K. R. Narayanan

Kocheril Raman Narayanan was born on 27 October 1920 in the village of Uzhavoor in Kerala. The Vice-President’s Office records his father as Kocheril Ramari Vaidyan and his spouse as Usha Narayanan. He studied English Literature at the University of Travancore and received an M.A. with first class. He then studied at the London School of Economics, where the Vice-President’s Office records a B.Sc. in Economics with first-class honours and the President’s Secretariat describes his subject as political science. He lectured at the University of Travancore in 1943.

In 1944 and 1945 Narayanan worked as a journalist for The Hindu in Madras and the Times of India in Bombay. From 1945 to 1948 he was London correspondent of the weekly Social Welfare. He joined the Indian Foreign Service in 1949 and served in the Indian missions in Rangoon, Tokyo, London, Australia and Hanoi, and in the Ministry of External Affairs, where he became Secretary in 1976. He taught economic administration at the Delhi School of Economics from 1954 to 1955.

Narayanan was India’s Ambassador to Thailand from 1967 to 1969, to Turkey from 1973 to 1975, to the People’s Republic of China from 1976 to 1978, and to the United States from 1980 to 1984. Between the Chinese and American postings he was Vice-Chancellor of Jawaharlal Nehru University from 1979 to 1980. He was a member of the Indian delegation to the United Nations General Assembly in 1979.

Narayanan was elected to the Lok Sabha in 1984. In 1985 he was Union Minister for Planning and from 1985 to 1986 Union Minister for External Affairs. His ministerial responsibilities also included science and technology, atomic energy, space, electronics and ocean development. He was Vice-President of the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research from 1986 to 1989. He became Vice-President of India and Chairman of the Rajya Sabha on 21 August 1992 and held that office until 24 July 1997.

Narayanan took office as the tenth President of India on 25 July 1997 and served until 25 July 2002. The President’s Secretariat describes him as the first person from Kerala and the first Dalit to hold the office. He chaired the juries of several awards and served as Chancellor of universities including Delhi University and Panjab University. He wrote India and America: Essays in Understanding. He died on 9 November 2005.