A Sreedhara Menon

Early life and education

A. Sreedhara Menon was born on 18 December 1925 in Ernakulam, Kerala. His parents were Kovilakathu Parambil Padmanabha Menon and Alappat Narayani Amma.

Menon passed the Secondary School Leaving Certificate in 1941 with First Class and proceeded to the University of Madras where he passed the Intermediate Examination in 1942 with distinction in Hindi, Indian History, and Modem History. In 1944, supported by the Maharaja's scholarship, he completed his Bachelor of Arts from the Maharaja's College, Ernakulam, winning the Karimpat Rama Menon Gold Medal and the Rama Varma Shashtiabdapurthi Memorial Prize for English. He then continued his Master of Arts at Madras University completing it in 1948 with a First Rank in history.

From 1944–49, he worked as a teacher in St. Thomas College, Thrissur and subsequently joined the University College, Thiruvananthapuram in 1949 as a member of the teaching staff in the departments of History and Politics. In 1953, he was granted the Smith Mundt Scholarship and the Fulbright Travel Grant by the US Educational Foundation in India for higher studies at Harvard University where he obtained his master's degree in political science, specialising in International Relations.

Academic career

On his return to India, he was appointed by the Government of Kerala as the State Editor of Kerala Gazetteers in 1958. During the next ten years, Menon compiled eight volumes of Gazetteers (out of nine districts of Kerala) – Thiruvananthapuram (1961), Thrissur (1961), Kozhikode (1962), Kollam (1964), Ernakulam (1965), Alappuzha (1968), Kannur (1972), Kottayam (1975). The speed with which the work was done and the quality of the contents of the gazetteers won praise from all quarters including the Central Gazetteers Unit, Government of India..

From 1968–1977, Menon functioned as the Registrar of Kerala University. He worked as a visiting professor in the Department of History, University of Calicut under the UGC scheme from 1977–78. From 1979–81 he was a professor in the Institute of Public Administration (now the Institute of Management) under the Government of Kerala.

Menon was a member of several academic bodies like the Senate, Academic Council, Board of Studies, Board of Examiners etc. in universities in South India. Among the endowment lectures he delivered, the most important was the Bhaktavatsalam Endowment Lectures on National Integration and Chitti Babu Thiruvizha Endowment Lectures in Madras University. In 2000 he was elected the President of Vishakappattanam South Indian History Congress. He was as President of Senior Citizens Association of Thiruvananthapuram for three years and President of Trivandrum District Unit of Kerala State Consumer Protection Council for a few years..

Menon died on 23 July 2010, aged 84, after some years of suffering ill-health. He was survived by his wife and two children.

Views

Sreedhara Menon stayed away from ideological leanings towards any organisation or political party. He refused to write a history of the freedom struggle for the Indian National Congress because he "did not want to be known as a historian of the Congress." The leftist E. K. Nayanar Government also requested him in 1997 to document the freedom struggle but later refused to publish it due to differences with his stance on the Punnapra-Vayalar uprising. He remarked on the issue, "It is not an objective historian's job to collect facts to suit theories. A true historian is a judge and not a lawyer... politicians can act only as lawyers." His work on the freedom movement in Kerala was later published privately.

His book on the history of the University of Kerala was also ignored by the University until Vice-Chancellor B. Ekbal decided to publish it.

Awards

Selected list of works

Menon wrote nearly 25 books in English and Malayalam.