V. K. Krishna Menon
Menon, c. 1950s
Union Minister for Defence
In office
17 April 1957 – 31 October 1962
Prime MinisterJawaharlal Nehru
Preceded byKailash Nath Katju
Succeeded byYashwantrao Chavan
Permanent Representative of India to the United Nations
In office
1952–1962
PresidentRajendra Prasad
Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan
Prime MinisterJawaharlal Nehru
Member of Parliament, Lok Sabha
In office
1957–1967
Preceded byVithal Balkrishna Gandhi
Succeeded byConstituency Abolished
ConstituencyMumbai North
In office
1971–1974
Preceded bySachindra Nath Maity
Succeeded byM. N. Govindan Nair
ConstituencyMidnapore (1969–71) Trivandrum (1971—74)
Member of Parliament, Rajya Sabha
In office
1956–1957
ConstituencyMadras State (1953–56)
Kerala (1956—57)
Indian High Commissioner to the United Kingdom
In office
1947–1952
Prime MinisterJawaharlal Nehru
Preceded byPosition established
Succeeded byB. G. Kher
Personal details
Born
Vengalil Krishna Kurup Krishna Menon

(1896-05-03)3 May 1896
Thalassery, Kannur district, Madras Presidency, British India (now in Kerala)
Died6 October 1974(1974-10-06) (aged 78)
Delhi, India
Political partyIndian National Congress
Other political
affiliations		India League and the Indian Independence Movement
Alma materPresidency College (BA)
Madras Law College
London School of Economics (BSc, MSc)
University College London (MA)
Middle Temple (Barrister-at-Law)
AwardsPadma Vibhushan (1954)
SourceParliament of India

Vengalil Krishnan Krishna Menon (3 May 1896 – 6 October 1974) was an Indian academic, politician, and statesman described as the second most powerful man in India[1][2] after the first Prime Minister of India, Jawaharlal Nehru, with whom he shared an intimate friendship.[3] Noted for his eloquence, brilliance and abrasive personality, Menon inspired adulation as well as angry detraction in both India and the West. To his supporters, he was an advocate of India in the face of Western imperialism, who "taught the white man his place".[4] To his Western detractors, he was "Nehru's evil genius".[5] US president Dwight Eisenhower characterised him as a "menace governed by an ambition to prove himself the master international manipulator and politician of the age", but Indian President K.R. Narayanan praised him as a great man.

Before, during, and after India's independence, until his political collapse in 1962, Menon stood at the forefront of India's foreign relations, acknowledged domestically and internationally as India's de facto foreign minister and foreign policy architect, and acted as Nehru's personal plenipotentiary, capable of speaking with Nehru's voice and authority.

Pre-1947, Menon led and represented the India League and broader Indian independence movement in London, advocating Indian independence before both the British parliament and public; towards the end of the 1940s, he became a dominant figure in Indo-British matters, even selecting the last British Viceroy of India, Earl Mountbatten of Burma, with whom he had long been friends.[6] In the words of The Tribune, "Few Indians have dominated global politics or aroused as much awe and antagonism as V. K. Krishna Menon, one of the prominent personalities of the 20th century. He dominated the international political arena, creating friends and enemies in equal numbers, he remains one of the foremost statesmen produced by India[7]

Post-independence, he was a central figure in early Cold War international diplomacy, facilitating resolutions in situations as diverse as the Suez Crisis, Korean War, invasion of Hungary, Cyprus, Indochina, Taiwan, and the Chinese capture of American airmen, all while publicly advocating the anti-colonial ethos of what he would eventually name the Non-Aligned Movement,[8][9] earning him such sobriquets in the West as "India's Rasputin" and "Mephistopheles in a Savile Row Suit", by those who feared the magnitude of his influence over Nehru and the Indian government, and his commitment to neutralism between the United States and Soviet Union. During his heyday, he served as High Commissioner to the United Kingdom, Ambassador to the United Nations, Minister without Portfolio, and Defense Minister.

Domestically, he wrote the first draft of the Preamble to the Constitution of India,[10][11] conceptualized and created the Constituent Assembly of India,[11] and worked closely with Nehru, Mountbatten, Sardar Patel, and V.P. Menon to work out the mechanics of Indian independence. Later, as Defence Minister, Menon created and accelerated India's domestic military-industrial complex and educational systems, establishing the Sainik Schools, the Defence Research and Development Organization, or DRDO, space agency INCOSPAR, later ISRO, and numerous other educational and research institutions, while accelerating and professionalizing the National Cadet Corps and similar entities. While blamed for India's unpreparedness in the 1962 Sino-Indian War, future Defence Minister and later President R. Venkataraman defended him as "best defense minister India ever had", on the grounds of his focus on developing a homegrown miltary industrial complex and full-stack educational system.

