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K. P. K. Menon

Indian lawyer and Indian Independence activist

Lawyer Freedom fighter
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About K. P. K. Menon

K. P. K. Menon was a lawyer and freedom fighter.

K. P. Keshava Menon (1884?–?) was an Indian lawyer and a leading Indian independence activist from Kerala who was a key proponent of the formation of the Indian Independence League (IIL) and a lawyer for the Indian National Army (INA).

Menon was educated in Madras and England and had started his own in law practice in Kozhikode shortly after World War I and later opened a branch of Annie Besant's Home Rule movement. He moved to Madras where he started a branch of the New Fabian Society to "study public questions while simultaneously organising a union for rickshaw pullers".

He then returned to Kerala to meet with C. Rajagopalachari and subsequently joined Mahatma Gandhi's non-cooperation movement, and while there after learning local press would not publish Congress party news, he started his own Malayalam daily newspaper. The Japanese, however, would interfere with Menon's Indian radio broadcasts while he was in Singapore. In 1942 resigned from both the Council of Action and the INA,

As a IIL delegate, he attended various meetings in Tokyo, Bangkok and Malaysia and was acquainted with the Fujiwara clan.

K. P. K., as he came to be called, later became a fierce critic of Japanese imperialist designs with regard to India and the Indian Independence League and was later arrested by the Kempeitai. Involved with the India nationalists, he visited Kozhikode in 1946 and 1947 took a diplomatic post from 1947 to 1948. His arrest ultimately is said to have led to the precipitation of Mohan Singh Deb's confrontation with the Japanese high command in Singapore, where Menon was working as a lawyer and a recognized leader of the Indian community in Singapore, and his resignation from the INA in December 1942 and the collapse of the first INA. He was also the editor of The Great Trial of Mahatma Gandhi and Mr. Banker (1922) and also the author Chattambi Swamigal: The Great Scholar - Saint of India (1967).

In 2014, Dr. Rajesh Rai, assistant director and senior fellow at the Institute of South Asian Studies and assistant professor of South Asian Studies Programme at National University of Singapore, published the book Indians In Singapore, 1819-1945: Diaspora In The Colonial Port-City through Oxford University Press which included Menon.

Works Chattambi Swamigal: The Great Scholar - Saint of India (1967) K. Nagarajan's Writings - An Introduction (1984, Emerald Group Publishing

As editor A Poet in Search of God

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Important facts

Also known as
K. P. Keshava Menon

Frequently asked questions

Who was K. P. K. Menon?

Indian lawyer and Indian Independence activist

What was K. P. K. Menon's occupation?

K. P. K. Menon was a lawyer and freedom fighter.

Sources & further reading

Β· Wikipedia: K. P. K. Menon

Β· Wikidata: Q6323706

Β· DBpedia: K. P. K. Menon

Cite this page

APA: Biography.guide. (2026). K. P. K. Menon. https://biography.guide/k-p-k-menon/

MLA: "K. P. K. Menon." Biography.guide, https://biography.guide/k-p-k-menon/.

Chicago: "K. P. K. Menon." Biography.guide. https://biography.guide/k-p-k-menon/.

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