Lone surviving Indian Civil Service officer celebrates 101 B-Day

By S Kumar

Bhopal: A sole surviving officer of Indian Civil Service (ICS) of 1942 batch, Vallilath Madhathil Madhavan Nair is celebrating his ‘101’ birthday on October 8.

Nair, who was born in Mangalore on October 8, 1919, gives a blow-by- blow account of what had happened during his lifetime and service period on his website. He wrote a history of India and the world, how they underwent an amazing metamorphosis.

The retired officer rendered his services in the colonial period and post-independent India. He also enjoyed Indian Foreign Service and retired in 1977 after serving Indian Ambassador to various countries.

Nair closely witnessed political and administrative changes at national level and international level. His experiences are of inestimable value for the researchers.

His parents were Chettur Karunakaran Nair (1889-1979) and Padmavathy Amma (1902-2002). He married Krishnakumari Nair, daughter of a well-known scholar Vidwan Krishna Pillai of Thiruvanandapuram.

He was born when Lord Willingdon was Governor of Madras.  His father, Chettur Karunakaran Nair was stationed in Mangalore as a police officer. He studied at Christian College School and then at Presidency College in Madras.

Nair went to England and obtained an MA degree from University of Oxford at Brasenose College besides an MA degree from University of Cambridge at Gonville.

He joined Indian Civil Service in 1942 whilst still in Britain and completed his probation and early career as a Sub-Divisional Officer, in Sitamarhi, in Bihar. This was the last ICS batch recruited in Britain, and the British-recruited element consisted of just two Indian individuals and no European individuals.

In 1946, Nair was hand-picked by then Viceroy Field Marshall Wavell for the Indian Political Service (IPS), commencing his political career as Under Secretary dealing with North-Eastern affairs, in the External Affairs wing of the Foreign and Political Department, a department directly handled by the Viceroy.

During Partition, he was based in Delhi, just as the city began to receive large numbers of refugees. In 1949, he returned to England to obtain his Barrister’s qualifications (Bar-at-Law) from the Inner Temple in London. Upon his return, he continued his career as a diplomat as a member of India’s newly formed Foreign Service (IFS).

His first posting between 1949 and 1952 was to Cairo, Egypt as First Secretary, then as Counsellor and then as Chargé d’Affaires. During this time, King Farouk of Egypt was deposed and went into exile, with the army staging a coup d’état and General Naguib and Major Nasser assuming power.

Subsequently, he spent two years at the Ministry of External Affairs in Delhi as Deputy Secretary in charge of North-Eastern affairs. He then served between 1954 and 1956 as Deputy High Commissioner in Sri Lanka (then still called Ceylon); in 1957he moved as Commissioner of India in Singapore, moving within months to assume his next post as the High Commissioner of India in Malaya when he was only 38 years of age.

Between 1958 and 1960, he served as the Ambassador of India to Cambodia, then under the rule of Prince Norodom Sihanouk, and from 1961 to 1964, he served as the Ambassador of India to Norway, atOslo. He returned as a Joint Secretary in the Ministry of External Affairs in Delhi between 1964 and 1967, once again to deal with North-Eastern affairs.

In 1967, he commenced his posting until 1970 as the Ambassador of India to Poland, a country which, at the time, was in the Soviet bloc under a strict Communist regime. Between 1970 and 1974, he served as the Ambassador of India to Morocco, with concurrent accreditation as the Ambassador of India to Tunisia, and between 1974 and 1977, he served as the Ambassador of India to Spain.