He led the overseas wing of the Indian independence movement, launching the India League in London, campaigning within the United Kingdom to win public support for Indian independence, and rallying the support of world powers such as the Soviet Union. He headed India's diplomatic missions to the United Kingdom and the United Nations, and distinguished himself in diplomatic matters including the Suez crisis. In 1957, Menon had set the record for the longest speech (8 hours) before the U.N. Security Council while defending India's rights to the disputed territory of Kashmir, in the process earning popularity and the name "Hero of Kashmir".

Returning to India, he was repeatedly elected to both houses of the Indian parliament from constituencies as varied as Mumbai, Bengal, and Trivandrum in his native state of Kerala. He served as a minister without portfolio and later as Minister of Defence, overseeing the modernization of the Indian military and development of the Indian military-industrial infrastructure, and spearheading the Indian annexation of Goa. He resigned in the wake of the Sino-Indian War, following allegations of India's military unpreparedness, but remained counselor to Nehru, member of parliament and elder statesman until his death.[12]

Early life and education

Menon was born into the aristocratic and matrilineal Nair Vengalil family at Thiruvangad Thalassery, later moving to Panniyankara in Kozhikode, Kerala, where the Vengalil tharavad maintained significant estates, including their sixteen-halled pathinarakettu seat. His family were Nairs of high standing, ennobled as Menons by the Zamorin of Calicut, and additionally as Nayanars by the Raja of Chirakkal, and Mannadiars by the Maharaja of Cochin. As non-matrilineal scions of the royal houses of Valluvanad and Kadathanad, they were further entitled to use honorifics like Thampi and Thampatti, but are not known to have ever done so.

Customarily, elite Nair heiresses would marry a Nambudiripad, Bhattathiripad, Akkathiripad, or other such younger sons of elite Nambudiri Brahmin manas, in ritual hypergamy, through the sambandham rite: Menon's grandfather, the Porlathiri Raja of Kadathanad, for example, was sired by a Nambudiripad, as were all Maharajas of Cochin and the Zamorin Rajas of Calicut, including Krishna Menon's uncle and brother-in-law, in conformance with tradition. Krishna Menon's immediate forebears, however, eschewed ritual marriage with Nambudiri Brahmans in favor of consolidating their kinship with peer janmimimars. Menon’s mother was the beloved daughter of Koothali Moopil Nair, one of Malabar’s preeminent landowners, with hereditary estates of over 47,000 acres (19,000 hectares), and also the granddaughter of the Dewan of Travancore, Dewan Peishkar Dalawa Raman Menon Mannadiyar, and great-granddaughter of the royal Mankada kovilakom of the Vallabha Vellattiri Raja of Valluvanad, in additional to being matrilineal heiress to the Vengalil estates.

While the Vengalil patrimony, compassing some 200,000 acres (81,000 hectares), exceeded that of any other janmi landowner in Malabar, and was enriched by land transfers from the Koothali and Kadathanad swaroopams as well as the Komath tharavad, Lakshmikutty's suitor, the noted jurist and High Court litigator Komath Krishna Kurup, exceeded even her in wealth. Kurup was the only son of the Porlathiri Raja Udayavarma of Kadathanadu, while his mother was heiress to the Komath tharavad, whose uncle and karanavan, Govindan Kurup, was reportedly a millionaire. Govindan Kurup built the ettukettu dynastic palace at Ayanzhery and the townhouse in Tellicherry that Krishna Menon would use as a young boy, as well as financing the modernized twelve-bedroom, 36,000sqft Panniyankara house that Krishna Menon's parents preferred to the nearby ancient and unremodeled 400-room Vengalil pathinarakettu.

The Vengalil revenues are unknown, but the northern branch at Kuttur alone identified itself as imperial taxpayer in its amsam and all adjoining amsams, enumerated some 5,000 tenants on local estates, and remitted 5,000 rupees in ritual tribute to the British Raj, while the Koothali Moopil Nair remitted 12,000 rupees on his 30,000-acre estates in Calicut taluk alone, and the Komath tharavad 3,000 rupees on its southern estates. (Contrast the Erambali and Manoth Adiyodi remittances of Rs. 1,200 apiece, the Thirumanganath, Talokodimatath Nedundangadi, Kolappurath, and Makkatha Vasudevan Nambudiri remittances of Rs. 1,000 apiece, the Kurangott Nair remittance of Rs. 700, and the Madampatil and Tondaiyith Koyithanari at Rs. 500 each, among other aristocratic tharavads of elite standing. Only the Ullanatha Koma Panikkar, Varikamanjeri Nambudiri, and Malappurath Paranambi, with annual remittances of 8,000, 10,000, and 10,500 rupees each, ranked among the Vengalil familial cluster financially.)

