115.97.25.38 at 07:52, 17 August 2021

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{{Short description|Indian diplomat (1898 – 1982)}}
{{EngvarB|date=July 2016}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=January 2019}}
{{Infobox officeholder
| name = Kumar Padmanabha Sivasankara Menon
| honorific-suffix = {{postnominals|country=GBR|size=100%|CIE|ICS}}
| image =
| imagesize =
| caption =
| birth_date = {{Birth date|df=yes|1898|10|18}}
| birth_place = [[Kottayam]], [[Travancore]], [[British India]] (now Kerala, India )
| death_date = {{Death date and age|df=yes|1982|11|22|1898|10|18}}
| death_place = Ottapalam, [[Kerala]], India
| birth_name = Kumara Padmanabha Sivasankara Menon
| office = [[Foreign Secretary (India)|Foreign Secretary]]
| term_start = 1948
| term_end = 1952
| monarch = [[George VI]]
| predecessor = Sir [[Hugh Weightman]]
| predecessor2 = Sir [[Olaf Caroe]]
| predecessor3 = Lt-Gen [[Thomas Jacomb Hutton]]
| successor1 = [[R. K. Nehru]]
| spouse = Saraswathi
| occupation = Diplomat
}}

'''Kumara Padmanabha Sivasankara Menon Sr.''' {{small|[[Order of the Indian Empire|CIE]] [[Indian Civil Service|ICS]]}} (18 October 1898 – 22 November 1982), usually known as '''K. P. S. Menon''', was a diplomat and diarist, a career member of the [[Indian Civil Service (British India)|Indian Civil Service]]. He was appointed independent India's first [[Indian Foreign Secretary|Foreign Secretary]], serving from 1948 to 1952.

He was [[Dewan]] (Prime Minister) of [[Bharatpur State]], [[Ambassador of India to the Soviet Union]] from 1952 to 1961, and Ambassador to the [[ Republic of China]] before 1948. In 1948, preceding events of the [[Korean War]], the United Nations appointed him the Chairman of the UN Commission on Korea (UNCOK).<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.unmultimedia.org/s/photo/detail/187/0187646.html|title = United Nations Temporary Commission on Korea|date = 22 January 1948}}</ref>

Menon's overland trip from [[Delhi]] to [[Chungking]] across the Himalayas, the [[Karakoram]]s and the Pamirs during the Second World War was recorded in his book ''Delhi-Chungking: A Travel Diary'' (1947).<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=x-cbnQsGjRgC |title=Delhi Chungking |year=1947 |first=K. P. S. |last=Menon }}</ref> He was a signatory on behalf of India at the formation of the [[United Nations]]. He was a member of the [[Royal Central Asian Society]].<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=jyZ-lwEACAAJ |title=Many Worlds |first=K. P. S. |last=Menon |year=1966|isbn=9780196902951 }}</ref>

==Early life==
K. P. S. Menon was born in Kottayam, [[Travancore]], [[British India]] (present-day [[Kerala]], India) in 1898 in a distinguished aristocratic family. His father Kumara Menon was a [[lawyer]] from [[Ottapalam]]. His mother Janaki Amma came from [[Vellayani]] near [[Thiruvananthapuram]] in Travancore, a niece of [[Kesava Pillai of Kandamath]] and cousin of Neyyattinkara N. K. Padmanabha Pillai. Upon her marriage to Kumara Menon, in a previously unprecedented manner (see [[Matrilineality]] in Kerala society), she moved to [[Kottayam]] to set up house with Kumara Menon who himself had moved away from his family in Ottapalam.<ref>K. P. S. Menon in {{cite book |title=Memories and Musings |page=310 |author=K.P.S. Menon, Sr |year=1979 }}</ref> The children were also given titles from their father's side and not from the mother's side. He attended [[Madras Christian College]] and then [[University of Oxford]],<ref name=Gandhi>{{cite web |url=http://mgu.ac.in/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=577 |publisher=Mahatma Gandhi University |title=K. P. S. Menon|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111024211510/http://mgu.ac.in/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=577 |archive-date=2011-10-24}}</ref> where he was a contemporary of the future Prime Minister [[Anthony Eden]] and served as co-officers of the Asiatic Society. He served as the president of the Oxford Majlis Asian Society.<ref>Menon in Many World Revisited, Bhavan, Bombay,1981</ref>{{pn|date=January 2019}} He was admitted to the [[Middle Temple]] on 30 November 1918,<ref>{{cite book |title=Register of Admissions to the Honourable Society of the Middle Temple |volume=3 |first=H. A. C. |last=Sturgess |year=1949 |publisher=Butterworth |page=830 |url=http://archive.middletemple.org.uk/Shared%20Documents/MTAR/MTAR%20-1910-1944.pdf}}</ref> but withdrew without being [[Called to the Bar]] on 15 March 1928.{{cn|date=January 2019}}

