Vengalil Krishnan Krishna Menon (3 May 1896 – 6 October 1974) was an Indian academic, politician, and statesman.[1][2] During his tenure, Menon led India's foreign relations as de facto foreign minister and foreign policy architect, and acted as Nehru's personal diplomat.
Pre-1947, Menon represented the India League and Indian independence movement in London, towards the end of the 1940s, he presided Indo-British matters and selected the last British Viceroy of India, Earl Mountbatten of Burma.[3]
Post-independence, in early Cold War he facilitated international diplomacy, resolutions in situations such as the Suez Crisis, Korean War, invasion of Hungary, Cyprus, Indochina, Taiwan, and the Chinese capture of American airmen, while supporting the anti-colonial ethos of what he would eventually name the Non-Aligned Movement.[4][5] During his time, he served as High Commissioner to the United Kingdom, Ambassador to the United Nations, Minister without portfolio, and Defense minister.
He wrote the first draft of the Preamble to the Constitution of India,[6][7] created the Constituent Assembly of India,[7] and worked with Nehru, Mountbatten, Sardar Patel, and V.P. Menon to work out the mechanics of Indian independence. Returning to India, he was elected to both houses of the Indian parliament from constituencies such as Mumbai, Bengal, and Trivandrum in his native state of Kerala.
Menon was born into an aristocratic and matrilineal Nair Vengalil family at Thiruvangad Thalassery, later moving to Panniyankara in Kozhikode, Kerala, where the Vengalil Tharavad maintained estates, including their sixteen-halled pathinarakettu seat. His family were Nairs, also known as Menons by the Zamorin of Calicut, and as Nayanars by the Raja of Chirakkal, and Mannadiars by the Maharaja of Cochin.
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.[8] While studying in the Madras Law College, he was involved in Theosophy and was associated with Annie Besant and the Home Rule Movement. He was a member of the "Brothers of Service", founded by Annie Besant who helped him travel to England in 1924.[8]
Menon studied at London School of Economics, securing Bachelor of Science in economics and Master of Science in economics from University of London. 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. In 1934, he secured a MSc in Political Science with first class honours from the London School of Economics, for a thesis titled English Political Thought in the Seventeenth Century.
In 1934, he continued to study law and was called to the bar at Middle Temple, marking the end of his formal education at the age of 37.[8] As a barrister, Menon represented poor lascas pro bono, and, 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.[9][10][11][12] Menon was the editor of the educational series Pelican Books since its inception.[13]
After joining the Labour Party he was elected borough councillor of St Pancras, London, in which context he befriended Edwina Mountbatten, wife of Lord Mountbatten. Due to the patronage of the Mountbattens, in the pre-war British society,[14] Menon was able to consolidate political alliances with Labour potentates like Clement Attlee (future prime minister), Sir Stafford Cripps (future chancellor) and Aneurin Bevan, while gaining entry to the social circles of George VI and the then-Queen Elizabeth. Additional intimates included, political and intellectual figures such as Bertrand Russell, J.B.S. Haldane, Michael Foot, E.M. Forster, and Queen Frederica of Greece. St. Pancras, later gave him the "Freedom of the Borough", the other person having received this, was George Bernard Shaw. In 1939, the Labour Party began preparations to nominate him as its candidate for the Dundee Parliamentary constituency but that fell through because of his perceived connections with the Communist Party.[15] He resigned (or was expelled, according to other sources) from the Labour Party in protest but rejoined in 1944.[15][16]
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See also: India League |
Menon worked as a journalist and as president of the India League from 1928 to 1947. Menon's relationship with Nehru was later comparable to Sir Isaiah Berlin, like that of Ezra Pound and T.S. Eliot. In 1932, he led a delegation by Labour MP Ellen Wilkinson to visit India, and edited its report titled "Conditions in India", obtaining a preface from Bertrand Russell. Menon also worked to ensure that Nehru would succeed Mahatma Gandhi as the moral leader and executive of the Indian independence movement, and to support Nehru's accession as the first Prime Minister of an independent India. As Secretary, he built the India League into the Indian lobby in the British Parliament, and turned British sentiment towards the cause of Indian independence.[17]
He also took interest in the Colonial Seamen's Association from which he met Chris Braithwaite and Surat Alley.The origins of the policy of non-alignment were evident in Menon, where he condemned Britain and Germany, although he marched 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".[18]
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 distrust of the West extended to the United Kingdom, and his opposition to British political manoeuvres 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".[19] Clandestine surveillance intensified following Menon's 1946 meeting in Paris with Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov, and Indian independence.[20] 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.[21]
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.[22]
In 1949, Menon accepted the command of the Indian delegation to the United Nations, a position he held until 1962. He headed India's diplomatic missions to the United Kingdom and the United Nations, and established himself in diplomatic matters including the Suez crisis. He engineered 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.[17]
He led the overseas wing of the Indian independence movement, launching the India League in London, rallying within the United Kingdom to win public support for Indian independence, and of world powers such as the Soviet Union.