T.J.S. George estimated the value of the Kuttiyadi estate transferred by the Raja of Kadathanad to his son as a wedding gift as north of a million sterling in 1894; alternative estimates project four lakhs of rupees from the Vengalil holdings annually, or more than 30,000 pounds sterling per annum. Although not formally divided into competing thavazhis, the Calicut branch of the Vengalil dynasty nonetheless shared the name and general estates with the original northern branch, which supplied many influential karanavars - among them Vengalil Raman Nayar, and the celebrated literateur VK Nayanar, who represented the family during the Mappila Riots.

Kalyana Bhavanam - one of the Vengalil mansions

The wealth of the Vengalil dynasty reflected in part the acquisition of assets patrilineally, contrary to the tenets of Marumakkathayam. Krishna Kurup, for example, not only inherited the dynastic wealth of the Komath tharavad, but additionally vast estates from his royal father, who was not free to transmit his titles and the kovilakom properties, but otherwise made a point of disposing of his assets in his son's favor, including the forest estates of Kuttiyadi, while Menon's mother benefited from significant bequests of land made by her doting father from the Koothali swarupam, including tens of thousands of acres compassing villages and estates immediately north of the Kuttiyadi grant, which would later become the subject of litigation during the receivership and escheat of the Koothali swarupam following the demise of Lakshmikutty's father. In the 1950s, Krishna Menon is documented as having sought to purchase the few independently-owned pieces of land near the Kuttiyadi-Koothali estate, only to be countermanded by his sister, who was concerned about the threat of a communist government and land expropriation.

The hydroelectric dam at the forested Kuttiady estate

The Vengalil dynasty was, for all its iconoclasm, well-allied to other elites: in Krishna Menon's youth, his uncle was the reigning Zamorin 'Kuttunni' Manavikraman as the husband of a Vengalil wife, Lakshmikutty. Krishna Menon's sister Narayani Nethyaramma married 'Lalan', Rama Varma XIX, the last Maharaja of Cochin, while another sister, Padmavati Amma, married the heir of the Karumathil tharavad - son of the Valiya Thampuran of the reigning Kovilakom in the Zamorin’s royal house, and grandson and great-grandson of Kattayat Raman Menon and Kattayat Govinda Menon, the last hereditary Prime Ministers to the Zamorin. Padmavati Anna thus became sister-in-law to Kunhammaman Raja, later Zamorin, and also the Thirumulpad of Nilambur, Veerarayan. While the secular power of the Malabari royal houses waned, the monarchs retained symbolic, cultural, and religious power as well as substantial janmi estates, such as the 30,000-acre forest preserves of the Nilambur kovilakam, or the 60,000-90,000 acres of the Zamorin's extensive and ill-accounted holdings.

Although The Vengalils atypically disdained sambandham with Nambudiri Brahmins, there was no objection to their marrying with brilliant foreign Brahmins, whether Iyer, Deshastha, Iyengar, or even Kaul Pandits from Kashmir. Vengalil Janaki Amma's daughter married a Vadadesa Vadama Iyer Brahmin from Madras from the famed Calamur Viravalli family, son of Diwan Bahadur C.V. Viswanatha Sastri, justice of the High Court at Madras, nephew of Travancore Diwan and Advocate-General Sir C.P. Ramaswami Iyer, Diwan Bahadur Sir C. V. Kumaraswami Sastri of the High Court and Rowlatt Committee, and Shankaracharya Swami Sri Bharati Krishna Tirtha Maharaj, pontiff of the Govardhan Math and supreme authority with the other three Shankaracharyas of Smarta Hinduism. The groom was also grandson of the noted polyglot C. V. Runganada Sastri, and cousin to Law Minister C. R. Pattabhiraman, C.V. Ranganathan, joint foreign secretary, ambassador to the Soviet Union during perestroika, and later ambassador to China and to France, and also to Atomic Energy Commission and Atomic Energy Minister M.R. Srinivasan Iyengar. Their daughter would go on to marry a Kashmiri Pandit. Another daughter of V. Janaki Amma was courted by distant cousin General K.P. Candeth, grandson of dynast and sometime karanavar VK Nayanar, and who executed Krishna Menon's 1962 order to overrun and annex Portuguese Goa.

Marriages between Nair and (ordinarily Nambudiri) Brahmin households were standard enough under the traditional sambandham arrangements, but not where orchestrated with full Vedic rites, as Vengalil brides’ weddings customarily were; Nair marriages to high Brahmins (or sovereigns) on equal terms were alien to traditional Malayali society — which was nonetheless powerless to protest, where the Brahmin groom’s uncle was the legendary chief minister and regent of Travancore, as well as paramour of the Maharani herself, to say nothing of the extended family’s prominence in national affairs.

