[2] P. C. Alexander was born to an aristocratic Malankara Orthodox Christian Padinjarethalakal family on 20 March 1921 to P. J. Cherian and Mariamma.

[1] Alexander started his career as a civil servant in 1949, entering the IAS on 15 October of that year as an emergency recruited officer.

Alexander was the principal secretary to Indira Gandhi and virtually served as her shadow and policy adviser for the years after her return to power in January 1980.

On 18 January 1985, he resigned as the principal secretary to the Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi owing to the Coomar Narain spy scandal wherein his private secretary TN Kher, personal assistant Malhotra among others was implicated as supplying top secret defense and security documents Coomar Narain who was a Bombay based businessman with the Maneklal group of industries which was involved in government military contracts.

[5] Coomar Narain's sources were tactically placed within various Indian government agencies and was unveiled when the Intelligence Bureau started the surveillance of numerous civil servants and diplomats.