K. B. Menon

Konnanath Balakrishna Menon (18 June 1897 – 6 September 1967) was an Indian academic, politician and freedom fighter from Kerala. He was a professor at Harvard University and part of the revolutionary Ghadar Movement before returning to Kerala at the behest of Jayaprakash Narayan to champion Indian independence there in 1936. A protégé of both Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru, he nonetheless eschewed nonviolence, as the mastermind behind and leader of the 27-man team behind the 1942 Keezhariyur bombings. He is remembered as the architect and father of the Quit India Movement in Kerala.^[1]

After independence, he declined a position in Nehru's Indian Congress party government, instead representing Thrithala in the Madras State Legislative Assembly from 1952 to 1956, and then Vadakara as its inaugural Member of Parliament in the Lok Sabha between 1957 and 1962. In 1965 he was elected to the Kerala Legislative Assembly as member for Quilandy.^[2][3]