Menon had his early education at the Zamorin's College, Kozhikode. In 1918 he graduated from Presidency College, Chennai, with a B.A. in History and Economics.[13] While studying in the Madras Law College, he became involved in Theosophy and was actively associated with Annie Besant and the Home Rule Movement. He was a leading member of the "Brothers of Service", founded by Annie Besant who spotted his gifts and helped him travel to England in 1924.[13]

Life and activities in England

Menon studied at London School of Economics and was awarded Bachelor of Science in economics and Master of Science in economics from University of London. At London School of Economics, Harold Laski described him as the best student he had ever had.[14] Later he studied at University College London and in 1930, he was awarded an M.A. in Industrial Psychology with First Class Honours from University of London, for a thesis entitled An Experimental Study of the Mental Processes Involved in Reasoning, and in 1934 he was awarded an MSc in Political Science with First Class Honours from the London School of Economics, for a thesis entitled English Political Thought in the Seventeenth Century. He had continued to study law and was called to the bar at Middle Temple, also, in 1934, thus marking the end of his formal education at the age of 37.[13] As a newly minted barrister, Menon predominantly represented poor lascas pro bono, and, famously, Udham Singh, in his trial for the killing of Michael O'Dwyer in vengeance for the Amritsar Massacre.

During the 1930s, Menon worked as an editor for The Bodley Head and its Twentieth Century Library (1932-1935), for Selwyn & Blount and its Topical Books series, and then, from 1937, for Penguin Books and its founder Sir Allen Lane.[15][16][17][18] According to S. Muthiah, the idea for Penguin Books was Menon's. In his celebrated history of the old British port, Madras Miscellany, he writes:

.. he (Menon) dreamt of flooding the market with cheap paperback editions of quality titles. He discussed the idea with a colleague at Bodley Head and Allen Lane jumped at it. In 1935, they quit Bodley Head and with 100 Pounds capital, set up office in the crypt of St Pancras Borough Church. Thus was born Penguin Books.

Menon was the founding editor[19] of Penguin Books' non-fiction, educational series Pelican Books which grew into respected British institution with great political and cultural influence.

Political life in the UK

After joining the Labour Party he was elected borough councillor of St Pancras, London, in which context he befriended Edwina Mountbatten, millionaire wife of Lord Mountbatten. The subsequent patronage of the Mountbattens, in pre-war British society proved immensely useful for Menon,[20] who was able to consolidate friendships and political alliances with Labour potentates like future prime minister Clement Attlee, future Chancellor Sir Stafford Cripps, Aneurin Bevan, while gaining entry to the social circles of even George VI and the then-Queen Elizabeth. Additional intimates included as well as such political and intellectual figures as Bertrand Russell, J.B.S. Haldane, Michael Foot, E.M. Forster, and Queen Frederica of Greece. St. Pancras later conferred on him the Freedom of the Borough, the only other person so honoured being George Bernard Shaw. The Labour Party began preparations to nominate him as its candidate for the Dundee Parliamentary constituency in 1939 but that fell through because of his perceived connections with the Communist Party.[21] He resigned (or was expelled, according to other sources) from the Labour Party in protest but rejoined in 1944.[21][22]

India League and the independence movement

Menon became a proponent of India's independence, working as a journalist and as President of the India League from 1928 to 1947, and a close friend of fellow Indian nationalist leader and future Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, as well as such political and intellectual figures as Bertrand Russell, J.B.S. Haldane, Michael Foot, Aneurin Bevan, and E.M. Forster, whose A Passage to India he secured the publication of, according to Shashi Tharoor.[23] Menon's close relationship with Nehru would later be analogised by Sir Isaiah Berlin as like that of Ezra Pound and T.S. Eliot. In 1932 he inspired a fact-finding delegation headed by Labour MP Ellen Wilkinson to visit India, and edited its report entitled "Conditions in India", obtaining a preface from his friend Bertrand Russell. Menon also worked assiduously to ensure that Nehru would succeed Mahatma Gandhi as the moral leader and executive of the Indian independence movement, and to clear the way for Nehru's eventual accession as the first Prime Minister of an independent India. As Secretary, he built the India League into the most influential Indian lobby in the British Parliament, and actively turned British popular sentiment towards the cause of Indian independence.[24] India League meetings would take place in Indian restaurants and cafes, which were seen as hubs attracting British Indians. Notable meeting places include Ayub Ali's Shah Jalal Coffee House and Shah Abdul Majid Qureshi's India Centre.

He also took interest in the Colonial Seamen’s Association from which he met Chris Braithwaite and Surat Alley.

The origins of what would become the policy of non-alignment were evident in Menon's personal sympathies even in England, where he simultaneously condemned both Britain and Germany, although he did march several times in anti-Nazi demonstrations. When asked whether India would prefer to be ruled by the British or the Germans, Menon replied that "[one] might as well ask a fish if it prefers to be fried in butter or margarine".[25]

Roles in post-independence India

V.K. Krishna Menon (age 62) giving a luncheon in 1958 in honour of His Royal Highness Prince Norodom Sihanouk and Andrei Gromyko, Foreign Minister of the Soviet Union.

