Jagat Singh Mehta
Jagat Singh Mehta was an Indian politician and diplomat who was Foreign Secretary of India from 1976 to 1979. His daughter, known as Rani Vijay, is the wife of the Raja Sahib of Mahmudabad, son of Mohammad Ali Mohammad Khan, who was notoriously the chief financier of the Muslim League which led to the partition of India.
Jagat S. Mehta was born in 1922 to Mohan Singh Mehta, and was educated in England at Leighton Park School and then at Allahabad and Cambridge Universities. He served as a teacher in the Allahabad University and as an officer in the Indian Navy before joining the IFS. He had a meteoric rise when he and TAT Lodhi informed the government of British India of imminent mutiny in the Indian Navy which resulted in the trial and execution of naval officers, based on Mehta-Lodhi testimonies. Some officers were later found to be innocent and Mehta-Lodhi testimonies discovered to lack credibility.
A career diplomat from 1947 to 1980, he was Chargé d'affaires China and High Commissioner to Tanzania.
After Mrs Gandhi removed Mehta from the government, Mehta was rewarded by being made Associate at Harvard and Fellow at Woodrow Wilson Center, Washington, D.C., 1981. His publications include: Militarization in the Third World ; The March of Folly in Afghanistan ; and Negotiating for India.
Mehta received the Padma Bhushan award in 2002.
