Vengalil Krishnan Krishna Menon

(b. Calicut, 3 May 1897; d. 5 Oct. 1974) Indian; member of the Indian parliament 1952 – 67, 1969 – 74, Minister for Defence 1957 – 62 A member of the Menon caste from Kerala, Menon was educated at Presidency College, Madras. As a young man he joined the Theosophical Society and became a member of Mrs Annie Besant's inner circle and was a volunteer in her Home Rule campaign. He graduated from the London School of Economics and University College. He also studied law and was called to the bar by the Middle Temple.

In 1927 Menon became the general secretary of the India League. He transformed it from a largely student body to the chief instrument of Congress propaganda in Britain and on the continent. Through the League Menon developed a close relationship with Nehru which was to last throughout his life. In 1934 he was elected to the St Pancras Borough Council. He became Chairman of the Library Committee on the council. Menon developed close contacts with the Labour Party and became a parliamentary candidate for Dundee. He was forced to relinquish his candidature for speaking at a Communist-inspired meeting in 1941. In addition to his political activities, Menon edited the "Twentieth Century Library" issued by Bodley Head and was the first editor of Pelican Books.

Following the transfer of power in August 1947, Menon was appointed the first High Commissioner to the United Kingdom by Nehru. His period as High Commissioner was frosty. The one major achievement accredited to Menon during these years was the effort he made to keep India within the Commonwealth. In 1953 he was elected to the upper house of parliament in India and became the country's representative on the General Assembly at the United Nations, a position he held until 1962. In July 1956 when President Nasser nationalized the Suez Canal, he took a leading part in the negotiations that followed.

In 1956 Menon entered Nehru's Cabinet as Minister without Portfolio. In April 1957 Menon was made the Minister for Defence and became the main protagonist of Nehru's forward policy on the Sino-Indo border dispute. Menon like Nehru believed that the main threat to India came from Pakistan and found no reason to change this belief in light of the border dispute with China. Menon, with the support of Nehru, continued to maintain that India's defence forces were capable of confronting any challenge posed by the Chinese over the border issue. These assurances became more and more emphatic following the growing tension between India and China after 1959.

As Minister for Defence Menon was suspected of building a clique within the army to give himself a base from which, after Nehru, he could make a bid for power. Throughout he had an uneasy relationship with the armed forces and interfered in operational and personnel matters. Often this interference led to confusion and demoralization.

In the Indo-China War (1962) the inadequacy of India's defence force was brutally exposed. Menon's policy and ad hoc intervention in military operations led to a catalogue of disasters which resulted in the humiliating retreat of India's army. Menon became the chief causality of the defeat and, to deflect criticism from Nehru, was dismissed as Minister for Defence. He was offered the post of Minister for Defence Production but also had to resign from this post after a week following heavy criticism in parliament and the press. He remained an MP on the backbenches and wrote his Autobiography (1965).

In 1966 Menon resigned from the Congress after a bitter dispute and failed to get elected as MP in the 1967 general elections. He returned to parliament in 1969 after support from Bengali Communists and the United Front government and remained a member until his death.

During his lifetime Menon was described as "a lone wolf" who was ever the fighter. He, it is said, fought to win using every weapon that his trenchant brain and withering personality could command. He always stood apart and this isolation was usually ascribed to irascible temperament which made him a man of few friends. Menon's left-wing leanings and proximity to Nehru made him an easy target of attack. He worked untiringly for India's independence for twenty-seven years. Despite his prominent position in international diplomacy and as Minister for Defence, he never really received the nation's gratitude or even acceptance, remaining an outsider. His honours included an honorary fellowship of the LSE and Freemanship of the Borough of St Pancras.

Vengalil Krishnan Krishna Menon (1896-1974) was an Indian lawyer, publicist, ambassador, foreign policy advisor, and member of India's Parliament. He was also one of the most influential men in India as the principal aide to Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru in foreign policy.

Krishna Menon was born on May 3, 1896, near Calicut in what is now the southern Indian state of Kerala. His father was a lawyer. After receiving a bachelor's degree at Madras Presidency College, Menon worked in the Indian Boy Scout movement for 4 years. In 1924 he left for England, where he remained for over a quarter century, ultimately serving there between 1947 and 1952 as India's high commissioner (ambassador).

