Diwan Bahadur Cherubala Pathayapura Karunakara Menon (1891-1976) was an Indian civil servant and administrator who served as the Diwan of Cochin kingdom from 1944 to 1947. He was the last Diwan of the kingdom and served till its accession to the Indian Union.

Early life and education

Karunakara Menon was born in 1891 in the town of Chittur

Chittur

Chittur is a small town in Palakkad district of Kerala, South India.-Politics:Chittur assembly constituency is part of Alathur .It contains 16 panchayats.-Demographics:...

 in the then Cochin kingdom in a family of six. Menon had his schooling in Chittur and graduated from the Presidency College, Madras.

Career

On completion of his education, Menon joined the Madras Board of Revenue as a clerk

Clerk

Clerk, the vocational title, commonly refers to a white-collar worker who conducts general office or, in some instances, sales tasks. It is also occasionally used to refer to third-year medical students completing a medical clerkship. The responsibilities of clerical workers commonly include record...

. When the first Indian National Congress government was formed in the Madras Presidency as per the Government of India Act 1935, Karunakara Menon was appointed Secretary in the Public Service Commission.

Menon was soon transferred as district collector

District collector

The District Collector is the district head of administration of the bureaucracy in a state of India. Though he/she is appointed and is under general supervision of the state government, he/she has to be a member of the elite IAS recruited by the Central Government...

 of South Canara

South Canara

South Canara was a district under the British empire, located at . It was bifurcated in 1859 from Canara district. It was the undivided Dakshina Kannada district...

 and to the Development Department as Secretary. When the Second World War broke out, Menon was appointed Regional Food Commissioner of the Government of India

Government of India

The Government of India, officially known as the Union Government, and also known as the Central Government, was established by the Constitution of India, and is the governing authority of the union of 28 states and seven union territories, collectively called the Republic of India...

 and then, transferred to Delhi

Delhi

Delhi , officially National Capital Territory of Delhi , is the largest metropolis by area and the second-largest by population in India, next to Mumbai. It is the eighth largest metropolis in the world by population with 16,753,265 inhabitants in the Territory at the 2011 Census...

 to take over as Director-General of Food.

In 1944, Menon succeeded G. T. Boag

G. T. Boag

Sir George Townsend Boag KCIE CSI was a British Indian civil servant, statistician and administrator who served as the Acting Governor of Orissa from August 11, 1938 to December 8, 1938.- Early life :...

as the Diwan of Cochin kingdom and served till August 15, 1947, when India obtained independence. He presided over the state's accession to the Republic of India.

Later life

In his later life, Karunakara Menon served as an advisor to the Indian government and was instrumental in setting up the Chittur College. Karunakara Menon died in 1976 at the age of 85.