VP Menon

VP Menon ( Vappala Pangunni Menon ; Malayalam വി.പി. മേനോൻ ; born September 3, 1894 Ottapalam , Kerala ; † January 1, 1966 in Jabalpur , Madhya Pradesh ) was a civil servant in the administration of British India ( Indian Civil Service ) and together with the politician Vallabhbhai Patel in 1947 organizer of the transition of almost 600 Indian princely states ( Native States, Princely States ) to the newly formed Indian state .

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Origin and first years

VP Menon was born on September 3, 1894 in Ottappalam in what is now the Palakkad district of the state of Kerala . He was the son of a teacher from the Menon caste , a sub-caste of the Nayar that traditionally provides numerous administrative officials, clerks and civil servants.

His career began rather unconventionally. After graduating from high school, Menon ran away from parents to avoid college. He worked for a time in a tobacco company in Bangalore and as a contractor in the Kolar gold fields ; However, disillusioned by the failure, he soon became a teacher in Bhopal before he in Simla contact the Superintendent of the Home Department , the Ministry of Interior, Government of India, Ananta, got one as he Malayalam -speaking native of Kerala, whose niece (then his widow) he later married.

Career up to the independence of India

Ananta placed Menon in the Home Department of British India in 1914, which had been responsible for constitutional reforms since 1917 ( Montagu-Chelmsford reforms ) , which granted the Indians more constitutional rights and finally led to independence on August 15, 1947. Menon took part in the Reforms Office in 1930 as an expert with the title Rao Bahadur and was a member of the secretary round for the second Indian Round Table Conference in London in 1931. He became Assistant Secretary in 1933 , Undersecretary in 1934 and Deputy Secretary in 1936 under the chairmanship of the Reforms Office commissioner, Sir Hawthorne Lewis , until the outbreak of World War II brought an end to previous constitutional efforts. The Reforms Office has now the British directly governor general assumed where Menon as responsible Commissioner (since 1942) the last three General governors and viceroys of India, Lord Linlithgow , Lord Wavell and Lord Mountbatten , in a key position as a counselor ( Constitutional Adviser ) in the division of land in Pakistan and India and the transfer of power to Indian hands ( transfer of power ), especially in the integration of the princely states , was active.

Division of the country, integration of the princely states in 1947

After the unsuccessful Simla conference between Gandhi and Muhammad Ali Jinnah (1945), the Cabinet's Mission Proposal and after the creation of the interim government under Jawaharlal Nehru , Menon took on an indispensable role in the future design of the transfer of power . On Mountbatten's request, who greatly appreciated him, Menon was in 1947 at the same time the right hand ( Aide ) of the " Iron Man of India ", later Deputy Prime Minister ( Deputy Prime Minister ) Vallabhbhai "Sardar" Patel , the party leaders of the Congress Party of Nehru and Gandhi . Patel, as head of the States Department , the successor organization to the British Political Department , gave Menon political backing and largely a free hand in implementing his ideas in close coordination with the cabinet. Menon thus became the driving force of the transition.

As secretary of the two-part States Department - Patel and Menon worked for the Indian side, and for the Pakistani Abdur Rab Nishtar and his adjutant - Menon developed the plan for an early transfer of power to two central governments with dominion status as well as an instrument for integrating the nearly 600 Indian princely states.

After it had been established that there would be a separate state for the Indian Muslims in Pakistan , Menon, aware of the inconclusive constitutional reforms of the 1930s, drafted an instrument of accession that was deliberately kept simple for the almost 600 Indian princely states , which the skeptical, on theirs Independence and privileges enabled princes to join the unified Indian state that was yet to be formed. Nevertheless, he saw a great opportunity in the new beginning: " we would be writing on a clean slate, unhampered by treaties ".

Menon reduced the activities of the newly established central government to the three areas of defense, foreign policy and communication (post office, roads, telephony), while finance and domestic policy remained excluded. In cooperation with the viceroy, Lord Mountbatten, and the congress politicians Patel and Nehru, he succeeded in gaining the princes' trust and warming them up for the annexation to India, although Pakistan not only offered significant, more far-reaching concessions, but basically for them full sovereignty and independence of the 562 princely states entered. "The plan was so simple and straightforward that within three weeks ... practically all the states concerned signed up." The impending danger of a Balkanization of India was thus averted.

The states of Hyderabad and Junagadh could only be convinced of the hopelessness of founding their own state through police actions. In contrast, the integration of Kashmir failed despite the personal efforts of Lord Mountbatten and Menon; As a result, Kashmir is still a focal point in world politics.

