It would seem that during his lifetime he excelled in creating enemies and cared a damn about winning friends. Since his death on October 6, 1974, the ranks of those who want to vent their spleen on V.K. Krishna Menon, India’s first High Commissioner to the UK and later not a very distinguished defence minister, has kept swelling.
That, however, also ensures that Menon remains in the news frequently because he remains a common ‘hate’ figure for a wide section of Indians and foreigners alike.
A book that ironically was released—the date October 5 was not chosen purposely—almost to coincide with his 35th death anniversary now reveals that the Brits wanted to assassinate the ‘Commie’ Menon for he was suspected to be a Soviet spy during the Cold War era that spanned much of the latter half of the 20th century. Only his proximity, mysterious to most in the West, to Jawaharlal Nehru prevented success of any plot for his execution that Britain’s spy agency, MI5, might have prepared with obvious blessings from Her Majesty’s government.
The book, Defence of the Realm, has been written by Christopher Andrew, a Cambridge historian of intelligence agencies, who had earned ‘notoriety’ in India when his book The Mitrokhin Archives alleged that a lot of prominent Indian politicians, were on the payroll of the Russian spy agency, KGB. The 1032-page tome marks the centenary of MI5. It must have made many gripping revelations, as could be expected of a work based on access to 400,000 service files.
But one revelation in that book that has received little or no notice in the Indian media is that in the initial years of Independence, MI5 had close relationship with a nascent Indian intelligence agency called the Delhi Intelligence Bureau. It has been suggested in the book that the head of the DIB, T.G. Sanjeevi, shared a dislike for V.K. Krishna Menon, as did a host of other important Indian leaders of the time.
The bit about Menon mentions that MI5 was keen to get rid of Menon physically. Can it be inferred that DIB, given its close liaison with MI5, also wished alike? Why precisely the plan to assassinate Menon was shelved has not been explained in detail in the book, except to say that eventually the old rascal, whose intellectual brilliance and Left-leanings had impressed Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, was not as venomous towards the Brits as he was towards the Americans.
That was the only positive mark for Menon in the eyes of the Brits. Perhaps, if he had cultivated a British accent, given his long years in Britain, he might have been seen less malignantly in the island nation!
It is known for long that the West hated Menon passionately and it would hardly surprise anyone that many wanted to see him killed. It will be amusing if the British had ‘spared’ his life because he held Americans in much lower esteem than the Brits.
Menon made no bones about his dislike for all ‘imperialists’—a most frequently used word in the former ‘colonies’ during the Cold War era--who he thought lived on either side of the Atlantic. If he had any soft corner for the Brits it must have been because of his long association with the country and its people.
The Americans, of course, returned the compliments to Menon. This ‘wary creature’ was found to be ‘furtive’ who had an air of ‘sinister mystery’ about him. The Time magazine put him on its cover in 1962 despite finding him ‘crotchety’ and a ‘Mephistophelean’ figure. The editors of Time had found it obligatory to highlight Menon’s character with a snake charmer in the background.
Senator McCarthy may not have been a universally popular Right evangelist in America but there is no doubt that ‘Commies’ were widely hated in that land of liberty, freedom and opportunity. Most of them were assumed to be spying for the Soviet Union.
Menon perhaps fitted the ‘Commies’ stereotype in American eyes. The notable Cold War warrior of the time, the US secretary of state John Foster Dulles, unable to control his dislike for him had reportedly once chased the lean and angular Menon with the intention of knocking him out.
Menon used to test the American patience with his long speeches, including a record-breaking eight-hour marathon at the UN. He told a cantankerous British diplomat at the UN, who interrupted him mocking his command over the English language, that unlike the Brit who had ‘picked up’ the language, he had a better grounding by ‘learning’ the language.
It was perhaps a reflection of the Western mindset of the time that a number of famous politicians were included in the MI5’s list of suspected ‘Commies’ who had to be kept under surveillance. One of them was prime minister of UK, Harold Wilson. Two others were father figures of newly independent nations of Kenya and Ghana, Jomo Kenyatta and Kwame Nkrumah.
Incredible as it may seem, it has now emerged that the Italian fascist, Benito Mussolini, was also on the pay roll of MI5. Declassified papers suggest that he started his political career in 1917 with a stipend of 100 pounds (nearly 6000 pounds today) a week from the British spy agency to write pro-war propaganda for an Italian paper. It is said that young Mussolini spent most of his ill-gotten wealth on women.
Those who read nothing but adverse reports about Menon in the Indian and foreign press would find it difficult to believe that his tiresome and repetitive rhetoric had made him quite a popular figure among perhaps the majority of Indian masses who thought he was able to give to the West as good as he got. He was seen as a symbol of Indian resistance to the might of the West even though his frailties, including a disastrous steering of the defence ministry during the 1962 war with China, were not unknown to the masses.
- Asian Tribune -
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