High Commissioner to the United Kingdom

After India gained independence in 1947, Menon was appointed High Commissioner of India to the United Kingdom, a post in which he remained until 1952. Menon's intense distrust of the West extended to the United Kingdom itself, and his frequent opposition to British political manoeuvres eventually led MI5 to deem him a "serious menace to security". From 1929 onwards Menon had been kept under surveillance, with a warrant to intercept his correspondence being issued in December 1933, identifying him as an "important worker in the Indian revolutionary movement".[26] Clandestine surveillance intensified following Menon's 1946 meeting in Paris with Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov, and Indian independence.[27] In 2007, hundreds of pages of MI5 files documenting their coverage of Menon were released, including transcripts of phone conversations and intercepted correspondences with other statesmen and Nehru himself.[28]

During his tenure as the high commissioner, Menon was accused of being involved in the Jeep scandal case of 1948, but the Government closed the case in 1955, ignoring suggestion by the Inquiry Committee.[29]

India's representative to the United Nations

1st Prime Minister of India Jawaharlal Nehru with V. K. Krishna Menon (age 60) in United Nations in December 1956.

In 1949, Menon accepted the command of the Indian delegation to the United Nations, a position he would hold until 1962. He earned a reputation for brilliance in the UN, frequently engineering refined solutions to complex international political issues, including a peace plan for Korea, a ceasefire in Indo-China, the deadlocked disarmament talks, and the French withdrawal from the UN over Algeria.[24]

Diplomacy and non-alignment

During this period, Menon was a spokesman for Nehru's foreign policy, dubbed non-alignment in 1952,[30] charting a third course between the US and the Soviet Union. Menon was particularly critical of the United States, and frequently expressed sympathies with Soviet policies, earning the ire of many Indians by voting against a UN resolution calling for the USSR to withdraw troops from Hungary,[31] although he reversed his stance three weeks later under pressure from New Delhi.[32]

China and the United Nations

Menon also supported the admission of China to the United Nations, which earned him the enmity of many American statesmen, including Senator William F. Knowland. In 1955, Menon intervened in the case of several American airmen who had been held by China, meeting with Chinese premier Zhou Enlai before flying to Washington to confer with and counsel American President Dwight Eisenhower and Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, at the request of British Prime Minister Anthony Eden.[33][34]

Nuclear disarmament

Menon was an opponent of nuclear weapons, and partnered with many in his quest against their proliferation. Throughout the 1950s, Menon liaised with Bertrand Russell, with whom he had previously collaborated in the India League.

Suez Crisis

During the Suez Crisis, Menon attempted to persuade a recalcitrant Gamal Nasser to compromise with the West, and was instrumental in moving Western powers towards an awareness that Nasser might prove willing to compromise.[35] During the emergency conference on Suez convened in London, Menon, invited by British Prime Minister Anthony Eden, offered a counterproposal to John Foster Dulles' plan for resolution, in which Egypt would be allowed to retain control of the Suez Canal. While originally known for his close alignment with the British Labour party and its Commonwealth analogues, by the 1950s world diplomats routinely referred to the 'Menon Cabal', comprising Eden, British foreign minister Selwyn Lloyd, Canadian foreign minister and future premier Lester Pearson, and Australian foreign minister and future governor-general Richard Casey, particularly to the fury of US Secretary of State Dean Acheson. Menon's proposal was initially estimated by US diplomats to have more support than the Dulles plan, and was widely viewed as an attempt to hybridise the Dulles plan with Egypt's claims. Ultimately, the Dulles plan passed, with Menon voting against, alongside Russia, Indonesia and Sri Lanka. Menon, however, markedly softened his opposition in the final hours, leaving only Soviet Foreign Minister Dmitri Shepilov in absolute contraposition.[36]

Speech on Kashmir

Why is that we have never heard voices in connection with the freedom of people under the suppression and tyranny of Pakistani authorities on the other side of the cease-fire line? Why is it that we have not heard here that in ten years these people have not seen a ballot paper? With what voice can either the Security Council or anyone coming before it demand a plebiscite for a people on our side who exercise franchise, who have freedom of speech, who function under a hundred local bodies?

