Navtej Sarna (born 1957) is a retired Indian diplomat and an author. In a career of nearly four decades in the Indian Foreign Service he was the longest-serving spokesperson of the Ministry of External Affairs, Ambassador to Israel, High Commissioner to the United Kingdom and Ambassador to the United States. He has written novels, short stories, travel writing and history, including The Exile, about the last Sikh maharaja, and Crimson Spring, about the Jallianwala Bagh massacre.
Quick Facts
| Full name | Navtej Singh Sarna |
| Born | 1957, Jalandhar, Punjab, India |
| Occupation | Diplomat, author |
| Service | Indian Foreign Service (1980–2018) |
| Posts | Foreign ministry spokesperson (2002–2008); Ambassador to Israel (2008–2012); High Commissioner to the UK (2016); Ambassador to the United States (2016–2018) |
| Education | Shri Ram College of Commerce, Delhi; University of Delhi (LL.B.) |
| Father | Mohinder Singh Sarna (Punjabi writer) |
| Spouse | Avina Sarna |
| Children | 2 |
Early Life
Sarna was born in Jalandhar into a literary family. His father, Mohinder Singh Sarna, was a noted Punjabi novelist and short-story writer, and his mother, Surjit Sarna, was a poet and translator. He grew up in Dehradun and Delhi, studied commerce and law at the University of Delhi and joined the Indian Foreign Service in 1980.
Diplomatic Career
His early postings were in Moscow, Warsaw, Thimphu, Geneva, Tehran and Washington. As spokesperson of the Ministry of External Affairs from 2002 to 2008 he served under two Prime Ministers and three foreign ministers, through the peace process with Pakistan and the nuclear deal with the United States. He was Ambassador to Israel for four years, then held senior posts in Delhi, was briefly High Commissioner in London in 2016 and went to Washington as Ambassador in November 2016, at the start of Donald Trump’s first presidency. He retired at the end of 2018.
Writer
His first novel, We Weren’t Lovers Like That, appeared in 2003. The Exile (2008) tells the story of Duleep Singh, the boy-king of Punjab who was deposed by the British and brought up in England. Indians at Herod’s Gate (2014) explores an eight-hundred-year-old Indian hospice in Jerusalem. Crimson Spring (2022), a novel built around the events at Amritsar in April 1919, was widely praised. He has translated his father’s short stories and Guru Gobind Singh’s Zafarnama into English and writes a literary column.
Selected Books
Frequently Asked Questions
When was Navtej Sarna born?
Navtej Sarna was born in 1957, Jalandhar, Punjab, India.
What is Navtej Sarna’s occupation?
Occupation: Diplomat, author.
Featured image: Navtej Sarna at the Jaipur Literature Festival, 2025. Photo by Sriya Sarkar, licensed under CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
