Madanjeet Singh

Madanjeet Singh was born on 16 April 1924 in Lahore, present-day Pakistan. A well-known diplomat, he was also a painter, he was an internationally known author of several books on art and other subjects and a distinguished Photographer.

During Mahatma Gandhi’s ‘Quit India’ movement in 1942 against colonial rule, Madanjeet Singh was imprisoned. He later migrated to newly partitioned India in 1947 and worked as a volunteer in the refugee camps in Delhi, where those uprooted by partition found temporary refuge. He later joined the Indian Foreign Service in 1953 and served various countries like Italy, Yugoslavia, Greece, Laos, Sweden, Denmark, Spain, USSR, Consul General in South Vietnam. He served with distinction as Ambassador of India in Asia, South America, Africa and Europe before joining UNESCO in1982, based in Paris.

In 1995, in recognition of his lifelong devotion to the cause of communal harmony and peace, the UNESCO Executive Board created the biennial ‘UNESCO-Madanjeet Singh Prize for the Promotion of Tolerance and Non-Violence’. The decision was adopted at meetings in Paris and Fez (16 May to 4 June), to commemorate the 125th birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi. In 2000, he was designated a UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador on the United Nations’ International Day of Tolerance.

Madanjeet Singh became known internationally with his first book, Indian Sculpture in Bronze and Stone , which was published in Rome by the Institute of the Middle and Far East in 1952. At that time he was a student of the eminent orientalist, Prof. Giuseppe Tucci, and also studied European art history with the late Prof. Lionelllo Venturi at Rome University. Indian Sculpture in Bronze and Stone> was followed in 1954 by India, the first volume in the UNESCO world art series published by New York Graphic Society. He want on to write several more books including AJANTA, Paintings of the Sacred and the Secular (1964); Himalayan Art (1968); The White Horse (1976); This, My People (1989); The Sun in Myth and Art (1993); Renewable Energy of the Sun (1996); The Time-less Energy of the Sun (1998); The Time-less Energy of the Sun (1998); The Sasia Story (2005); The Oral and Intangible Heritage of South Asia (2007); Kashmiriyat (2009) ( List of publications )

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