-- Excerpt from Menon's marathon 1957 address to the United Nations Security Council, The Hindu.[37]

On 23 January 1957 Menon delivered an unprecedented eight-hour speech defending India's stand on Kashmir. To date, the speech is the longest ever delivered in the United Nations,[38] covering five hours of the 762nd meeting on 23 January, and two hours and forty-eight minutes on the 24th,[39] reportedly concluding with Menon's collapse on the Security Council floor.[31] Between the two parts, Menon collapsed from exhaustion and had to be hospitalized.[40] During the filibuster, Nehru went onto consolidate Indian power in Kashmir. Menon's defence of Indian sovereignty in Kashmir enlarged his base of support in India, and led to the Indian press temporarily dubbing him the "Hero of Kashmir".[41]

Minister of Defence

Krishna Menon became a member of the Rajya Sabha in 1953 from Madras. In 1956, he joined the Union Cabinet as Minister without Portfolio and was made Minister of Defence in April 1957, after winning the North Mumbai seat to the Lok Sabha. Menon was a high-profile figure than his predecessors, and brought with him a degree of governmental, public, and international attention that India's military had not previously known. He suspended the seniority system within the army, replacing it with a merit-based method of promotion, and restructured much of India's military command system, eventually leading to the resignation of the Chief of the Army Staff, General K.S. Thimayya.[42] Critics accused Menon of disregarding tradition in favour of personal caprice; Menon countered that he was seeking to improve the efficiency of the military.

Menon, in the face of intense opposition, also began the creation of a domestic military industrial complex to supply the Indian armed forces with weaponry and provisions.[43]

Annexation of Portuguese India

The annexation of Goa was closely linked with the 1961 elections to the Lok Sabha. With the race looming, Menon aggressively addressed the issue of Indian sovereignty over the Portuguese colony of Goa, in a partial reprise of his earlier defence of Indian Kashmir. In New York, Menon met US Ambassador and two-time presidential candidate Adlai Stevenson behind closed doors,[44] before meeting with President John F. Kennedy, who had expressed his reservations about Menon's anti-imperialism during the state visit of Jawaharlal Nehru. Menon lectured Kennedy on the importance of US-Soviet compromise, before returning to India. On 17 December 1961, Menon and the Indian Army overran Goa, leading to widespread Western condemnation. In his typical style, Menon dismissed the admonishments of Kennedy and Stevenson as "vestige(s) of Western imperialism". Menon's spearheading of the Indian annexation of Goa had subtle ramifications throughout Asia, as in the case of Indonesian president Sukarno, who refrained from invading the Portuguese colony of East Timor partially from fear of being compared to Menon.[45] The invasion also spawned a complex mass of legal issues relating to differences between eastern and western interpretations of United Nations law and jurisdiction.[46]

The Sino-Indian War

In 1962 China attacked India, leading to the brief Sino-Indian War, and a temporary reversal in India's non-aligned foreign policy. Menon was criticised both inside and outside parliament for ineffectiveness and poorly handling of defence matters. The Indian government's analysis, the Henderson Brooks–Bhagat Report remains classified. Some suggest that aspiring to become a world leader, Menon undermined the intelligence reports dating back to 1955 about Chinese preparations to defend its land claim on disputed areas. A chagrined Menon was responsible for India's lack of military readiness and was forced to tender his resignation on 31 October 1962 as Minister of Defence in spite of Nehru protecting him by first making him Minister of Defence Production and then minister without portfolio.[47][48]

Although Menon's role in the development of India's military infrastructure was initially overshadowed by India's unpreparedness in the Sino-Indian War, later analysis and scholarship has increasingly focused on the importance of Menon's vision and foresight in military development, with political figures as varied as President and Minister of Defence R. Venkataraman and Justice V.R. Krishna Iyer of the Supreme Court of India analysing and defending Menon's role in India's rise as a military power.[49][50]

Elections

Rajya Sabha

Menon was elected to the Rajya Sabha in 1953 from Madras which subsequently became a seat from Kerala following the States Reorganisation Act of 1956.

1957

In 1957, Menon sought a seat in the Lok Sabha, contesting a constituency from North Mumbai. Admired for his defence of India's sovereignty in Kashmir on the world stage, Menon was met with rapturous receptions on the campaign trail, and ultimately won in a straight contest against PSP candidate Alvares Peter Augustus by 47,741 votes (171,708 to 123,967).

We visited countless villages, and everywhere it was the same thing. Huge crowds surged forward, blocking the streets, while Menon was drowned by the surrounding uproar, his umbrella knocked away by the ceaseless bombardment of flowers and bouquets. He insisted, in spite of the heat of the day, the dust and the exhaustion, on fulfilling his programme.

