(Thanks to Google for the picture)
Nehru met him
first at London. The veteran leftist was the founder of anti colonial India League
and the inspirer of Pelican books.
-He had influenced many English people against
colonialism, among them Edwina Mountbatten.
-Nehru and Menon had retained a close personal
friendship.” The PM Nehru had to remove Menon from his defence ministership due
to external pressures, but their friendship remained unchallenged.
-He had been virtually hero worshipped by Feroze
Gandhi.
-Krishna Menon described the scene in the room where
Nehru’s body was lying ready to be taken away for cremation thus-
“The moment his last breath was drawn, the issue
arose. None of these people who professed loyalty to him, who came from his
state, in whose interests he has sometimes disregarded people like me just to
keep the pace, none of them had the decency to keep their mouth shut until he
was cremated. Around his body........were these people, sitting around
discussing the matter (the succession), not discussing seriously- I am using
the word ‘discussing' as a euphemism.
He was a veteran in Constitutional practice also and was
against appointing Mr. G. Nanda by the President, after Nehru’s demise.
-“It was unconstitutional. That is the worst thing
that would have been done. Even the president to exercise his emergency power
would have been more constitutional, in my opinion. Or they should have called
an emergency meeting of the Parliamentary Party or the Party Executive and
there would have been no objection.”
-The most important feature of this South Indian
politician was his intellect, his outspokenness and his unshakeable honesty. Menon
always kept aloof from petty squabbles, inner-party intrigues and the power
struggles of the local and national party machines. He despised that side of
politics. Nor did he suffer from an overpowering personal ambition.
-If he had so desired, he could have played the part
of Brutus to Jawaharlal’s Caesar. There were people who would happily have
handed him the knife, but he rudely rebuffed any such suggestions. He was,
above all, a man of principle, and this was already becoming an extremely rare
quality in Congress circles.
Indira was also very close to him, but that was not a
reason for him to refrain from criticizing her when he felt that her policies were
going wrong. He thundered at her in the Vietnam issue and she was forced to
correct her stand. To weaken Indira, Congress leadership denied
him a party seat!
Certain Congress leaders were more interested in
designating a successor to Indira, than
winning the elections. Menon had warned them as follows–
-“The choice of a PM is never a vocal issue at
election time in a Parliamentary democracy.”
I have read that the concept of Sainik schools was
his, that he was rated as the 2nd most influential man of Indian
politics by Time magazine, that he delivered 7-8 hours non-stop speech on Kashmir at UN
etc. Yes, just like Feroze Gandhi, I too admire him, hero worship him and want
to read more on him. He had very close association with Nehru and Indira, but
never exploited it for selfish motives. Yes, he is the role model of a
Politician, Constitution expert, a true friend and what not.
We had planned to visit the famous Janakikkadu eco
tourism project, donated to the State by his sister Janaki, but it’s yet to
take place.
No comments:
Post a Comment