When Gandhis meted out unfair treatment towards S Jaishankar's father K Subrahmanyam

"In 1980, he was Secretary, Defence Production. In 1980 when Indira Gandhi was re-elected, he was the first Secretary that she removed. And he was the most knowledgeable person everybody would say on defence," EAM said.

External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar has revealed an interesting piece of information about Gandhis' dislike towards his father late K Subrahmanyam, who is considered a doyen of India's strategic affairs community.

After the collapse of the Janata Party and Indira Gandhi returned to power with a bang, she fired KK Subrahmanyam from the secretaryship of Defence Production. Years later, Rajiv Gandhi overlooked him and made his junior a Cabinet Secretary.

"I wanted to be the best foreign service officer. And to my mind, the definition of the best that you could do was to end up as a foreign secretary. In our household, there was also, I won't call it pressure, but we were all conscious of the fact that my father, who was a bureaucrat, had become a Secretary but he was removed from his secretaryship. He became, at that time, probably the youngest Secretary in the Janata government in 1979," Jaishankar recalled in the interview.

"In 1980, he was Secretary, Defence Production. In 1980 when Indira Gandhi was re-elected, he was the first Secretary that she removed. And he was the most knowledgeable person everybody would say on defence," he added.

Subrahmanyam's distinguished career in public service spanned many decades as a civil servant who maintained the highest traditions of the bureaucracy through his honesty, dedication and exceptional abilities. He made important and lasting contributions to the evolution of India's defence, security and foreign policies. His work outside the Government was perhaps even more impressive and he spearheaded and developed the field of defence studies in the country. His long stints as head of the Institute of Defence Studies and Analysis established it as one of the premier think tanks in the field.

He also wrote seminal works on an array of subjects covering our nuclear posture, India-Pakistan relations, intelligence matters, disarmament and issues of regional and global strategic importance. His work as head of the Kargil Review Committee was widely recognized both inside the government and outside it.

S Jaishankar said his father was also a very upright person, "may be that caused the problem, I don't know". "But the fact was that as a person he saw his own career in bureaucracy, actually kind of stalled. And after that, he never became a Secretary again. He was superseded during the Rajiv Gandhi period for somebody junior to him who became a cabinet secretary. It was something he felt...we rarely spoke about it. So he was very, very proud when my elder brother became secretary," Dr Jaishankar added.

The External Affairs Minister said he became a Secretary to the government after his father passed away. "He passed away in 2011, at that time, I had got what you would call Grade 1 which is like a secretary ....like an ambassador. I did not become secretary, I became that after he passed away. For us, at that time the goal was to become secretary. As I said I had achieved that goal. In 2018, I was kind of very happy to walk away into the sunset...but, I ended up walking not into the sunset but into Tata Sons! I was contributing my fair bit there. I liked them, I think they liked me. Then completely as a bolt out of the blue, the political opportunity came. Now the political opportunity for me was something I needed to think about because I was simply not prepared for it....So I did reflect on it briefly...," said Jaishankar.

Today, S Jaishankar is considered one of the top-performing ministers in the Modi cabinet and is hailed for his skilful diplomacy, tough negotiating tactics and strategic vision. He has played a major role in shaping India's foreign policy.