-- Eyewitness account of Menon's 1957 campaign, The Hindu.[51]

1961

Menon was frequently vilified in the Western press, which often described or depicted him as a "snake-charmer", as in TIME magazine's 1962 cover portrait.[52]

In October 1961, Menon, the sitting Defence Minister, was challenged by the 74-year-old Acharya Kripalani, a previous president of the Indian National Congress and close associate of the deceased Mohandas Gandhi. The race soon became the highest-profile in India, with the Sunday Standard remarking that "no political campaign in India has ever been so bitter or so remarkable for the nuances it produced". The race, which witnessed the direct intervention of Jawaharlal Nehru, was widely viewed as of tremendous importance due to the personas and influence of the two candidates, who were seen as avatars for two distinct ideologies.[1] Having previously endorsed Menon's foreign policies, Kripalani relentlessly attacked Menon's persona, seeking to avoid direct confrontation with the prestige of Nehru and the Congress Party. Ultimately, Menon won in a landslide, nearly doubling the vote total of Kripalani, and winning outright majorities in all six of North Mumbai's districts. The electoral results established Menon as second only to Nehru in Indian politics.[53]

1967

By 1967, Menon had lost his public image after India's debacle in the 1962 war with China. However, he still wanted to contest elections and be a member of parliament. He was denied a seat from Mumbai by the Congress on the grounds that he was a non-Maharashtrian. This followed the surge in popularity for the Shiv Sena, with its sons-of-the-soil agenda. He was not offered a seat anywhere else in the country either. Menon resigned from the Congress and stood for elections as an independent candidate from the North East Mumbai constituency, of which he was the sitting member of parliament. He lost to the Congress candidate, Mr. S.G. Barve, a retired ICS officer, by a margin of 13,169 votes. Mr. Barve died later that year, and his sister, Mrs. Tara Sapre, contested the by-election which ensued as the Congress candidate. Menon again stood as an independent, and lost to Mrs. Tara Sapre by a wider margin than had been the case with her brother.[54][55][56]

1969

In 1969, Menon contested a seat in the Lok Sabha from the Bengal constituency of Midnapore, running as an independent in a by-election, and defeating his Congress rival by a margin of 106,767 votes in May of that year.[57]

1971

Krishna Menon Museum, Kozhikode, where original oil portraits of Menon, as well as personal belongings, letters, news clips, and other materials related to Menon, are kept for public display.

In 1971, Menon contested as an independent candidate and was elected to the Lok Sabha from Trivandrum, in his home state of Kerala.

Controversies

Evaluations

Menon was an controversial figure during his life, and has remained so even well after his death. Widely described as brilliant[58] and arrogant,[31][59] he was known for the force of his personality, and for his wit as an orator. In response to US Secretary of State John Foster Dulles' assertion that US weapons supplied to Pakistan were intended solely for defence against a Soviet invasion, Menon snapped that "the world has yet to see an American gun that can only shoot in one direction", and that "I am yet to come across a vegetarian tiger". In London, Menon responded to novelist Brigid Brophy's surprise at the quality of his English with the retort: "my English is better than yours. You merely picked it up: I learnt it." When criticised for the Rolls-Royces he kept as official vehicles, he replied, "I can scarcely hire a bullock-cart to call on 10 Downing Street".[60]

No. 9 Kensington Palace Gardens - the townhouse Menon purchased for the formal residence of the Indian High Commissioner, though he deliberately declined to personally inhabit it.

Menon preferred to use London's double-decker buses whenever possible,[61] underscoring the contrast between his public appearance as a statesman and his personal asceticism. Indian President R. Venkataraman would later describe him as "the very epitome of a representative of the (...) Indian State, personally abstemious but at the same time uncompromising in maintaining the prestige of his high office."[62]

Privately, his Indian colleagues had a mixed view. Foreign Secretary Subimal Dutt commented that Menon, "did not always measure his words" . Another Indian diplomat, C. S. Jha, said that Menon was "an outstanding world statesman but the world's worst diplomat", adding that "his lack of diplomatic finesse and the abrasive manner in which he projected and expounded India's views needlessly caused offense and did India's and Nehru's image much harm", adding that Menon had an "acid tongue" and was often "overbearing, churlish and vindictive". Ambassador to Moscow, K. P. S. Menon said he was "insufferable".[63]

Menon was widely reviled by Western statesmen who loathed his arrogance, outspokenness, and fiercely anti-Western stances. American President Dwight D. Eisenhower considered the outwardly courteous Menon a "menace ... governed by ambition to prove himself the master international manipulator and politician of the age". Western publications routinely referred to him as "India's Rasputin" or "Nehru's Evil Genius".[64][65]

Intellectual Reputation

Whether by his supporters or critics, Menon was acknowledged for possessing preternatural intellectual abilities. As a young student, his tutor, Harold Laski, described him as the "best" and "brilliant" student he had ever had, and he only one from whom he had ever learnt anything, while his thesis supervisor, the legendary statistician Charles Spearman, in reviewing his work with C.E. Beeby, judged that "by virtue of intense intellectual study, together with great natural capacity, he appears to have acquired an unusually thorough mastery of psychological science. Furthermore he has shown a very exceptional power both for original investogation and also for exposition.... He has, I believe, a distinguished career before him."Alcorn, N. (1999). To the Fullest Extent of His Powers: C.E. Beeby's Life in Education. New Zealand: Victoria University Press. Another supervisor, John Flugel, predicted that when published Menon's dissertation "would (render him) one of the young and brilliant psychologists of this century."V.K. Krishna Menon, Man of the Century. (2000). India: B.R. Publishing Corporation. Bertrand Russell remarked that Menon was "a particularly brilliant young man', an exceptionally gifted and experienced speaker and 'typically representative' of the advanced thought of modernity."

