Gajendra Narayan Singh (died 2002), from Koiladi in Saptari district of the Nepali Tarai, is widely regarded as the pioneer of Madhesh-centric politics in Nepal. Entering politics in 1947, he later built the Nepal Sadbhavana Parishad, which in 1990 became the Nepal Sadbhawana Party — the first major party of Nepal’s post-1990 multiparty era to organise the Maithili- and Hindi-speaking Madhesi people of the southern plains as a distinct political force.
In the first elections after the restoration of democracy in 1991 his party won six parliamentary seats, and he served several times as a cabinet minister. He famously continued to wear the traditional dhoti and kurta in parliament rather than the official Daura-Suruwal, and insisted on speaking in his own tongue — symbolic stands for Madhesi dignity against discrimination.
For the Maithili heartland of Madhesh (Nepal), Singh is a foundational figure: he gave political voice to a community that straddles the India–Nepal border and shares Mithila’s language and culture, institutionalising the “Madhesh issue” decades before it reshaped Nepali politics.
