V.K. Krishna Menon did not speak Hindi, Marathi, Bengali, or Malayalam during poll campaigns. But he was elected to the Lok Sabha from constituencies whose voters spoke these languages as their mother tongue – Bombay North, Midnapore, and Thiruvananthapuram.
Goa Governor P.S. Sreedharan Pillai and Shashi Tharoor, MP, highlighted these here on Thursday at an event to launch an international foundation in memory of the late diplomat and former Defence Minister who hailed from Kozhikode city. While Mr. Pillai opened the V.K. Krishna Menon International Foundation, Mr. Tharoor presided over the event.
The Goa Governor pointed out that eminent people like Menon, who once strode the diplomatic world like a colossus, were now consigned to the dustbin of history. “He was elected as a councillor to the London Municipal Corporation, to the Rajya Sabha from Tamil Nadu, to the Lok Sabha from Maharashtra, West Bengal, and then Kerala. He was someone who made every crisis an opportunity to prove his mettle,” Mr. Pillai said.
Mr. Tharoor said Menon’s election victories should be appreciated, as he never spoke a word in the local language during campaign meetings. “We can’t think of it in the present situation. If the candidates attempt to do it, they will lose their deposit,” he said.
The Thiruvananthapuram MP, who was also a diplomat earlier, said Menon attracted more opprobrium than any other Indian leader in the West. He was termed a “Mephistopheles in a Saville Row suit.” Menon was the only Indian, other than Gandhi and Nehru, to have figured in the cover of Time magazine. “Now, he is remembered for the longest speech ever delivered in the United Nations, which lasted seven hours and 58 minutes, during which he collapsed and was hospitalised. The second thing is the defeat in the 1962 war against China. But very few remember that it was during his tenure that we captured Goa from the Portuguese too,” Mr. Tharoor pointed out.
He said Menon was an ascetic who led a frugal life, even working without salary, but insisted on exhibiting grandeur when he represented India on the world stage. “He had a burning desire to drive the currents of history, to lend his mind and voice to the direction of world events and the course of his country’s future,” Mr. Tharoor said. Menon was someone who drew energy from the importance of the tasks he was doing. Later, he was reduced to a much lower significance because of the fact that he had no meaningful task or role as a backbencher in Parliament, Mr. Tharoor added.
