| Vengalil Krishnan Krishna Menon | |
|---|---|
| V. K. Krishna Menon in 1948 | |
| Defence Minister of India | |
| In office 17 April 1957 – 31 October 1962 |
|
| Preceded by | Kailash Nath Katju |
| Succeeded by | Yashwantrao Chavan |
| Member of the Lok Sabha from Trivandrum | |
| In office 1971–1974 |
|
| Member of the Lok Sabha from Midnapore | |
| In office 1969–1971 |
|
| Member of the Lok Sabha from Bombay | |
| In office 1957–1967 |
|
| Indian Ambassador to the United Nations | |
| In office 1952–1962 |
|
| Member of the Rajya Sabha | |
| In office 1953–1957 |
|
| Indian High Commissioner to the United Kingdom | |
| In office 1947–1952 |
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| Personal details | |
| Born | 3 May 1896 Calicut, Malabar district, Madras Presidency, British India |
| Died | 6 October 1974 (aged 78) Delhi, India |
| Nationality | India |
| Political party | Indian National Congress |
| Spouse(s) | Unmarried |
| Alma mater | Presidency College, Chennai Madras Law College University College London London School of Economics |
| Source | Parliament of India |
Vengalil Krishnan Krishna Menon (Malayalam: വി. കെ. കൃഷ്ണമേനോന്, Hindi: वि. के. कृष्ण मेनोन्) (3 May 1896 – 6 October 1974), commonly referred to as Krishna Menon, was an Indian nationalist, diplomat and statesman, described as the second most powerful man in India by Time Magazine and others,[1][2] after his ally and intimate friend, Jawaharlal Nehru.
Described as "vitriolic, intolerant, impatient, and exigent – yes, but generous, sensitive, considerate, a great teacher too, and a great man" by Lord Listowell, the last British secretary of state for India, Menon was an influential and controversial figure on the world scene, and the architect of the Third Bloc foreign policy of non-alignment. He headed India's diplomatic missions to both the United Kingdom and United Nations, and was repeatedly elected to both houses of the Indian Parliament from multiple constituencies, serving as Defence Minister of India from 1957 to 1962.
Menon cofounded Penguin Books in 1935 with Sir Allen Lane, and also created the Sainik Schools. He is the first Malayalee to have won the Padma Vibhushan.
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Menon was born at Panniyankara in Kozhikkode, Kerala, in the Vengalil family of British Malabar. His father Vakil [Adv] Komathu Krishna Kurup, Ayancheri, Vatakara, the son of Orlathiri Udayavarma Raja of Kadathanadu and Komath Sreedevi Kettilamma Kurup, was a wealthy and influential lawyer. His mother was the granddaughter of Raman Menon who had been the Dewan of Travancore between 1815 and 1817, serving Gowri Parvati Bayi. Menon had his early education in Thalassery. In 1918 he graduated from Presidency College, Chennai, with a B.A. in History and Economics.
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.
In London, Menon pursued further education at the London School of Economics and University College, London, where Harold Laski described him as the best student he had ever had.[3] In 1930 Menon was awarded an M.A. in Psychology with First Class Honours from University College, London, for a thesis entitled "An Experimental Study of the Mental Processes Involved in Reasoning", and in 1934 he was awarded an M.Sc. in Political Science with First Class Honours from the London School of Economics, for a thesis entitled "English Political Thought in the Seventeenth Century", becoming a barrister at law in the Middle Temple shortly thereafter.
During these years, Menon became a passionate proponent of India's freedom, working as a journalist and and as secretary of the India League from 1929 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.[4] Menon's legendary relationship with Nehru would later be analogized by Sir Isaiah Berlin as like that of Ezra Pound and T.S. Eliot.
