P. N. Haksar
P. N. Haksar | |
|---|---|
| Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission | |
| In office 4 January 1975 – 31 May 1977 | |
| Prime Minister | Indira Gandhi |
| 1st Principal Secretary to the Prime Minister of India | |
| In office 6 December 1971 – 28 February 1973 | |
| Prime Minister | Indira Gandhi |
| Preceded by | Office established |
| Succeeded by | V. Shankar |
| 2nd Secretary to the Prime Minister of India | |
| In office 1967 – 5 December 1971 | |
| Preceded by | Lakshmi Kant Jha |
| Succeeded by | Office temporarily abolished |
| Personal details | |
| Born | Parmeshwar Narayan Haksar September 4, 1913 Gujranwala, Punjab, British India (present-day Punjab, Pakistan) |
| Died | November 25, 1998 (aged 85) New Delhi, Delhi, India |
| Spouse | Urmila Sapru |
| Children | 2 |
Parmeshwar Narayan Haksar (4 September 1913 – 25 November 1998) was an Indian bureaucrat and diplomat, best known for his two-year stint as Prime Minister Indira Gandhi's principal secretary (1971–73). In that role, Haksar was the chief strategist and policy adviser behind Gandhi's early years and her establishment of strong authority in the 1970s. After this he was appointed deputy chairman of the Planning Commission and then the first-ever chancellor of New Delhi's Jawaharlal Nehru University.
An advocate of centralisation and socialism, he was a Kashmiri Pandit who became Gandhi's closest confidant in her inner coterie of bureaucrats, the so-called "Kashmiri mafia". Before this, Haksar was a diplomat of the Indian Foreign Service, who served as India's ambassador to Austria and Nigeria.