Menon was unarguably the architect of the modern Indian state. Yet, startlingly little is known about this bureaucrat, patriot and visionary. In this definitive biography, Menon's great-granddaughter, Narayani Basu, rectifies this travesty. She takes us through the highs and lows of his career, from his determination to give women the right to vote; to his strategy, at once ruthless and subtle, to get the princely states to accede to India; to his decision to join forces with the Swatantra Party; to his final relegation to relative obscurity.
The book candidly explores the man behind the public figure-his unconventional personal life and his private conflicts, which made him channel his energy into public service. Drawing from documents-scattered, unread and unresearched until now-and with unprecedented access to Menon's papers and his taped off-the-re-cord and explosively frank interviews-this remarkable biography of V.P. Menon not only covers the life and times of a man unjustly consigned to the footnotes of history but also changes our perception of how India, as we know it, came into being.
V.P. Menon, on the other hand, merits a furrowed brow and a blank expression. Nobody knows anything about him, and yet, his importance to the Government of India, at a time when India stood on the verge of independence, remains unparalleled. He drafted the Plan that would play midwife to India's birth as a free nation. He was Reforms Commissioner to India's last three Viceroys-Linlithgow, Wavell and Mountbatten. As Secretary, States Ministry, he was Sardar Patel's right-hand man, coaxing, cajoling and coercing Princes across India to accede to the Union of India.
He was my great-grandfather.
That is not why I wrote the book, however. There are countless books and biographies-collections of letters, even-on and about the stalwarts of India's freedom movement. However, deafening silence envelops the man who was responsible for nearly every major document that paved India's path to independence, and for the shaping of the Indian state into the map we know today. As his great-granddaughter, as a student of history myself, that seemed almost painfully unfair. VP's story, I decided six years ago, must be told.
Predictably, that was easier said than done. There are no books or biographies on Vappala Pangunni Menon. He has been allowed to languish on the sidelines of history for over seventy years. There is the odd reverential blog, run almost always by a fellow Malayali, on the man. L.K. Advani was the last public figure, of both influence and power, to have blogged about VP.
He was confined to just a bedroom in his step-daughter's house. It was in this room that he half-sat, half-lay in bed, propped up against a wall of cushions and pillows positioned to help him breathe, at least a little and a little more comfortably.
"One evening," recalls my uncle, Lakshman, "my mother went to check on him." V.P. Menon was, by then emaciated and ashen-faced, with the veins on his neck and temples thick with the constant effort of breathing. Premilla Menon-my grandmother and VP's daughter-in-law-sat by his bed. It was clear to both of them that he was dying. As she sat there, he spoke, painfully and raspingly, "Do you know, Precious," he said, "the only thing in life that's free is air-and I can't even get a lungful of it." He spoke without self-pity. It was a statement of fact.
The next morning, my grandfather, Anantan-VP's eldest son-telephoned, as he did every day, to ask after his father's health. His stepsister, Meenakshi, answered the phone. "There's no change," she said as much to reassure herself as to reassure him. "Don't worry."
My uncle recalls how his mother took the phone from Meenakshi's hand, "If you want to see your father alive," she told her husband crisply, "drop everything and come here right away."
"My father didn't hesitate," remembers Lakshman.
Anantan and his driver, taking turns, drove 780 kilometres that day, crossing Hyderabad and through to Jabalpur, without food or water-stopping only "to go to the loo."
It was evening when he arrived. Not wanting to appear before his father covered in dust and sweat, he had a quick shower. VP was awake when his son entered his bedroom. There were no words exchanged between the two of them-just one long final look.
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