Selective Amnesia in History

An enigma unraveled

Fifty years ago, on 23^rd January 1957, V.K. Krishna Menon, the most forceful and fearless leader that any nation had sent to the United Nations delivered his 8hour speech on Kashmir, a fitting reply to Pakistan, “It must be planted effectively in your minds that the issue in Kashmir is aggression, that the issue is invasion…” Krishna Menon’s time was one in which India loomed large in international affairs not only in championing the cause of oppressed nations, but in rendering positive assistance in solving knotty issues like the Korean problem. His role in freedom fight is well documented as an unofficial ambassador of the Indian people in London, instilling confidence even in Prime Minister Clement Attlee. Through his mentor and guru Harold Lasky he worked out the plan to appoint Lord Mountbatten, an admirer and friend of Nehru as the last Viceroy to enable a smooth transfer of power from Britain to India ( Ref: Lappier and Collins: Freedom at midnight)

History never forgets such great milestones, but alas, historians do. Such selective amnesia proves handy for some of them who write history with a long term personal goal. This is perhaps what happened to Shashi Tharoor while writing his meticulous volume on independent India “From Midnight to Millennium”. His book decries Nehru’s ‘Socialist Pattern of Society’ as the root cause of all evils in independent India, but plays to the audience by romanticizing the uplift of the downtrodden to positions of power. The story of a village boy who could not enter his (Tharoor’s) house being an untouchable returning to the village as the District Collector and behaving benevolently to his tormentors has the beauty of a fairy tale, be it fact or fiction.

Tharoor’s book discusses a great array of significant persons in the country from statesmen to petty politicians, the feud between India and Pakistan over Kashmir in a cool-headed style, but carefully avoids mentioning the towering personality and patriot who dealt with the problem with an indomitable will and persistence. It is interesting to note that Shashi Tharoor had all UN records at his disposal to write an honest account of the battle fought in the UN and yet he was blind to this illustrious personality who virtually decided India’s foreign policy from ’47 to ’62.

Although every patriot admired Krishna Menon, there were others who understandably hated him. But ignoring him was impossible. The Westerners, US in particular hated him, but took notice of every word he uttered on international issues. He was also feared because of his sharp and witty quips. When the superpowers were piling up “nuclear warheads for world peace” his sarcastic remark was, “I have never heard of a vegetarian tiger”. He was virtually the voice of India.

One admires Shashi Tharoor’s style and remarkable ability to write beautifully no matter what the topic is, and no matter if there is a topic at all. This rare gift has given him many readers and admirers in India who wish well for him. After reading his “From Midnight to Millennium” more than a year ago his determined amnesia on Krishna Menon and his contributions haunted me as an enigma.

Everything fell in place, and the riddle was instantly solved as soon as Shashi Tharoor announced his candidature for UN Secretary General’s position. This august body, buckling under pressure from the US and its allies has deteriorated to a worse condition than the erstwhile League of Nations when Italy invaded Abyssinia (present Ethiopia). All recent UN Secretary Generals looked like scarecrows when Bush and Blair invaded Iraq with impunity, bombed schools and hospitals, and killed women and children in their war of greed for oil. He, as a career diplomat knew better than anyone that one’s political opinions should resonate with that of US even to get across the first round of the competition. In hindsight it is not difficult to fathom his intentions in obliterating a great patriot like Krishna Menon in order to curry favour with his masters who might get jittery at the very mention of that name, whom they had dubbed as a crypto-communist.

Carry on Shashi, no hard feelings. After all, collective memory of the masses is extremely poor.

Post Script: When AK Antony joined the Union Cabinet as Defence Minister most of the Malayalam channels, and newspapers did not remember that he was the second Malayalee occupying that position, Krishna Menon being the first. This collective amnesia can be pardoned because most of the young journalists and reporters have limited their domain of knowledge to irrelevant details on movie stars and cricket players. The slip was due to ignorance and not due to amnesia.