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Brajesh Chandra Mishra (29 September 1928 – 28 September 2012) was an Indian diplomat from the Indian Foreign Service and politician, best known for serving as Prime Minister
Atal Bihari Vajpayee Atal Bihari Vajpayee (; 25 December 1924 – 16 August 2018) was an Indian politician who served three terms as the 10th prime minister of India, first for a term of 13 days in 1996, then for a period of 13 months fr ...
's
principal secretary The Principal Secretary is a senior government official in various Commonwealth countries. * Principal Secretary to the Prime Minister of Pakistan * Principal Secretary to the President of Pakistan * Principal Secretary to the Prime Minister of Ind ...
and
National Security Advisor A national security advisor serves as the chief advisor to a national government on matters of security. The advisor is not usually a member of the government's cabinet but is usually a member of various military or security councils. National sec ...
from 1998 to 2004. He received
Padma Vibhushan The Padma Vibhushan ("Lotus Decoration") is the second-highest civilian award of the Republic of India, after the Bharat Ratna. Instituted on 2 January 1954, the award is given for "exceptional and distinguished service". All persons without ...
for his contribution


Early life and family

He was born in Hindu Brahmin family on 29 September 1928 to Dwarka Prasad Mishra, who was a former
Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh The chief minister of Madhya Pradesh is the chief executive of the Indian state of Madhya Pradesh. In accordance with the Constitution of India, the governor is a state's ''de jure'' head, but ''de facto'' executive authority rests with the chi ...
. His father was considered a staunch politician from the Congress Party and very close to Indira Gandhi though they fell out later.


Diplomatic career

Brajesh Mishra joined the Indian Foreign Service in 1951. He served as ''
chargé d'affaires A ''chargé d'affaires'' (), plural ''chargés d'affaires'', often shortened to ''chargé'' (French) and sometimes in colloquial English to ''charge-D'', is a diplomat who serves as an embassy's chief of mission in the absence of the ambassado ...
'' in
Beijing } Beijing ( ; ; ), alternatively romanized as Peking ( ), is the capital of the People's Republic of China. It is the center of power and development of the country. Beijing is the world's most populous national capital city, with over 2 ...
after the 1962 Sino-Indian War and was India's ambassador to Indonesia. He was also ambassador and India's Permanent Representative in Geneva. Mishra's last posting was as India's permanent representative to the United Nations from June 1979 to April 1981. As permanent representative, he voiced India's position on the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan at the sixth emergency special session of the United Nations General Assembly, but his disagreement with that position was part of the reason why he resigned from IFS and joined the United Nations in 1981; serving as 6th
United Nations Commissioner for Namibia United Nations Commissioner for South West Africa was a post created by the United Nations General Assembly ( UNGA) in 1966 to assert the UN's direct responsibility for South West Africa which was then under illegal occupation by apartheid South A ...
from 1 April 1982 to 1 July 1987.