P.N. Haksar attested to the "vastness of his intellectual perception".[66] “From a purely intellectual point of view, I cannot remember having met any person with a keener intellect”, commented Nehru in 1951.[66] Shashi Tharoor, while noting his intolerance of those intellectually inferior to him and habitual rudeness, nonetheless highlighted his "brilliance and intellectual stamina' and mastery "of the extensive discourse on world affairs, human history and international politics that Menon so magisterially managed." Swedish Ambassador Alva Myrdal attributed Menon's hold over Nehru to Menon's brilliance and for being the "only genuinely intellectual foil Nehru had in his government, with whom he could discuss Marx and Mill, Dickens and Dostoevsky.[67]

Jeep scandal

The jeep scandal case in 1948 was the first major corruption case in independent India. Menon, then Indian high commissioner to Britain, ignored protocols and signed a Rs 8 million contract for the purchase of army jeeps with a foreign firm.[68][69]

Blue plaque erected in 2013 by English Heritage at 30 Langdon Park Road, Highgate, London N6 5QG, London Borough of Haringey
V.K. KRISHNA MENON 1896–1974 Campaigner for Indian Independence lived here
Blue plaque erected in 2013 by English Heritage at 30 Langdon Park Road, Highgate, London N6 5QG, London Borough of Haringey.

Personal life

In private, Menon abstained from tobacco, alcohol and meat,[25] often fasting for days, and forwent his luxury townhouse in Kensington Palace Gardens in favour of a single room in the Indian High Commission during his official tenure in London. As high commissioner, Menon drew only the token salary of one rupee per month,[70] later refusing a salary outright.[61] Menon dressed publicly in bespoke suits, earning him the epithet "Mephistopheles in a Savile Row suit".[52]

Death

Menon died at the age of 78 on 6 October 1974, whereupon Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi remarked that "a volcano is extinct". At a 1984 memorial lecture for Menon, K. R. Narayanan extolled that "India has been fortunate to have had not only a glorious heritage of culture and civilisation but a succession of great men from the Buddha to Gandhi, from Ashoka to Nehru, from Kautilya to Menon."[71]

Commemoration

The V. K. Krishna Menon Institute was established in 2006 to commemorate and facilitate the life, times and achievements of Menon. One of the Institute's objectives include awarding people from India and diaspora from Asia for their significant accomplishments in the fields of science, literature, economics, politics, diplomacy and human rights.[72]

A blue plaque commemorating Menon was placed at 30 Langdon Park Road, in Highgate, London by English Heritage in 2013.[73]

References

  1. 1 2 "The 1962 Election in North Bombay" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 18 March 2012.
  2. ↑ Fuller, C. J. (30 December 1976). The Nayars today – Christopher John Fuller – Google Books. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9780521290913. Retrieved 11 July 2012.
  3. ↑ Michael Brecher, and Janice Gross Stein, eds., India and world politics: Krishna Menon's view of the world (Praeger, 1968).
  4. ↑ Vasant Nevrekar: Krishna Menon Archived 3 September 2014 at the Wayback Machine. Colaco.net.
  5. ↑ 'Nehru's Evil Genius' | Sunil Khilnani. Outlookindia.com.
  6. ↑ Ramesh, J. (2019). Chequered Brilliance. India: Penguin Books India PVT, Limited.
  7. ↑ The Tribune: The enchanting life of Krishna Menon, ideological companion of Nehru
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  11. 1 2 "The Many Lives of V.K. Krishna Menon". Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
  12. ↑ Brecher, and Stein, eds., India and world politics: Krishna Menon's view of the world (1968).
  13. 1 2 3 "Krishna Menon". open.ac.uk. Open University. 11 July 2017.
  14. ↑ "Was Krishna Menon A Sick Man ..." Asian Tribune. Archived from the original on 19 April 2012. Retrieved 11 July 2012.
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  20. ↑ 'A Serious Menace to Security’: British Intelligence, V. K. Krishna Menon and the Indian High Commission in London, 1947–52 Paul M. McGarr
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  52. 1 2 Magazine / Columns : An unusual life. The Hindu (29 April 2007).
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  61. 1 2 "Sarasota Journal – Google News Archive Search". news.google.com.
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Bibliography

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