 10 November
1990[NC] 343 days R. Venkataraman
9
Chandra Shekhar
(1927–2007) MP for Ballia Samajwadi Janata Party
with INC Ballia, Uttar Pradesh 10 November
1990 21 June
1991[a] 223 days R. Venkataraman
10
Pamulaparti Venkata Narasimha Rao
(1921–2004) Minister of External Affairs Indian National Congress (I) Nandyal, Andhra Pradesh 21 June
1991 16 May
1996 4 years, 330 days R. Venkataraman
11
Atal Bihari Vajpayee
(born 1924) Minister of External Affairs Bharatiya Janata Party Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh 16 May
1996 1 June
1996[RES] 16 days Shankar Dayal Sharma
12
Haradanahalli Doddegowda Deve Gowda
(born 1933) Chief Minister of Karnataka Janata Dal
(United Front) Rajya Sabha MP for Karnataka 1 June
1996 21 April
1997[RES] 324 days Shankar Dayal Sharma
13
Inder Kumar Gujral
(1919–2012) Minister of External Affairs Janata Dal
(United Front) Rajya Sabha MP for Bihar 21 April
1997 19 March
1998 332 days Shankar Dayal Sharma
14
Atal Bihari Vajpayee
(born 1924) Former Prime Minister Bharatiya Janata Party
(NDA) Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh 19 March
1998[§] 22 May
2004 6 years, 64 days K. R. Narayanan
15
Manmohan Singh
(born 1932) Minister of Finance Indian National Congress
(UPA) Rajya Sabha MP for Assam 22 May
2004 26 May
2014 10 years, 4 days A. P. J. Abdul Kalam
Pratibha Patil
16
Narendra Modi
(born 1950) Chief Minister of Gujarat Bharatiya Janata Party
(NDA) Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh 26 May
2014[7] Incumbent 3 years, 319 days Pranab Mukherjee
Jump up ^ Chandra Shekhar officially resigned as Prime Minister on 13 March 1991, but he and his ministers continued in office until Rao succeeded him.
Timeline
See also
Government of India portal
India portal
Prime Minister's Office
List of Prime Ministers of India by longevity
List of Presidents of India
References
General
"Former Prime Minister's of India". Prime Minister's Office (PMO). Retrieved 22 November 2017.
"Gallery of Prime Ministers". Press Information Burea. Retrieved 22 November 2017.
Guha, Ramachandra (2011). India After Gandhi: The History of the World's Largest Democracy. Pan Macmillan. ISBN 9780330540209.
Brass, Paul R. (1994). The Politics of India Since Independence. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9780521459709.
Specific
Jump up ^ Constitutional Government in India. S. Chand Publishing. 2003. ISBN 9788121922036.
Jump up ^ "Former Prime Ministers | Prime Minister of India". www.pmindia.gov.in. Retrieved 2018-01-03.
Jump up ^ "In India, next generation of Gandhi dynasty". Washington Post. Retrieved 2016-12-27.
Jump up ^ Diplomat, Ankit Panda, The. "BJP, Modi Win Landslide Victory in Indian Elections". The Diplomat. Retrieved 2016-12-27.
Jump up ^ "Indian National Congress". Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved 21 May 2014.
Jump up ^ "Former Prime Ministers". PM India. Archived from the original on 9 October 2014. Retrieved 2 January 2015.
Jump up ^ "Narendra Modi appointed Prime Minister, swearing in on May 26". The Times of India. 20 May 2014. Retrieved 22 January 2015.
[show]
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Prime Minister of India
Jawaharlal Nehru
Gulzarilal Nanda (acting)
Lal Bahadur Shastri
Gulzarilal Nanda (acting)
Indira Gandhi
Morarji Desai
Charan Singh
Rajiv Gandhi
V. P. Singh
Chandra Shekhar
P. V. Narasimha Rao
Atal Bihari Vajpayee
H. D. Deve Gowda
I. K. Gujral
Manmohan Singh
Narendra Modi
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Ziggurat
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"Zigurat" redirects here. For other uses, see Ziggurat (disambiguation).
