C. Sankaran Nair

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Sir Chettur Sankaran Nair
President of the Indian National Congress
In office
1897–1897
Preceded byRahimtulla M. Sayani
Succeeded byAnandamohan Bose
Personal details
Born(1857-07-11)11 July 1857
Chettur,
British India
Political partyIndian National Congress
ProfessionLawyer, jurist, activist, politician

Sir Chettur Sankaran Nair

Egmore faction, opposing the Mylapore group
.

According to V. C. Gopalratnam, he was a leader of the Madras bar, alongside C. R. Pattabhirama Iyer, M. O. Parthasarathy Iyengar, V. Krishnaswamy Iyer, P. R. Sundaram Iyer, and Sir V. C. Desikachariar, and immediately behind Sir V. Bhashyam Aiyangar and Sir S. Subramania Iyer.[1]

He wrote Gandhi and Anarchy (1922).

Early life and education

Chettur Sankaran Nair was born on 11 July 1857 in a prominent

Hindu family named Chettur, as the son of Mammayil Ramunni Panicker and Parvathy Amma Chettur in Mankara, Palakkad district. His father worked as a Tahsildar under the British government. His early education began in the traditional style at home and continued in schools in Malabar, till he passed the arts examination with a first class from the Provincial School at Calicut
. Then he joined the Presidency College, Madras. In 1877 he took his arts degree, and two years later secured the law degree from the Madras Law College.

Career

Nair started as a lawyer in 1880 in the High Court of Madras. In 1884, the

Collector Ashe murder case along with C. A. White, then the Chief Justice of Madras, William Ayling, as a special case.[2] In his best-known judgment, he upheld conversion to Hinduism and ruled that such converts were not outcasts. He founded and edited the Madras Review and the Madras Law Journal.[3]

In the meantime, in 1902, the Viceroy

Companion of the Indian Empire by the King-Emperor in 1904[4] and in 1912 he was knighted.[5] He became a member of the Viceroy's Council
in 1915 with the charge of the Education portfolio. As member, he wrote in 1919 two famous Minutes of Dissent in the Despatches on Indian Constitutional Reforms, pointing out the various defects of British rule in India and suggesting reforms. For an Indian to offer such criticism and make such demands was incredible in those days. The British government accepted most of his recommendations. Nair resigned from the Viceroy's Council in the aftermath of Jalianwalabagh massacre on 13 April 1919. Afterward he was a councillor to the secretary of state for India (in London, 1920–21) and a member of the Indian Council of State (from 1925).

He played an active part in the Indian National movement which was gathering force in those days. In 1897, when the First Provincial Conference met in Madras, he was invited to preside over it. The same year, when the

Madras Legislative Council. His official life from 1908 to 1921 interrupted his activities as a free political worker. In 1928, he was the President of the Indian Central Committee to co-operate with the Simon Commission.[6] The Committee prepared a well-argued report asking for Dominion Status for India
. When the Viceregal announcement came granting Dominion Status as the ultimate goal for India, Sir Sankaran Nair retired from active politics. He died in 1934, aged 77.

Family

Nair in 1919.

Nair was married to his maternal cousin (uncle's daughter) Palat Kunhimalu Amma (later Lady Sankaran Nair) at a young age, according to the traditions of the time. She predeceased him in 1926, during a pilgrimage to the holy temple of Badrinath in present-day Uttarakhand. Their eldest daughter Lady Madhavan Nair and son-in-law and nephew Sir C. Madhavan Nair (a legal luminary and a judge of the Privy Council) lived on a large estate known as Lynwood, in Chennai. Within this property, in the area now known as Lady Madhavan Nair colony/Mahalinagapuram, is situated near the Ayappan-Guruvayoorappan temple, the land for which was donated by Lady Madhavan Nair. There are still many roads bearing names of the house – Lynwood avenue – and of the children of Sir and Lady Nair – Palat Narayani Amma road, Palat Sankaran Nair road, Palat Madhavan Nair road.

Nair also had five more children, among which another daughter - Saraswathy Amma a.k.a. Anuji - was married to the eminent diplomat K. P. S. Menon. Their son, Nair's grandson, also called K.P.S. Menon, and great-grandson Shivshankar Menon were also diplomats who served as Foreign Secretary. Shivshankar Menon also served as India's 4th National Security Advisor.

Nair's son R. M. Palat was also a noted politician in his own right.

Indo-Pak War of 1971 and the liberator of Goa, was another of Sir Sankaran Nair's grandsons.[7] Candeth's nephew and Sir Sankaran Nair's great-great grandson, Anil Menon, is a NASA astronaut.[8]

His nephew, V. M. M. Nair, was the oldest surviving ICS Officer in India when he died in 2021.[9]

Sankaran Nair's grand-nephew (niece Ammukutty Amma's son) was K. K. Chettur, an ICS officer who also served as India's first ambassador to Japan. He was the father of Jaya Jaitly, a politician and socialist, whose husband Ashok Jaitly was chief secretary of Jammu and Kashmir. Jaya's daughter Aditi is married to the former cricketer Ajay Jadeja.

Another grand-nephew of Sankaran Nair's was P.P. Narayanan (son of Chettur Narayanan Nair), a distinguished world trade unionist and leader in Malaysia (Morais 1984, introductory pages).[10]

References

Wikimedia Commons has media related to C. Sankaran Nair.
Wikiquote has quotations related to C. Sankaran Nair.
  1. ^ Gopalratnam, V. C. (1962). A Century Completed: A History of the Madras High Court, 1862-1962. Madras Law Journal Office.
  2. ^ We care for Madras that is Chennai. Madras Musings (17 June 1911). Retrieved on 2012-06-11.
  3. ^ "Sir Chettur Sankaran Nair | Indian lawyer, politician, reformer | Britannica". www.britannica.com. Retrieved 5 March 2024.
  4. ^ London Gazette, 21 June 1904
  5. ^ London Gazette, 12 July 1912
  6. ISBN 978-81-7023-555-2
    . Retrieved 11 June 2012.
  7. ^ Autobiography of Sir C. Sankaran Nair. Lady Madhavan Nair. 1966.
  8. ^ "NASA's first Malayali astronaut has a word for ISRO's first Malayali astronaut". Onmanorama. Retrieved 5 April 2024.
  9. ^ "V M M Nair, India's oldest ICS officer's 100th birthday on Oct 8 || Whispersinthecorridors". www.whispersinthecorridors.com. Retrieved 6 December 2019.
  10. ^ Morais, John Victor 1910- (1985). P.P. Narayanan a world trade unionist : a biography. Unik Printguide.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)

Bibliography

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