Krishna: As I knew him

-- P. N. Haksar

In the tortured history of human race, millions upon millions have
died.  Who they were we do not know. They are dead.

In the early hours of the morning today, Krishna Menon died. But he
lives.  His entire life and all that he did is part of the immortal
history of the people of India. Our history which covers several
thousand years has a quality of indestructible continuity. Krishna
Menon is part of that continuity.

I had known Krishna Menon for nearly thirty-seven years. I find it
difficult to disentangle memories, events, and images of him which are
crowding in my mind. Let me try and separate some of these.

I can recall in all its detail the day I met him. I recall the
year. It was 1937. The month was November. It was lunch time. I was
stepping out of London School of Economics. Next door to it, in the
Houghton Street where the School was situated, was a small cafe run by
a cheerful Italian. I often went there to have my lunch. As I was
turning towards it. I met Feroze Gandhi. He asked me if I was doing
anything in particular. I said that I wasn't, and that I was merely
thinking of having a bite in the cafe.  He said: `Let us go to India
League just across the road.' I had read about India League but had
never visited it. And so I was curious.

Feroze and I walked into Aldwych past a group of buildings called the
Bush House, then on to the Strand, up a flight of dark stairs, we
entered a room. There for the first time I saw Krishna Menon.

His face is deeply etched on my mind. His bright burning eyes, sharp
nose, flashing teeth, shock of hair, the near ascetic face, severely
controlled sensuousness of his lips, would attract any great sculptor
working in granite or in bronze, but not in marble. The walls were
lined with shelves of books in a state of disarray; the floor was
littered with papers, stencils, unwashed cups of tea, over-flowing
waste paper baskets. From the room next door one could hear the rhythm
of a duplicator.

When I addressed him as Mr. Krishna Menon in reply to one of his
questions, he interrupted me and said: `I am Krishna. Just Krishna.'
Thereafter, to me and to all his friends and associates he was
Krishna, not Krishnaji or anything else.

As it was lunch time, I had expected that he might be having a
sandwich. But there was nothing to eat. He said: `Let us have some
tea.' I looked round if there was any way of making tea. Behind his
chair, I saw a little gas ring, and Feroze, who was apparently an
expert in making tea, put the kettle on.  That is how I met Krishna
and got introduced to the India League which was the centre of his
universe.

Any time was tea time with Krishna. He seemed to thrive on tea. I
never saw him taking any regular meals. He lived in poverty and
thrived on masses of cups of tea. Once in a while, someone like Miss
Agatha Harrison came along and then, after a great deal of cajoling
and coaxing, Krishna would be persuaded to go down to an
A. B. C. restaurant where he would nibble at a vegetable cutlet; for
Krishna was a vegetarian.

Years after, when he was High Commissioner in London, a distinguished
ambassador was discussing in great detail the importance of animal
protein and he finally clinched the argument in favour of eating meat
by saying: `After all God has created these animals for human beings.'
Krishna retorted: `But your Excellency, God has also created human
beings and we do not approve of cannibalism.'

There is a tendency in our country to be so inward-looking as to
forget altogether the contribution which the India League and Krishna
made towards the cause of our country's freedom. We say that this
struggle for Indian Independence was fought and won by
India. Undoubtedly, it was fought and won in India; but Indian
Independence was a product of negotiations and not of a revolutionary
upheaval. It was a product of negotiations between the British on the
one side and Indian nationalism on the other. More specifically, it
was a result of negotiations between the British Labour Government and
the Indian National Congress. Krishna's dedicated work through India
League prepared the British Labour movement to accept Indian
Independence; his work prepared intellectual opinion in Britain in
favour of Indian Independence. He got the trade union movement to get
committed to Indian Independence.

During the years in the Indian High Commission in London from 1948 to
1955 and from 1965 to 1967, I used to wander a great deal up and down
the country.  This took me to some remote areas of Scotland, Wales,
and England. And everywhere I met people who remembered Mr. Mee Non,
as he was called. They enquired about him affectionately; they told me
how well he was remembered, what a fine person he was, and how well he
spoke for India. Outside Britain, Krishna was known to all those men
and women, writers and intellectuals, who cared for the cause of the
progress of humanity.

Out of the period of nine years I spent in our High Commission in
London, four years (1948-1952) were of apprenticeship under Krishna
Menon.

It was the month of May 1948. I was emerging out of Girja Shankar
Bajpai's room in the South Block after a long session with him in
which he was trying to persuade me to join the Foreign Service and to
accept an assignment in South Africa. In the corridor, I met Krishna,
And he informed me that I was to go to London. `I have spoken to
Panditji. We shall work there together.' Thus it was that I found
myself in our High Commission in London.

I said that I spent four years of apprenticeship under Krishna; this
might be as good an occasion for me to acknowledge publicly what I owe
to him. What little I learnt about the art and science of diplomacy,
it was at his feet. From him I learnt the art of negotiation. I learnt
from him that in diplomacy the most important thing was courage, a
non-negotiable sense of dedication to the interests of one's country;
a capacity to see what your opponent has in mind and to discern
whether there was a basis for linking your opponent's concern with
your own.

Krishna was fiercely dedicated to his country's interest and he sought
to protect it, advance it, and project it with an incisive mind which
was most elegantly furnished with a fine tapestry of wisdom and
wit. It was this mind which he dedicated to the cause of our country,
both prior to Indian Independence and subsequently in the councils of
the world where Krishna's name attracted immediate attention and
respect. He could not be deflected by flattery or blandishments from
pursuing the interests of his country with tenacity.

I am not saying that Krishna was a man without flaws, He had them, but
these were nothing when compared to the extraordinary qualities he
possessed. Of course, he just could not suffer fools, especially of
the more active variety.

I have examined over a period of years the physiognomy of his
critics. There were those who could not bear his proximity to
Jawaharlal Nehru. Basically, these men and women lacked confidence in
themselves and appeared tall because they walked on stilts of office
or something else. There were others who turned against him after
being beneficiaries of his kindness and patronage; and finally, there
were those, mostly foreigners, who called him `abrasive', `anti-West',
`Fellow traveller', and `Communist', because he refused to play the
diplomatic game according to the rules made by others.

I had occasion to see Krishna in recent years without the halo of
office. I found him without rancour. He was troubled but serene. His
mind remained alive and he could still come with devastating comment
on men and events. But he was at peace with himself and that is what
most of us would like to feel whenever our days are numbered.

(Broadcast on All India Radio, 6th October 1974)