✦ Celebrity stories, facts and career updates. Explore F4U now →

Home › Biography › Daman Singh (Manmohan Singh’s Daughter)

Daman Singh (Manmohan Singh’s Daughter) biographyFeatured Biography

Image source: StarsUnfolded

Celebrities

Daman Singh (Manmohan Singh’s Daughter) Biography: Age, Career, Family

F4U Editorial Desk • Updated September 29, 2026 • 6 min read

Quick Info

Date of birth4 September 1963

Age61 Years (as of 2024)

BirthplaceChandigarh, India

ProfessionBook author, Novelist

NationalityIndian

Marital statusMarried

SpouseAshok Patnaik

FamilyFather - Manmohan Singh; Mother - Gursharan Kaur; Children - Son Rohan; Sisters - Upinder Singh, Amrit Singh

Daman Singh (Manmohan Singh’s Daughter) Biography

Daman Singh is an Indian author and novelist, known for non-fiction and fiction works that draw on her extensive experience in rural development and life’s

Early life and background
Daman Singh was born on 4 September 1963 in Chandigarh and grew up primarily in New Delhi. She is the second eldest daughter of Manmohan Singh and Gursharan Kaur and spent part of her childhood in New York when her father worked for UNCTAD. The family returned to India in 1969, and Daman’s upbringing in Delhi was shaped by a convent education and a strong emphasis on reading.

Academic life
Daman completed a B.Sc. (Hons.) in Mathematics at St Stephen’s College, Delhi. She later pursued an MBA at the Institute of Rural Management Anand (IRMA), Gujarat. Early academic choices were influenced by family expectations; she studied mathematics in part to please her father, and later enrolled at IRMA after an injury affected other plans.

Career
After finishing her MBA, Daman Singh spent about two decades working in rural development. Her fieldwork took her across many Indian states, including Rajasthan, Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar (now Jharkhand), West Bengal, Odisha and Andhra Pradesh. She worked with NGOs such as the Society for Promotion of Wasteland and served as a consultant at the Tata Energy Research Institute (TERI) for six years.

Her first book, The Last Frontier: People And Forests In Mizoram (1996), grew out of time she spent living in Mizoram. That early non-fiction account was followed by a turn toward fiction: her first novel, Nine by Nine, appeared in 2008. Subsequent books include The Sacred Grove (2010), which follows a young boy named Ashwin as communal unrest disrupts his ambitions, and Kitty’s War (2018). In 2014 she published Strictly Personal: Manmohan and Gursharan, a memoir-like work that addressed aspects of her parents’ life and public perceptions surrounding them.

Daman’s work is rooted in firsthand exposure to rural India; she has described travel by bullock cart and close contact with village communities as formative experiences that informed her writing. Her consulting career effectively ended when her father became prime minister in 2004, a change she has said altered how she was perceived during field visits and constrained her ability to work in the same way.

Public profile
Daman Singh is married to Ashok Patnaik, an IPS officer. The couple have a son, Rohan. She is one of three daughters; her sisters are historian Upinder Singh and human rights lawyer Amrit Singh. All three daughters married partners outside the Sikh faith, a fact discussed in her book about her parents.

Daman has spoken in interviews about preferring a simpler, less technology-driven life; she has expressed a dislike for mobile phones and described how stepping away from a busy professional life allowed her to follow her interests. Vegetarian by habit in recent years, she was noted to have been a non-vegetarian earlier in life.

Latest updates
Daman has continued to be identified publicly both for her writing and for her family connection to a prominent political figure. Her published titles span non-fiction and fiction, and she remains known for drawing on rural India and family history as source material.

Her 2014 book Strictly Personal attracted attention because it addressed myths and perceptions about her parents. In 2019 a controversy surfaced on social media involving allegations tied to appointments at Nalanda University; fact-checkers later identified the claims as false. Daman’s public comments over the years emphasize a private, deliberately simplified lifestyle and a focus on writing and family.
◈

Recent Work

Kitty’s War

A later work of Daman Singh’s continuing her literary output following earlier novels and non-fiction.

2018
Strictly Personal: Manmohan and Gursharan

A 2014 book addressing family life and public perceptions surrounding her parents.

2014
The Sacred Grove

A novel (2010) that follows a young boy whose dreams are disrupted by communal unrest.

2010
Nine by Nine

Her first novel, published in 2008.

2008
✦

Career Highlights

  1. Worked in rural development for around 20 years across multiple Indian states
  2. Authored both non-fiction and fiction, including a memoir-style book about her parents
  3. Served as a consultant at the Tata Energy Research Institute (TERI) for six years
?

Frequently Asked Questions

When was Daman Singh (Manmohan Singh’s Daughter) born?

4 September 1963

What is Daman Singh (Manmohan Singh’s Daughter) known for?

Book author, Novelist

What is Daman Singh (Manmohan Singh’s Daughter)’s marital status?

Married

Who is Daman Singh (Manmohan Singh’s Daughter) married to?

Ashok Patnaik