The impact of Menon's accession plan, his tact and his specialist knowledge, his diligence and commitment made the almost non-violent and rapid integration of the Indian princely states into the newly created India possible in the critical transition phase to independence in the years 1946-47.

In 1946 Menon was accepted into the British [!] Companion of the Star of India (CSI) in recognition of his services , and in 1948 he became Knight Commander (KCSI) of the order. Menon did not receive an Indian award for his achievements.

Later years

After independence, VP Menon was cabinet secretary and in the years 1947-1951 secretary of the newly created Ministry of States (Ministry of the Indian States) under Patel, then in 1951 governor of Orissa , then a member of the finance commission. After Patel's death in 1950, the relationship with Nehru had hardened, who, unlike Patel, distrusted the former members of the British Indian Civil Service (ICS), who were famous for their expertise and effectiveness, but were considered politically unreliable. they had imprisoned members of Congress several times on behalf of the British, even during the war years, including Patel, who, however, did not personally bring it up; Menon therefore withdrew from the Indian Administrative Service (IAS) newly formed by Patel and was prematurely retired in March 1952, which he spent in Bangalore .

As an obligation to his late teacher "Sardar" Patel, Menon wrote two books on the course and events that led to the independence and division of the country, "two masterly first-hand historical documents" (Christie p. 749), and in 1965 one briefly summarized history of the Indian constitution.

Because of his humble, outspoken manner, Menon had many friends and few enemies. Although an Indian patriot, he was a friend and admirer of the British and their institutions without falling into a conflict of loyalty. For a further career he lacked the political smell of the stable, and in addition, similar to his mentor Patel, he was no friend of the socialization , central planning , nationalization and freedom of association (“ third way ”) pursued under Nehru . Accordingly, he joined the liberal-conservative Swatantra party , founded in 1959 , which, with the support of industry and princes, pursued a counter-program to Nehru's policy and thus achieved electoral success at times.

The 1925 marriage with the niece of his former patron Ananta, from which two sons emerged, was divorced; in 1941 he took Ananta's widow to his second wife, who had raised his children together with her own daughter.

Anecdotes

• “The now deceased Maharaja Hanwant Singh of Jodhpur turned out to be a tough chunk ... Finally he signed the affiliation contract. A few minutes later - Lord Mountbatten had just left the room - however, he pulled a revolver out of his pocket, aimed at me and said, 'I don't give a damn about your dictation!' I told him he was making a big mistake if he thought he could undo me by murdering me; 'don't make a fuss,' I admonished him. Then Lord Mountbatten came back and I told him what had happened. He took it lightly and made a joke. The maharaja immediately went back to normal and we left the room together. I took him to his residence and then went home. We laughed a lot about this episode later ”; Menon, Integration p. 117

• “While the princes negotiating committee was busy with the treaty, the Hindustan Times managed to get a copy and publish it. When I saw Sardar [Patel] that morning, he said: "Menon, now that the Hindustan Times has a copy, couldn't I see a copy?" Since I was reporting to him twice a day on the day's affairs, I was quite confused. Sardar smiled and said it was just a joke. In fact, he had retained a sense of humor, which in a man's position and responsibility cannot be overestimated ”; Menon, Integration p. 111

Remarks

1. ^ "Sardar", Persian / Hindi sardār , "Commander, Chief, Boss", also a description for smaller noble landlords in Rajasthan.
2. ↑ Mehra p. 541
3. ^ Menon, Integration p. 95
4. ↑ Ali Jinnah presented the Prince of Jodhpur , the largest princely state of the Rajputana , with a blank sheet of paper, signed by him, in which he could enter his wishes as he liked, provided he only joined Pakistan.
5. ^ Menon, Integration, p. 121

literature

• Parshotam Mehra: A Dictionary of Modern Indian History 1707-1947 . Delhi. Bombay. Calcutta et al. a. : OUP 1985, passim.
• VP Menon: The Story of the Integration of the Indian States . London. New York. Toronto: Longmans 1956.
• VP Menon: The Transfer of Power in India . Bombay. Calcutta. Delhi: Orient Longmans 1957.
• VP Menon: An Outline of Indian Constitutional History. Bombay: Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan 1965.
• Walter Henry John Christie: Menon, Vapal Pangunni (1894-1966) . In: Dictionary of National Biography. 1961-1970. Oxford: Oxford University Press 1981. pp. 748-749.
• Siba Pada Sen (ed.): Dictionary of National Biography. 4 vols. Calcutta: Inst. Of Hist. Sciences 1972-74. - VP Menon does not list the still relevant biographical work of India. The four-volume supplement, ed. by N. [ishit] R. Ray, Calcutta 1986–1990, did not get beyond volumes 1 and 2.

Web links

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