Books & Authors: On VP Menon, Sardar Patel’s Right Hand Man

Though long consigned to the footnotes of history, VP Menon was an important figure who contributed immensely to the shape of contemporary India. He was instrumental in getting the princely states, including the problematic big three - Junagadh, Hyderabad, and Kashmir - to join the Indian union, and was responsible too for the inclusion of women and the unlettered in the new nation's electoral rolls. Narayani Basu, author of VP Menon; The Unsung Architect of Modern India, talks about this extraordinary man.