The reconstructed facade of the Neo-Sumerian Ziggurat of Ur, near Nasiriyah, Iraq
A ziggurat (/ˈzɪɡəræt/ ZIG-ər-at; Akkadian: ziqqurat, D-stem of zaqāru "to build on a raised area") is a type of massive stone structure built in ancient Mesopotamia. It has the form of a terraced compound of successively receding stories or levels. Notable ziggurats include the Great Ziggurat of Ur near Nasiriyah, the Ziggurat of Aqar Quf near Baghdad, the now destroyed Etemenanki in Babylon, Chogha Zanbil in Khūzestān and Sialk.
Contents
[hide]
1 Description
2 Interpretation and significance
3 See also
4 References
5 External links
Description[edit]
Ziggurats were built by the ancient Sumerians, Akkadians, Assyrians, Elamites, Eblaites and Babylonians for local religions, predominantly Mesopotamian religion and Elamite religion. Each ziggurat was part of a temple complex which included other buildings. The precursors of the ziggurat were raised platforms that date from the Ubaid period[1] during the sixth millennium. The earliest ziggurats began as a platform (usually oval, rectangular or square), the ziggurat was a mastaba-like structure with a flat top. Sun-baked bricks made up the core of the ziggurat with facings of fired bricks on the outside. Each step was slightly smaller than the step below it. The facings were often glazed in different colors and may have had astrological significance. Kings sometimes had their names engraved on these glazed bricks. The number of floors ranged from two to seven.
According to archaeologist Harriet Crawford, "It is usually assumed that the ziggurats supported a shrine, though the only evidence for this comes from Herodotus, and physical evidence is nonexistent. It has also been suggested by a number of scholars that this shrine was the scene of the sacred marriage, the central rite of the great new year festival. Herodotus describes the furnishing of the shrine on top of the ziggurat at Babylon and says it contained a great golden couch on which a woman spent the night alone. The god Marduk was also said to come and sleep in his shrine. The likelihood of such a shrine ever being found is sadly remote. Erosion has usually reduced the surviving ziggurats to a fraction of their original height, but textual evidence may yet provide more facts about the purpose of these shrines. In the present state of our knowledge it seems reasonable to adopt as a working hypothesis the suggestion that the ziggurats developed out of the earlier temples on platforms and that small shrines stood on the highest stages..."[2] Access to the shrine would have been by a series of ramps on one side of the ziggurat or by a spiral ramp from base to summit. The Mesopotamian ziggurats were not places for public worship or ceremonies. They were believed to be dwelling places for the gods and each city had its own patron god. Only priests were permitted on the ziggurat or in the rooms at its base, and it was their responsibility to care for the gods and attend to their needs. The priests were very powerful members of Sumerian and Assyro-Babylonian society.
One of the best-preserved ziggurats is Chogha Zanbil in western Iran[citation needed] . The Sialk ziggurat, in Kashan, Iran, is the oldest known ziggurat, dating to the early 3rd millennium BCE [3] [4]. Ziggurat designs ranged from simple bases upon which a temple sat, to marvels of mathematics and construction which spanned several terraced stories and were topped with a temple.
An example of a simple ziggurat is the White Temple of Uruk, in ancient Sumer. The ziggurat itself is the base on which the White Temple is set. Its purpose is to get the temple closer to the heavens,[citation needed] and provide access from the ground to it via steps. The Mesopotamians believed that these pyramid temples connected heaven and earth. In fact, the ziggurat at Babylon was known as Etemenankia or "House of the Platform between Heaven and Earth".
An example of an extensive and massive ziggurat is the Marduk ziggurat, of Etemenanki, of ancient Babylon. Unfortunately, not much of even the base is left of this massive 91 meter tall structure, yet archeological findings and historical accounts put this tower at seven multicolored tiers, topped with a temple of exquisite proportions. The temple is thought to have been painted and maintained an indigo color, matching the tops of the tiers. It is known that there were three staircases leading to the temple, two of which (side flanked) were thought to have only ascended half the ziggurat's height.