During the 1930s he worked as an editor for Bodley Head and Twentieth Century Library, and in 1934 cofounded Penguin and Pelican Books with colleague Sir Allen Lane. In 1934 he was admitted to the English bar, and after joining the Labour Party he was elected borough councillor of St. Pancras, London. St. Pancras later conferred on him the Freedom of the Borough, the only other person so honoured being Bernard Shaw. 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 Betrand 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.[5]
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 the British Empire and Nazi 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 Nazis, Menon famously replied that "(one) might as well ask a fish if it prefers to be fried in butter or margarine".[6]
After India gained independence in 1947, Menon was appointed high commissioner 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 thwarting of British political maneuvers eventually led MI5 to deem him a "serious menace to security". From 1929 onwards Menon had been kept under surveillance, which only intensified following Menon's 1946 meeting in Paris with Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov, and Indian independence.[7] 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 humself.[8][9]
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.[10]
In 1952, 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 United Nations, frequently engineering elegant 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 United Nations over Algeria.[5] During this period, Menon pioneered a novel foreign policy for India, which he dubbed the non-alignment in 1952,[11] charting a third course between the USA and USSR. 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,[12] although he reversed his stance three weeks later under pressure from New Delhi.[13]
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 En-Lai 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.[14][15]
In 1953, Menon was the last foreign official to visit Joseph Stalin before the latter's death, meeting him on the 17th of February during an executive visit to the Soviet Union.
Menon was a passionate opponent of nuclear weapons, and partnered with many in his quest against their proliferation. Throughout the 1950s, Menon liased with Bertrand Russell, with whom he had previously collaborated in the India League.
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.[16] During the emergency conference on Suez convened in London, Menon offered a counterproposal to John Foster Dulles plan for resolution, in which Egypt would be allowed to retain control of the Suez Canal. 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 hybridize 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 Dimitri Shepilov in absolute contraposition.[17]
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?
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 Security Council,[18] covering five hours of the 762nd meeting on the 23 of January, and two hours and forty-eight minutes on the 14th,[19] reportedly concluding with Menon's collapse on the Security Council floor.[12] During the filibuster, Nehru moved swiftly and successfully to consolidate Indian power in Kashmir. Menon's passionate defense 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'.
Krishna Menon became a member of the Rajya Sabha in 1953. On February 3, 1956, he joined the Union Cabinet as Minister without Portfolio.
In 1957, Menon sought a seat in the Lok Sabha, contesting a constituency from North Bombay. Widely viewed as a hero for his defense 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 landslide.
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
After his electoral victory, he was named Minister of Defence in the April of that year. Menon was a substantially more powerful and 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 upended the seniority system within the army, replacing it with a merit-based method of promotion, and extensively restructured much of India's military command system, eventually leading to the resignation of the Chief of the Army Staff, General K.S. Thimayya.[20] Critics accused Menon of disregarding tradition in favor of personal caprice; Menon countered that he was seeking to improve the efficiency of the military.
Menon also, in the face of intense opposition, began the creation of a domestic military industrial complex to supply the Indian armed forces with weaponry and provisions.[21] Although Menon's oversight of 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 Chief Justice V.R. Krishna Iyer of the Supreme Court of India analyzing and defending Menon's role in India's rise as a military power.[22]
In the October 1961, Menon, the sitting Defence Minister, was challenged by the 74-year-old Acharya Kripalani, a prior 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 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.
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 defense of Indian Kashmir. In New York, Menon met US Ambassador and twotime presidential candidate Adlai Stevenson behind closed doors,[23] 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.[24] The invasion also spawned a complex mass of legal issues relating to differences between eastern and western interpretations of United Nations law and jurisdiction.[25]
Ultimately, Menon won in a landslide, nearly doubling the vote total of Kripalani, and winning outright majorities in all six of North Bombay's districts. The electoral results established Menon as second only to Nehru himself in Indian politics.[26]
In 1962, China invaded India, leading to the brief Sino-Indian War, and a temporary reversal in India's non-aligned foreign policy. A chagrined Menon, widely blamed for India's lack of military readiness, tendered his resignation as minister of defence.[27]
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 the May of that year.[28]
In 1971 Menon contested and won a seat in Parliament from Trivandrum, in his homestate of Kerala.
Menon was an intensely controversial figure during his life, and has remained so even well after his death. Widely described as brilliant[29] and arrogant,[30][12] he was known for the sheer force of his personality.
A complex man, Menon dressed expensively in bespoke Savile Row suits, while maintaining an otherwise ascetic lifestyle, abstaining from tobacco, alcohol, and meat.[6]
Menon was widely reviled by Western statesmen who loathed his arrogance, outspokenness, and fiercely anti-Western stances. Outwardly courteous, American President Dwight Eisenhower considered 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.
Menon died at the age of 78 on October 6, 1974, whereupon Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi remarked that "a volcano is extinct".
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 Krishna Menon."
| Political offices | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by K. N. Katju |
Defence Minister of India 1957–1962 |
Succeeded by Yashwantrao Chavan |