Ep 30: VP Menon The Unsung Architect of Modern Indian- Guftagu with Narayani Basu

India Colonised

With his initial plans for an independent India in tatters, the desperate viceroy, Lord Mountbatten, turned to his senior-most Indian civil servant, Vappala Pangunni Menon—or VP—giving him a single night to devise an alternative, coherent and workable plan for independence. Menon met his stringent deadline, presenting the Menon Plan, which would change the map of the world forever. 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.
Equally, 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-record and explosively frank interviews—this remarkable biography of VP 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. Narayani Basu is a historian and foreign policy analyst. A graduate in history and Chinese foreign policy from the University of Delhi, she published her first book, The United States and China: Competing Discourses of Regionalism in East Asia in 2015. Published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing, the book is available in major libraries worldwide, including the University of New South Wales, Leiden University, Cambridge University, the National Library of Scotland, the University of Toronto, and McGill University.
She continues to write extensively on foreign policy for several acclaimed international journals while remaining actively involved in her parent discipline -- modern Indian history. Her current area of interest focuses on highlighting the lesser-known but key players behind the story of Indian independence. The story of VP Menon is the product of that interest and her second book.
Here is my conversation with Ms Basu about her book. Listen to our conversation on her intellectual journey and the journey of writing this book, including how we can engage with his work in relevance to today's world. Follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter handle: @Indiacolonised or visit us on www.indiacolonised.com. Don’t forget to visit our website for book recommendations and a complete reading list if you want to read more on India’s Modern History! I really hope you enjoyed the Conversation. If you did please consider subscribing to our channel and podcast for more such amazing content. There is a series of such guftagu with a line of amazingly curated authors and scholars on history of the subcontinent. Check out our website www.indiacolonised.com for more blogs and podcasts WORK WITH US www.indiacolonised.com/jobs