Vengalil Krishna Kurup Krishna Menon was an Indian politician, non-career diplomat and nationalist. He was described by some as the second most powerful man in India, after his ally, the first Prime Minister of India, Jawaharlal Nehru. He wrote the first draft of the Preamble to the Constitution of India, initiated the idea of the Constituent Assembly of India and is considered the architect, and to have coined the name, of the Non-Aligned Movement.
He was chairman of the Indian delegation at the United Nations General Assembly from 1953 to 1962, at sessions of the United Nations Trusteeship Council from 1953 to 1956, and to the Eighteen Nation Committee on Disarmament. He was a member of the Indian National Congress and also at one time a member of the British Labour Party.
Noted for his eloquence, brilliance and forceful and highly abrasive personality, Menon inspired widespread adulation as well as angry detraction in both India and the West. To his supporters, he was an unapologetic champion of India in the face of Western imperialism, who famously "taught the white man his place". To his Western detractors, he was "Nehru's evil genius".