Etemenanki, the name for the structure, is Sumerian and means "temple of the foundation of heaven and earth". The date of its original construction is unknown, with suggested dates ranging from the fourteenth to the ninth century BCE, with textual evidence suggesting it existed in the second millennium.[5]
Interpretation and significance[edit]
According to Herodotus, at the top of each ziggurat was a shrine, although none of these shrines have survived.[1] One practical function of the ziggurats was a high place on which the priests could escape rising water that annually inundated lowlands and occasionally flooded for hundreds of kilometres, for example the 1967 flood.[6] Another practical function of the ziggurat was for security. Since the shrine was accessible only by way of three stairways,[7] a small number of guards could prevent non-priests from spying on the rituals at the shrine on top of the ziggurat, such as initiation rituals such as the Eleusinian mysteries, cooking of sacrificial food and burning of carcasses of sacrificial animals. Each ziggurat was part of a temple complex that included a courtyard, storage rooms, bathrooms, and living quarters, around which a city was built.[8]
See also[edit]
Ancient Near East portal
Pyramid
Sumer
References[edit]
Notes
^ Jump up to: a b Crawford, page 73
Jump up ^ Crawford, page 85
Jump up ^ Matthews, R. and Nashli, H. F., eds. 2013 The Neolithisation of Iran: the formation of new societies. British Association for Near Eastern Archaeology and Oxbow Books, Oxford, pp272.
Jump up ^ Fazeli, H., Beshkani A., Markosian A., Ilkani H., Young R. L. 2010 The Neolithic to Chalcolithic Transition in the Qazvin Plain, Iran: Chronology and Subsistence Strategies: in Archäologische Mitteilungen Aus Iran and Turan 41, pp. 1-17
Jump up ^ George , Andrew (2007) "The Tower of Babel: Archaeology, history and cuneiform texts" Archiv für Orientforschung, 51 (2005/2006). pp. 75-95. [1],
Jump up ^ Aramco World Magazine, March–April 1968, pages 32-33
Jump up ^ Crawford, page 75
Jump up ^ Oppenheim, pages 112, 326-328
Bibliography
T. Busink, "L´origine et évolution de la ziggurat babylonienne". Jaarbericht van het Vooraziatisch-Egyptisch Genootschap Ex Oriente Lux 21 (1970), 91-141.
R. Chadwick, "Calendars, Ziggurats, and the Stars". The Canadian Society for Mesopotamian Studies Bulletin (Toronto) 24 (Nov. 1992), 7-24.
R.G. Killick, "Ziggurat". The Dictionary of Art (ed. J. Turner, New York & London: Macmillan), vol. 33, 675-676.
H.J. Lenzen, Die Entwicklung der Zikurrat von ihren Anfängen bis zur Zeit der III. Dynastie von Ur (Leipzig 1942).
M. Roaf, Cultural Atlas of Mesopotamia and the Ancient Near East (New York 1990), 104-107.
E.C. Stone, "Ziggurat". The Oxford Encyclopedia of Archaeology in the Near East (ed. E.M. Meyers, New York & Oxford 1997), vol. 5, 390-391.
J.A. Black & A. Green, "Ziggurat". Dictionary of the Ancient Near East (eds. P. Bienkowski & A. Millard, London: British Museum), 327-328.
Harriet Crawford, Sumer and the Sumerians, Cambridge University Press, (New York 1993), ISBN 0-521-38850-3.
A. Leo Oppenheim, Ancient Mesopotamia, University of Chicago Press, (Chicago 1977), ISBN 0-226-63187-7.
Beck, Roger B.; Linda Black, Larry S. Krieger, Phillip C. Naylor, Dahia Ibo Shabaka, (1999). World History: Patterns of Interaction. Evanston, IL: McDougal Littell. ISBN 0-395-87274-X. CS1 maint: Multiple names: authors list (link)
Leick, Gwendolyn (2002). Mesopotamia: The Invention of the City. Penguin Books. ISBN 0-14-026574-0.
External links[edit]
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Ziggurats.
UNESCO Heritage site for Choqa Zanbil ziggurat, Iran.
Article on status of Sialk ziggurat, Iran.

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