The Minister of External Affairs (or simply, the Foreign Minister 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 -- although during Nehru's premiership V. K. Krishna Menon was acknowledged as de facto Foreign Minister beyond his official designation as Defence Minister. 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.

Note: ^† Died or assassinated in office

More information No., Portrait ...

No.	Portrait		Minister (Birth-Death)	Term of office			Political party	Ministry	Prime Minister
				From	To	Period
Minister of External Affairs and Commonwealth Relations
1			Jawaharlal Nehru (1889–1964) MCA for United Provinces (Prime Minister)	15 August 1947	26 January 1950	2 years, 164 days	Indian National Congress	Nehru I	Self
Minister of External Affairs
(1)			Jawaharlal Nehru (1889–1964) MCA for United Provinces (till 1952) MP for Phulpur (from 1952) (Prime Minister)	26 January 1950	27 May 1964[†]	14 years, 122 days	Indian National Congress	Nehru I	Self
								Nehru II
								Nehru III
								Nehru IV
2			Gulzarilal Nanda (1898–1998) MP for Sabarkantha (Acting Prime Minister)	27 May 1964	9 June 1964	13 days		Nanda I	Self
3			Lal Bahadur Shastri (1904–1966) MP for Allahabad (Prime Minister)	9 June 1964	17 July 1964	38 days		Shastri	Lal Bahadur Shastri
4			Swaran Singh (1907–1994) MP for Jullundur	17 July 1964	11 January 1966	2 years, 120 days
				11 January 1966	24 January 1966			Nanda II	Gulzarilal Nanda (Acting)
				24 January 1966	14 November 1966			Indira I	Indira Gandhi
5			M. C. Chagla (1900–1981) Rajya Sabha MP for Maharashtra	14 November 1966	13 March 1967	295 days
				13 March 1967	5 September 1967			Indira II
6			Indira Gandhi (1917–1984) MP for Rae Bareli (Prime Minister)	6 September 1967	13 February 1969	1 year, 160 days
7			Dinesh Singh (1925–1995) MP for Pratapgarh	14 February 1969	27 June 1970	1 year, 133 days	Indian National Congress (R)
(4)			Swaran Singh (1907–1994) MP for Jullundur	27 June 1970	18 March 1971	4 years, 105 days
				18 March 1971	10 October 1974			Indira III
8			Yashwantrao Chavan (1913–1984) MP for Satara	10 October 1974	24 March 1977	2 years, 165 days
9			Atal Bihari Vajpayee (1924–2018) MP for New Delhi	26 March 1977	28 July 1979	2 years, 124 days	Janata Party	Desai	Morarji Desai
10			Shyam Nandan Prasad Mishra (1920–2004) MP for Begusarai	28 July 1979	14 January 1980	170 days	Janata Party (Secular)	Charan Singh	Charan Singh
11			P. V. Narasimha Rao (1921–2004) MP for Hanamkonda	14 January 1980	19 July 1984	4 years, 187 days	Indian National Congress (I)	Indira IV	Indira Gandhi
(6)			Indira Gandhi (1917–1984) MP for Medak (Prime Minister)	19 July 1984	31 October 1984†	104 days
12			Rajiv Gandhi (1944–1991) MP for Amethi (Prime Minister)	31 October 1984	31 December 1984	328 days		Rajiv I	Rajiv Gandhi
				31 December 1984	24 September 1985			Rajiv
13			Bali Ram Bhagat (1922–2011) MP for Arrah	24 September 1985	12 May 1986	230 days
14			P. Shiv Shankar (1929–2017) Rajya Sabha MP for Gujarat	12 May 1986	22 October 1986	163 days
15			N. D. Tiwari (1925–2018) Rajya Sabha MP for Uttar Pradesh	22 October 1986	25 July 1987	276 days