During this period, Menon was a spokesman for Nehru's foreign policy, dubbed non-alignment in 1952,[23] charting a third course between the US and the Soviet Union. Menon was critical of the United States, and 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,[24] although he reversed his stance three weeks later under pressure from New Delhi.[25]
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.[26][27]
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 collaborated in the India League.[citation needed]
During the Suez Crisis, Menon attempted to persuade Gamal Nasser to compromise with the West, and facilitated moving Western powers towards an awareness that Nasser might prove willing to compromise.[28] 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 known for his alignment with the British Labour party and its Commonwealth analogues, by the 1950s, world diplomats referred to Menon's allies, comprising Eden, British foreign minister Selwyn Lloyd, Canadian foreign minister and future premier Lester Pearson, Australian foreign minister and future governor-general Richard Casey, particularly to the fury of US Secretary of State Dean Acheson. Menon's proposal was estimated by US diplomats to have more support than the Dulles plan, and was viewed as an attempt to hybridise the Dulles plan with Egypt's claims. The Dulles plan passed, with Menon voting against, alongside Russia, Indonesia and Sri Lanka. Menon, however, softened his opposition in the final hours, leaving Soviet Foreign Minister Dmitri Shepilov in contraposition.[29]
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.[30]
On 23 January 1957 Menon delivered an eight-hour speech defending India's stand on Kashmir. To date, the speech is the longest delivered in the United Nations,[31] covering five hours of the 762nd meeting on 23 January, and two hours and forty-eight minutes on the 24th,[32] concluding with Menon's collapse on the Security Council floor.[24] Between the two parts, Menon collapsed from exhaustion and had to be hospitalized.[33]
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 dubbing him the "Hero of Kashmir".[34]
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 developed India's domestic military-industrial complex and educational systems,[35] establishing the Sainik Schools, the Defence Research and Development Organization(DRDO), space agency INCOSPAR (later ISRO), and other educational and research institutions, while professionalizing the National Cadet Corps and similar entities.
Menon 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.[36]
The annexation of Goa was linked with the 1961 elections to the Lok Sabha. Menon addressed the issue of Indian sovereignty over the Portuguese colony of Goa, in a partial reprise of his earlier defence of Kashmir. In New York, Menon met US Ambassador and two-time presidential candidate Adlai Stevenson behind closed doors,[37] before meeting with President John F. Kennedy, who had expressed his reservations about Menon's anti-imperialism during the state visit of 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 Western condemnation. Menon dismissed the admonishments of Kennedy and Stevenson as "vestige(s) of Western imperialism". 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.[38] The invasion also spawned a complex mass of legal issues relating to differences between eastern and western interpretations of United Nations law and jurisdiction.[39]
In 1962 China attacked India, leading to the 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 poor 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. Menon was responsible for India's lack of military readiness and had to tender his resignation on 31 October 1962 as Minister of Defence in spite of Nehru protecting him by making him Minister of Defence Production and then minister without portfolio.[40][41] He remained as a counselor to Nehru, member of parliament and elder statesman until his death.[42]
Although Menon's role in the development of India's military infrastructure was overshadowed by India's unpreparedness in the Sino-Indian War, later analysis and scholarship has 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.[43][44]
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.[citation needed]
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 won in a contest against PSP candidate Alvares Peter Augustus by 47,741 votes (171,708 to 123,967).[citation needed]
We visited many villages. Huge crowds surged forward, blocking the streets, while Menon was drowned by the surrounding uproar, his umbrella knocked away by the 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.[45]
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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, which witnessed the direct intervention of Jawaharlal Nehru, was viewed as of importance due to the personas and influence of the two candidates.[1] Having previously endorsed Menon's foreign policies, Kripalani attacked Menon's persona, seeking to avoid confrontation with the prestige of Nehru and the Congress Party. Menon won nearly doubling the vote total of Kripalani, and winning majorities in all six of North Mumbai's districts. The electoral results established Menon as second to Nehru in Indian politics.[47]
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. 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.[48][49][50]
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.[51]
In 1971, Menon contested as an independent candidate and was elected to the Lok Sabha from Trivandrum, in his home state of Kerala.
Menon was a controversial figure during his life, and has remained so even well after his death. In response to US Secretary of State John Foster Dulles' assertion that US weapons supplied to Pakistan were intended for defence against a Soviet invasion, Menon stated 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: "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".[52]
Indian President R. Venkataraman described him as "the epitome of a representative of the Indian State, personally abstemious but at the same time uncompromising in maintaining the prestige of his high office."[53]
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 caused offense and did India's and Nehru's image much harm", adding that Menon had an "acid tongue" and was "overbearing, churlish and vindictive".
Menon was reviled by Western statesmen who loathed his arrogance and anti-Western stances. American President Dwight D. Eisenhower considered Menon a "menace", governed by ambition to prove himself the international manipulator and politician of the age". Western publications referred to him as "India's Rasputin" or "Nehru's Evil Genius".[54][55]
Whether by his supporters or critics, Menon inspired adulation as well as 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".[56] According to 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.
As a student, his tutor, Harold Laski, described him as the "brilliant" student he had, and the one from whom he had learnt anything. While his thesis supervisor, Charles Spearman, in reviewing his work with C.E. Beeby, judged that "by virtue of intense intellectual study, together with natural capacity, he appears to have acquired mastery of psychological science.
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. In 1951, Nehru commented “From a intellectual point of view, I cannot remember having met any person with a keener intellect”.[57]
Shashi Tharoor identified his "brilliance, intellectual stamina' and mastery "of the discourse on world affairs, human history and international politics." Swedish Ambassador Alva Myrdal attributed Menon's hold over Nehru to Menon's capacities and for being the "only genuinely intellectual foil Nehru had in his government, with whom he could discuss Marx and Mill, Dickens and Dostoevsky.[58]
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.[59][60]
In private, Menon abstained from tobacco, alcohol and meat,[18] 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 the token salary of one rupee per month,[61] later refusing a salary outright.[62] Menon dressed publicly in bespoke suits, earning him the epithet "Mephistopheles in a Savile Row suit".[46] Menon died at the age of 78 on 6 October 1974.
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 accomplishments in the fields of science, literature, economics, politics, diplomacy and human rights.[63] A blue plaque commemorating Menon was placed at 30 Langdon Park Road, in Highgate, London by English Heritage in 2013.[64]
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