In England, Menon studied at the London School of Economics (LSE), where he took a bachelor of science degree with honors and a master of science degree. He was profoundly influenced at LSE by the neo-Marxist thought of Professor Harold Laski, whose interpretation of colonialism and imperialism was to mark Menon's image of the world throughout his public life. Menon also earned a master's degree with honors from University College, London, and a law degree from Glasgow University and was subsequently called to the bar from the Middle Temple.

Work as Nationalist Abroad

But Menon's real career in England was as secretary of the India League, through which he publicized India's national interest and lobbied for independence from Britain during the years 1929 to 1947. He was particularly persuasive among Labour party members, on whom he wisely concentrated his efforts. During these years he became a member of the Labour party, was a borough councilor for Labour in St. Pancras, the first editor of Pelican Books, and editor of the 20th-Century Library of Bodley Head.

Most importantly, in the 1930s Menon met Jawaharlal Nehru, with whom he struck up a deep intellectual and personal friendship that was to last for 30 years until Nehru's death. Menon had represented Indian interests in England, but he had no experience in the nationalist movement in India itself and therefore no political base. His later influence in Indian government and politics was significantly a result of his close personal association with the Prime Minister.

Menon's second career began with his appointment as India's first high commissioner to England, in 1947. This was the first time that an Indian had held such a prestigious and high ranking political seat. From 1953 to 1962 he headed the Indian delegation to the annual sessions of the United Nations, where his outspoken advocacy of India's position and his strong ideological commitments made friends of some nations and alienated others.

During these years Menon represented Nehru at many international conferences. From late 1956 until his resignation in November 1962, following the India-China War, Menon was minister of defense. In 1957 and 1962 he was elected to the Lok Sabha, India's Parliament, as a Congress party candidate from North Bombay.

His Foreign Policy

Menon's major achievements came perhaps in his success as a negotiator and conciliator of conflicting international interests, notably at the time of the Korean armistice and at the Geneva Conference on Indochina in 1954. He has also been credited with contributing to the Suez resolution and the organization and implementation of the United Nation's Emergency Force. His greatest failure was his inability to understand the nature of India's relations with China, a failure he shared with Nehru. The India-China War of 1962 shattered many Indian hopes and misconceptions, a fact which Menon viewed after the events more with regret than with anger.

Virtually all of Menon's thoughts and actions on foreign policy were infused by a deep and pervasive distrust of the United States, which he saw as the primary agent of imperialism, racism, and capitalist exploitation in the modern world. These views were an outgrowth of Menon's political philosophy and his emotional reaction to India's colonial experience. For these reasons he also deeply hated Pakistan. He held that Pakistan was created by British imperialism and supported by United States imperialism and, as a theocratic Moslem state, was a historical threat to a secular India. Pakistan's collusion with China simply strengthened his distrust. His uncompromising position on Kashmir derived from his view of Pakistan and a fear that Kashmir might be the first step in Pakistan's effort to recontrol the sub-continent.

Although some of these positions were less than productive in serving India's interests, Menon made significant contributions to world diplomacy and to India's role in international affairs. His representation of nonalignment as an external form of India's national independence and his efforts to expand the "area of peace" in the world, to press for wider disarmament, and to encourage conciliation in and out of the United Nations were all positive efforts. They reflected Nehru's mind as much as Menon's, and in this sense Indian foreign policy in the decade 1952-1962 was a product of the unique personal understanding between the two.

After his 1962 resignation Menon's political fortunes declined. He was denied a Congress nomination in the 1967 elections, resigned from the party, and was defeated by the Congress candidate when he stood from the North Bombay (East) constituency as an independent. In 1969 he was elected in a West Bengal by-election with leftist support, and in 1971 he stood successfully as an independent from a Kerala constituency. Here too he received the support of the left Communists. His publicly stated views were always consistent with those which he had maintained during the peak of his career.

Menon was often described as being a man of great strength, personality, and ambition. He spent his entire life serving his country. Menon died on October 6, 1974, in New Delhi, India.

Further Reading

Two biographies of Menon are Emil Lengyel, Krishna Menon (1962), and T. J. S. George, Krishna Menon (1964). The best statement of Menon's ideas is in the extensive transcribed interview by Michael Brecher, India and World Politics: Krishna Menon's View of the World (1968); Brecher's brief analysis of Menon's views covers the ground incisively. Additional information regarding V.K. Krishna Menon can be found in the article "Speech by Dr. Shanker Dayal Sharma President of India at the Birth Centenary Celebration of Shri V.K. Krishna Menon in the Central Hall.