V. K. Krishna Menon
Vengalil Krishnan Krishna Menon was an Indian academic, independence activist, politician, lawyer, and statesman. Menon contributed to the Indian independence movement and India's foreign relations. He was among the major architects of Indian foreign policy, was India's first High Commissioner to United Kingdom and later India's Defence Minister.
In 1928, Menon founded the India League in London to demand total independence from the British rule in the Indian subcontinent. Whilst in Britain he worked as an editor and helped found Pelican Books. Towards the end of the 1940s, he presided Indo-British matters and caused the selection of the last British Viceroy of India, Louis Mountbatten. He worked with Nehru, Mountbatten, Sardar Patel, and V.P. Menon to work out the mechanics of Indian independence.
After the independence of India, he facilitated international diplomacy and 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. Since the independence of India, he served as High Commissioner to the United Kingdom, Ambassador to the United Nations, and Defence minister. As a Defence minister, he played a role in military conflicts such as Congo Crisis, Annexation of Goa, and Sino-Indian War. During his tenure as defence minister, India saw establishment of domestic military-industrial complex and educational systems, the Sainik Schools, the Defence Research and Development Organization, and other defence and military institutions, while professionalizing the National Cadet Corps and similar entities.
He was elected to both houses of the Indian parliament from constituencies such as Mumbai, Bengal, and Trivandrum in his native state of Kerala. He remained a member of the Lok Sabha until his death.
Early life
Family
Menon was born into an aristocratic Nair family at Thiruvangad, Thalassery, later moving to Panniyankara in Kozhikode, Kerala, where the Vengalil family had a tharavad house. He was named after his father Adv Komath Krishna Kurup one of the leading criminal advocates of Thalassery and Calicut Bar, only son of reigning Porlathiri Udaya Varma Raja of Kadathanad kingdom and Smt. Komath Sreedevi kettilamma kurup, one of the wealthiest men of Kerala at that time who maintained Komath Nalukettu, Sree Thazhe Komath Bhagavathi Temple in Ayanchery and also maintained vast estates in Ayanchery and Kuttiyadi regions of VatakaraEducation
Menon had his early education in Ayanchery and Thalassery and later pursued his higher education at the Zamorin's College, Kozhikode. In 1918, he graduated from Presidency College, Chennai, with a B.A. in History and Economics. 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.Life and activities in England
Menon studied at London School of Economics, securing Bachelor of Science in economics and Master of Science in economics from University of London. Whilst there he studied under Harold Laski who, according to historian Jack Bowman, became a great personal and political inspiration for Menon. 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. 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, for Selwyn & Blount and its Topical Books series, and then, from 1937, for Penguin Books and its founder Sir Allen Lane. Menon was the editor of the educational series Pelican Books since its inception.
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, wife of Lord Mountbatten. Due to the patronage of the Mountbattens, in the pre-war British society, Menon was able to consolidate political alliances with Labour potentates like Clement Attlee, Sir Stafford Cripps 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. He resigned from the Labour Party in protest but rejoined in 1944.India League and the independence movement
In 1928, Menon founded the India League to demand total independence of India from British rule. He worked as a journalist and as president of the India League from 1928 to 1947. In 1930s, Menon along with other contributors had created a 554-page report on the situation in India. The report was banned in India. Menon worked to help Nehru 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. In 1931, Mahatma Gandhi praised the efforts of the Indian League for its "hurricane propaganda on the danger to world peace of a rebellious India in bondage".He also took interest in the Colonial Seamen's Association from which he met Chris Braithwaite and Surat Alley. During the first years of World War II, Menon joined British communists in condemning both the Western Allies and Nazi Germany, though he also took part in several anti-Nazi demonstrations in Britain. Once, when asked whether the Indian public would prefer British or German rule, Menon replied that " might as well ask a fish if it prefers to be fried in butter or margarine".
Roles in post-independence India
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 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". Clandestine surveillance intensified following Menon's 1946 meeting in Paris with Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov, and Indian independence. 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.In 1949, Menon was one of the drafters of the London Declaration, along with Sir Norman Brook, the British Cabinet Secretary. The declaration recognised that India could remain in the Commonwealth of Nations, despite becoming a republic. The declaration is considered the foundation of the modern Commonwealth.
During his tenure as the high commissioner, Menon was accused of being involved in the jeep scandal case, the first alleged case of corruption in independent India. In 1948, Menon had ignored protocols and signed a Rs 8 million contract for the purchase of army jeeps with a foreign firm for the Indo-Pakistani war of 1947–1948. The deal was later rescinded by the Indian deputy High Commissioner in London due to the failure of the completion of the order. The investigation into the matter was closed in 1955 after nothing was found against anybody including Menon.
India's representative to the United Nations
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.Earlier, he led the overseas wing of the Indian independence movement, launching the India League in London in 1928, rallying within the United Kingdom to win public support for Indian independence, and of world powers such as the Soviet Union.
Diplomacy and non-alignment
During this period, Menon was a spokesman for Nehru's foreign policy, dubbed non-alignment in 1952, 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, although he reversed his stance three weeks later under pressure from New Delhi.In 1966, Indira Gandhi had consulted Menon for drafting a Vietnam plan which called for international efforts to rehabilitate Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia and criticised the United States for their role in the Vietnam War.