(12)			Rajiv Gandhi (1944–1991) MP for Amethi (Prime Minister)	25 July 1987	25 June 1988	336 days
(11)			P. V. Narasimha Rao (1921–2004) MP for Ramtek	25 June 1988	2 December 1989	1 year, 160 days
16			V. P. Singh (1931–2008) MP for Fatehpur (Prime Minister)	2 December 1989	5 December 1989	3 days	Janata Dal	Vishwanath	V. P. Singh
17			Inder Kumar Gujral (1919–2012) MP for Jalandhar	5 December 1989	10 November 1990	340 days
18			Chandra Shekhar (1927–2007) MP for Ballia (Prime Minister)	10 November 1990	21 November 1990	11 days	Samajwadi Janata Party (Rashtriya)	Chandra Shekhar	Chandra Shekhar
19			Vidya Charan Shukla (1929–2013) MP for Mahasamund	21 November 1990	20 February 1991	91 days
(18)			Chandra Shekhar (1927–2007) MP for Ballia (Prime Minister)	20 February 1991	21 June 1991	121 days
20			Madhavsinh Solanki (1927–2021) Rajya Sabha MP for Gujarat	21 June 1991	31 March 1992	284 days	Indian National Congress (I)	Rao	P. V. Narasimha Rao
11			P. V. Narasimha Rao (1921–2004) MP for Nandyal (Prime Minister)	31 March 1992	18 January 1993	293 days
(7)			Dinesh Singh (1925–1995) Rajya Sabha MP for Uttar Pradesh	18 January 1993	10 February 1995	2 years, 23 days
21			Pranab Mukherjee (1935–2020) Rajya MP for West Bengal	10 February 1995	16 May 1996	1 year, 96 days
(9)			Atal Bihari Vajpayee (1924–2018) MP for Lucknow (Prime Minister)	16 May 1996	21 May 1996	5 days	Bharatiya Janata Party	Vajpayee I	Atal Bihari Vajpayee
22			Sikander Bakht (1918–2004) Rajya Sabha MP for Madhya Pradesh	21 May 1996	1 June 1996	11 days
(17)			Inder Kumar Gujral (1919–2012) Rajya Sabha MP for Bihar (Prime Minister from 21 April 1997)	1 June 1996	21 April 1997	1 year, 290 days	Janata Dal	Deve Gowda	H. D. Deve Gowda
				21 April 1997	18 March 1998			Gujral	Self
(9)			Atal Bihari Vajpayee (1924–2018) MP for Lucknow (Prime Minister)	19 March 1998	5 December 1998	261 days	Bharatiya Janata Party	Vajpayee II	Atal Bihari Vajpayee
23			Jaswant Singh (1938–2020) Rajya Sabha MP for Rajasthan	5 December 1998	13 October 1999	3 years, 208 days
				13 October 1999	1 July 2002			Vajpayee III
24			Yashwant Sinha (born 1937) MP for Hazaribagh	1 July 2002	22 May 2004	1 year, 326 days
25			K. Natwar Singh (born 1929) Rajya Sabha MP for Rajasthan	23 May 2004	6 November 2005	1 year, 167 days	Indian National Congress	Manmohan I	Manmohan Singh
26			Manmohan Singh (born 1932) Rajya Sabha MP for Assam (Prime Minister)	6 November 2005	24 October 2006	352 days
(21)			Pranab Mukherjee (1935–2020) MP for Jangipur	24 October 2006	22 May 2009	2 years, 210 days
27			S. M. Krishna (born 1932) Rajya Sabha MP for Karnataka	23 May 2009	28 October 2012	3 years, 158 days		Manmohan II
28			Salman Khurshid (born 1953) MP for Farrukhabad	28 October 2012	26 May 2014	1 year, 210 days
29			Sushma Swaraj (1952–2019) MP for Vidisha	26 May 2014	30 May 2019	5 years, 4 days	Bharatiya Janata Party	Modi I	Narendra Modi
30			S. Jaishankar (born 1955) Rajya Sabha MP for Gujarat	31 May 2019	Incumbent	4 years, 324 days		Modi II

Close

• Indian Foreign Secretary
• S Jaishankar