India's 1st financial minister?

R. K. Shanmukham Chetty
India means Independent India

R K Shanmukhan Chetty served as the finance minister in Jawaharlal Nehru's Cabinet between 1947-49. On November 26, 1947 Chetty presented the first budget of independent India. Actually, it was a review of the economy and no new taxes were proposed as the Budget day for 1948-49 was just 95 days away. Chetty resigned in 1949 due to differences with Pandit Nehru.

Liaquat Ali Khan (1946-1947) - before independence, later went on to become the first prime minister of Pakistan

govt website for finance ministers - http://finmin.nic.in/picture_gallery/ind...

The first Finance Minister

THE FORGOTTEN founder of an organisation that will start celebrating its diamond jubilee in the next few weeks has a significant first to his credit. I wonder how many younger than 70 will recall that Sir R. K. Shanmukham Chetty was the first Finance Minster of independent India. One of the few South Indians in Nehru's first Cabinet, the invitation to Sir Shanmukham followed the role he had played as India's representative of non-official opinion at the international monetary conference. The conference was held in July, 1944, and over 40 countries, deemed to be opponents of the Axis powers, met in Bretton Woods in the U.S. to discuss finance, trade and economics in the post-War world. Out of those deliberations were born the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank that same year. Celebrating its diamond jubilee in the same year as those two major international financial institutions is The Tamil Chamber of Commerce over whose founding Sir Shanmukham had presided shortly before he left for Bretton Woods. At a time when an Indian presence, leave alone a Tamil one, in industry and major commerce was minimal, Sir Shanmukham was far-seeing enough to realise that it wouldn't be too long in the future when that presence would be all-dominant, but the seeds of that growth needed to be sown even before the ruling power quit the scene. It was to prepare for that future that he felt a chamber was necessary for small businessmen to prepare themselves for the growth that would be theirs in the not-too-distant future.

Returning from Bretton Woods, Sir Shanmukham, however, was uncertain of what the future held. While seeing hope in the two institutions that would emerge from the conference, he was at the same time not too certain that the U.S. would help India in her march to freedom nor help a free India get on its feet when independence came. It was in this context that he felt organisations like the Tamil Chamber had a major role to play. Perceptive about what the world would look like after World War II,