Minister of External Affairs (India)

Minister of External Affairs Videsh Mantrī
Emblem of India
Incumbent Subrahmanyam Jaishankar since 30 May 2019
Ministry of External Affairs
Appointer	President on the advice of the Prime Minister
Inaugural holder	Jawaharlal Nehru
Formation	2 September 1946

The Minister of External Affairs (or simply, the Foreign Minister, in Hindi Videsh Mantri) is the head of the Ministry of External Affairs of the Government of India. One of the senior-most offices in the Union Cabinet, the chief responsibility of the Foreign Minister is to represent India and its government in the international community. The Foreign Minister also plays an important role in determining Indian foreign policy. Occasionally, the Foreign Minister is assisted by a Minister of State for External Affairs or the lower-ranked Deputy Minister of External Affairs.

India's first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, also held the Foreign Minister post throughout his 17-year premiership of the country; he remains the country's longest-serving Foreign Minister. Several other Prime Ministers have since held the additional charge of foreign minister, but never has any other cabinet minister held additional charge of the office. There have been a number of Foreign Ministers who went on to become the Prime Minister like Atal Bihari Vajpayee, P. V. Narasimha Rao and I. K. Gujral.

The current Minister of External Affairs is Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, succeeding Sushma Swaraj of the Bharatiya Janata Party on 30 May 2019.

List of Foreign Ministers[]

No.	Portrait	Name	Term of office		Length	Political party (Alliance)		Prime Minister
1		Jawaharlal Nehru	15 August 1947	27 May 1964	16 years, 286 days	Indian National Congress		Jawaharlal Nehru
2		Gulzarilal Nanda	27 May 1964	9 June 1964	13 days			Gulzarilal Nanda (acting)
3		Lal Bahadur Shastri	9 June 1964	17 July 1964	38 days			Lal Bahadur Shastri
4		Swaran Singh	18 July 1964	14 November 1966	2 years, 119 days			Lal Bahadur Shastri Indira Gandhi
5		M. C. Chagla	14 November 1966	5 September 1967	295 days			Indira Gandhi
6		Indira Gandhi	6 September 1967	13 February 1969	1 year, 160 days
7		Dinesh Singh	14 February 1969	27 June 1970	1 year, 133 days
(4)		Swaran Singh	27 June 1970	10 October 1974	4 years, 105 days
8		Yashwantrao Chavan	10 October 1974	24 March 1977	2 years, 165 days
9		Atal Bihari Vajpayee	26 March 1977	28 July 1979	2 years, 124 days	Janata Party		Morarji Desai
10		Shyam Nandan Prasad Mishra	28 July 1979	14 January 1980	170 days	Janata Party (Secular)		Charan Singh
11		P. V. Narasimha Rao	14 January 1980	19 July 1984	4 years, 187 days	Indian National Congress		Indira Gandhi
(6)		Indira Gandhi	19 July 1984	31 October 1984	104 days
12		Rajiv Gandhi	31 October 1984	24 September 1985	328 days			Rajiv Gandhi
13		Bali Ram Bhagat	25 September 1985	12 May 1986	230 days
14		P. Shiv Shankar	12 May 1986	22 October 1986	163 days
15		N. D. Tiwari	22 October 1986	25 July 1987	276 days
(12)		Rajiv Gandhi	25 July 1987	25 June 1988	336 days
(11)		P. V. Narasimha Rao	25 June 1988	2 December 1989	1 year, 160 days
16		V. P. Singh	2 December 1989	5 December 1989	3 days	Janata Dal (National Front)		V. P. Singh
17		I. K. Gujral	5 December 1989	10 November 1990	340 days
18		Chandra Shekhar[1]	10 November 1990	21 November 1990	11 days	Samajwadi Janata Party (Rashtriya)		Chandra Shekhar
19		Vidya Charan Shukla	21 November 1990	20 February 1991	91 days
(18)		Chandra Shekhar[2]	20 February 1991	21 June 1991	121 days
20		Madhavsinh Solanki	21 June 1991	31 March 1992	284 days	Indian National Congress		P. V. Narasimha Rao
(11)		P. V. Narasimha Rao	31 March 1992	18 January 1993	293 days
(7)		Dinesh Singh	18 January 1993	10 February 1995	2 years, 23 days
21		Pranab Mukherjee	10 February 1995	16 May 1996	1 year, 96 days
22		Sikander Bakht	21 May 1996	1 June 1996	11 days	Bharatiya Janata Party		Atal Bihari Vajpayee
(17)		I. K. Gujral	1 June 1996	18 March 1998	1 year, 291 days	Janata Dal (United Front)		H. D. Deve Gowda I. K. Gujral
(9)		Atal Bihari Vajpayee	19 March 1998	5 December 1998	261 days	Bharatiya Janata Party (National Democratic Alliance)		Atal Bihari Vajpayee
23		Jaswant Singh	5 December 1998	1 July 2002	3 years, 208 days
24		Yashwant Sinha	1 July 2002	22 May 2004	1 year, 326 days
25		Natwar Singh	22 May 2004[3]	6 November 2005[4]	1 year, 168 days	Indian National Congress (United Progressive Alliance)		Manmohan Singh
26		Manmohan Singh	6 November 2005	24 October 2006	352 days
(21)		Pranab Mukherjee	24 October 2006[5]	22 May 2009	2 years, 210 days
27		S. M. Krishna	22 May 2009	26 October 2012	3 years, 157 days
28		Salman Khurshid	28 October 2012	26 May 2014	1 year, 210 days
29		Sushma Swaraj	26 May 2014	30 May 2019	5 years, 4 days	Bharatiya Janata Party (National Democratic Alliance)		Narendra Modi
30		Subrahmanyam Jaishankar	30 May 2019	Incumbent	2 years, 259 days

List of Ministers of State[]

Ministers of State of External Affairs

Minister of state	Portrait	Political party		Term		Years
General V. K. Singh		Bharatiya Janata Party		26 May 2014	30 May 2019	5 years, 4 days
M. J. Akbar				5 July 2016	17 October 2018	2 years, 104 days
V. Muraleedharan				30 May 2019	Incumbent	2 years, 259 days
Meenakshi Lekhi				7 July 2021	Incumbent	221 days
Rajkumar Ranjan Singh				7 July 2021	Incumbent	221 days

Plaque of the Minister of External Affairs at the Ministry of External Affairs, New Delhi.

See also[]

• Indian Foreign Secretary

References[]

External links[]

• Official Website of Ministry of External Affairs
• MEA Library