Word: menon
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Kripalani scoffs at Menon's and Nehru's pretensions about India's vital role in advancing world peace. An old Gandhian, Kripalani declares that the Mahatma was wary of Menon and suspicious of his influence on Nehru. Says Kripalani: "Menon's defeat will change the course of Nehru's Cabinet and en courage the best men in it to make a stand against Jawaharlal...
With his personal prestige at stake, Nehru has campaigned vigorously for Menon. When local Congress leaders in North Bombay tried to dump Menon as a candidate, Nehru personally had the revolt squashed. Shortly thereafter, 26 Bombay Youth Congress workers resigned from the party, protesting that because of Menon's "pro-Communism, the future of the country is not safe." Nehru was infuriated, shouted in a speech before 200,000 people in North Bombay that the youth workers could "go to hell...
What enrages the West and many Indians about Menon is the way he toadies to the Communist bloc in his capacity as India's chief U.N. delegate. Menon roasted Britain and France about Suez, dismissed Russian oppression in Hungary as "probably an exaggeration." He is a consistent advocate of Red China's admission to the U.N. Nikita Khrushchev's demand for an uninspected nuclear test ban gets Menon's wholehearted approval. Asked what would happen if Russia then went ahead and resumed testing as it did last fall, Menon shrugs: "There is no alternative except...
...Menon tirelessly preaches "self-determination," but the question of a plebiscite for the Moslem Indian province of Kashmir, which is also claimed by Pakistan, brings forth a torrent of words about India's historic rights.* He has a remarkable explanation of why the Russian satellites are not colonies: "A colony by definition is a territory which is not a member of the U.N.," he says. "You can't call the satellites colonies, because they were all admitted to the U.N. by a unanimous vote. There may be oppression there, there may be any vice you can think...
...Scout. Menon's mind is a weird, eclectic mixture, containing more of Marx than of Gandhi, more of the Bloomsbury agnostic than the Hindu,† more 19th century radicalism than 20th century reality, all held together by arrogance. His feelings toward colonialism can be traced partly to his birthplace, the town of Calicut on the Malabar coast (now the state of Kerala). "I was born where Vasco da Gama made the first landing by a European in India," Menon says. But he is reluctant to talk about his youth. "I have no past, have no journals or diaries. When...