Principal secretary and National Security Advisor

In April 1991, Mishra joined the
Bharatiya Janata Party The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP; ; ) is a political party in India, and one of the two major Indian political parties alongside the Indian National Congress. Since 2014, it has been the ruling political party in India under Narendra Mod ...
and became head of its foreign policy cell. He resigned from the party in March 1998 on becoming the 9th
Principal Secretary to the Prime Minister of India The Principal Secretary to the Prime Minister of India (PS to the PM) is the senior-most bureaucrat in, and the administrative head of, the Prime Minister's Office. The officeholder is generally a civil servant, commonly from the Indian Adminis ...
. After Brajesh Mishra, the post of
principal secretary The Principal Secretary is a senior government official in various Commonwealth countries. * Principal Secretary to the Prime Minister of Pakistan * Principal Secretary to the President of Pakistan * Principal Secretary to the Prime Minister of Ind ...
became such a powerful one that it eclipsed the status of
cabinet ministers A cabinet is a body of high-ranking state officials, typically consisting of the executive branch's top leaders. Members of a cabinet are usually called cabinet ministers or secretaries. The function of a cabinet varies: in some countrie ...
. As Vajpayee's troubleshooter, he was one of the most powerful principal secretaries the PMO had ever seen. From November 1998 to 23 May 2004, he was also the first National Security Advisor and was instrumental in creating an institutional structure for national security management. His batch as an Indian Foreign Service officer was the same as the
Indian Administrative Service The Indian Administrative Service (IAS) is the administrative arm of the All India Services of Government of India. Considered the premier civil service of India, the IAS is one of the three arms of the All India Services along with the India ...
batch of
K. Subrahmanyam Krishnaswamy Subrahmanyam (19 January 1929 – 2 February 2011) was a prominent international strategic affairs analyst, journalist and former Indian civil servant. Considered a proponent of '' Realpolitik'', Subrahmanyam was an influential v ...
, widely considered as the doyen of India's strategic affairs community, and made him the first convener of the
National Security Advisory Board The National Security Council (NSC) (IAST: ''Rāṣṭrīya Surakṣā Pariṣad'') of India is an executive government agency tasked with advising the Prime Minister's Office on matters of national security and strategic interest. It was est ...
where they worked closely on many issues. He was the key motivator of foreign policy and principal spokesman on all major issues. And the opportunities for him were endless. From Pokhran-2 to Kashmir, and from Vajpayee's historic visit to Pakistan to engaging the United States in a strategic dialogue, he was behind a never-ending series of foreign policy and security manuever. He is stated to have played a major role in pushing and supporting the
Bhutan Bhutan (; dz, འབྲུག་ཡུལ་, Druk Yul ), officially the Kingdom of Bhutan,), is a landlocked country in South Asia. It is situated in the Eastern Himalayas, between China in the north and India in the south. A mountainou ...
to undertake
Operation All Clear Operation All Clear was a military operation conducted by Royal Bhutan Army forces against Assam separatist insurgent groups in the southern regions of Bhutan between 15 December 2003 and 3 January 2004. It was the first operation ever conducted ...
.


Final years and death

After demitting office, Mishra had initially expressed reservations against the Indo-US civilian nuclear deal. Following this, the then prime minister, Manmohan Singh briefed specially to address his concerns about the deal. However, support to nuclear deal was Mishra's last tribute to Vajpayee. Thereafter, Mishra extended his support and publicly endorsed the deal. This position of his was at variance with the
Bharatiya Janata Party The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP; ; ) is a political party in India, and one of the two major Indian political parties alongside the Indian National Congress. Since 2014, it has been the ruling political party in India under Narendra Mod ...
's, the party to which he once belonged to and in whose government he had been the National Security Advisor of the country, which was opposed to the deal. In 2011, he was awarded
Padma Vibhushan The Padma Vibhushan ("Lotus Decoration") is the second-highest civilian award of the Republic of India, after the Bharat Ratna. Instituted on 2 January 1954, the award is given for "exceptional and distinguished service". All persons without ...
(the second highest
civilian award This list of civil awards and decorations is a partial index to articles about notable civil awards and decorations. It excludes Law enforcement awards and honors and ecclesiastical decorations, which are covered by separate lists. See :Civil a ...
). Mishra died on 28 September 2012 at Fortis hospital, Vasant Kunj in New Delhi.


References


External links


Articles at Outlook India on Brajesh Mishra



Brajesh Mishra (1928–2012) – An Assessment by B Raman, Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India

Man who was ‘Bharat sarkar’ – Gopalkrishna Gandhi

Brajesh Mishra: India's First Intelligence Tsar
{{DEFAULTSORT:Mishra, Brajesh Vajpayee administration 2012 deaths Recipients of the Padma Vibhushan in civil service 1928 births Permanent Representatives of India to the United Nations Indian Foreign Service officers Madhya Pradesh politicians Bharatiya Janata Party politicians from Madhya Pradesh Principal Secretary to the Prime Minister of India