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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, 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.
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.
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."
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. 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.
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. During this period, Menon pioneered a novel foreign policy for India, which he dubbed the non-alignment in 1952, 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, although he reversed his stance three weeks later under pressure from
New Delhi.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V._K._Krishna_Menon
- published: 08 Dec 2011
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