In London, sometime between 1947 and 1951, Indian high commissioner V.K. Krishna Menon hosted a reception at India House. It was attended by the then British prime minister Clement Atlee and others. Mathai writes: ‘Nehru stood in a corner, chatting with Lady Mountbatten all the while. Krishna Menon turned to me and said that people were commenting on it and requested me to break in so that Nehru could move about. I told him that I had no locus standi, he was the host and it was his duty to make the PM circulate. Krishna Menon did not have the guts to do the right thing.