==Public service career==
In 1922, Menon secured the first rank in the combined Civil Services Examination, the only Indian to do so, and joined the ICS.<ref>{{London Gazette |issue=32763 |date=3 November 1922 |page=7802 }}</ref> He served as Sub-Collector of Tirupattur, Vellore District, then as District Magistrate in [[Trichy]], Agent of the Government of India at Fort Sandeman, now Zhob, in Baluchistan, in the [[North-West Frontier Province (1901–1955)|North West Frontier Province]] and [[British Ceylon|Ceylon]], then as [[Resident (title)|Resident]] of India in [[Hyderabad State]]. In 1934, he was sent as Crown Representative to investigate the state of Indians in [[Zanzibar]], Kenya and Uganda. As Dewan of Bharatpur State, he was appointed a Companion of the [[Order of the Indian Empire]] in the [[New Year Honours]] of 1943.<ref>{{London Gazette |issue=35841 |date=29 December 1942 |page=7 }}</ref> After independence, he was India's first [[Indian Foreign Secretary|Foreign Secretary]] from 1948 to 1952, then [[Ambassador of India to the Soviet Union]], Hungary and Poland from 1952 to 1961, being the last foreigner to see the alive [[Stalin]] in person (on February 13, 1953). On retirement, he was a member and later Chairperson of the Union Public Service Commission.

Menon married Saraswathi, the daughter of [[C. Sankaran Nair]].<ref>{{cite news |url=http://www.hindu.com/2006/09/01/stories/2006090114250400.htm |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081025092018/http://www.hindu.com/2006/09/01/stories/2006090114250400.htm |url-status=dead |archive-date=25 October 2008 |title=Succession of diplomats from Palat family |date=1 September 2006 |newspaper=[[The Hindu]] |access-date=2011-11-30}}</ref> His son, who bore the same name as him, served as envoy to China and his grandson [[Shivshankar Menon]] was Ambassador to China, Foreign Secretary and later the [[National Security Advisor (India)|National Security Advisor]].<ref>{{cite news |url=http://www.indianexpress.com/news/s-s-menon-who-served-in-israel-china-and-pak-is-new-foreign-secy/11789/0 |newspaper=Indian Express |title=S S Menon, who served in Israel, China and Pak, is new Foreign Secy |date=1 September 2006 |access-date=2011-11-30}}</ref><ref name=NSA>{{cite news |url=http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/article84408.ece |newspaper=The Hindu |title=Menon is next NSA |date=21 January 2010 |access-date=2011-11-29}}</ref>

Menon was awarded the [[Padma Bhushan]] in 1958<ref name="Padma Awards">{{cite web|url=http://mha.nic.in/sites/upload_files/mha/files/LST-PDAWD-2013.pdf |title=Padma Awards |publisher=Ministry of Home Affairs, Government of India |date=2015 |access-date=21 July 2015 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://www.webcitation.org/6U68ulwpb?url=http://mha.nic.in/sites/upload_files/mha/files/LST-PDAWD-2013.pdf |archive-date=15 November 2014 }}</ref> and the [[Lenin Peace Prize]].<ref name=Gandhi/>

==Works==
Menon's published writings include:<ref>Front Cover of Title Page, Memories and Musings, last work written. See K. P. S. Menon,Memories and Musings, Allied Publishers, New Delhi 1979</ref>

* ''Many Worlds: An Autobiography''
* ''Many Worlds Revisited'' - updated autobiography
* ''Delhi-Chungking: A Travel Diary'' (1947)
* ''Russian Panorama''
* ''The Friendship of Great Peoples'' (1962)
* ''The Flying Troika'' (1963)
* ''The Resurgence of India: Reformation Or Revolution? Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel Memorial Lectures'' (1963)
* ''India & the Cold War'' (1966)
* ''Journey Round the World'' (1966)
* ''Biography of Sir Chettur Sankaran Nair''
* ''Lenin through Indian Eyes'' (1970)
* ''Russia Revisited'' (1971)
* ''The Lamp and the Lampstand''
* ''Twilight in China'' (1972)
* ''The Indo-Soviet Treaty: Setting & Sequel'' (1972)
* ''A Diplomat Speaks'' (1974)
* ''Yesterday and Today'' (1975) - a collection of articles, illustrated by Abu Abraham
* ''Changing Patterns of Diplomacy- Dr. Saiyidain Memorial Lectures'' (1977)
* ''Memories and Musings'' (1979)
* ''One Thousand Full Moons'' (Published posthumously in 1987)

==References==
{{reflist}}

{{PadmaBhushanAwardRecipients 1954–59}}
{{Padma Award winners of Kerala}}
{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Menon, Kumara Padma Sivasankara}}
[[Category:Indian civil servants]]
[[Category:Indian Civil Service (British India) officers]]
[[Category:Lenin Peace Prize recipients]]
[[Category:1898 births]]
[[Category:1982 deaths]]
[[Category:Companions of the Order of the Indian Empire]]
[[Category:Ambassadors of India to China]]
[[Category:People from Ottapalam]]
[[Category:Malayali people]]
[[Category:Ambassadors of India to the Soviet Union]]
[[Category:Indian Foreign Secretaries]]
[[Category:Indian Hindus]]
[[Category:Recipients of the Padma Bhushan in civil service]]
[[Category:University of Madras alumni]]
[[Category:CMS College Kottayam alumni]]
[[Category:Alumni of Christ Church, Oxford]]

K. P. S. Menon - Revision history

115.97.25.38 at 07:52, 17 August 2021