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Sankaran Nair
‐
Lawyer and jurist who held high-profile government positions during the British Raj
Other names
Chettur Sankaran Nair
Place of birth
Date of arrival to Britain
Place of death
Madras, India
Date of time spent in Britain
1920–1
About
Sankaran Nair was a lawyer who became a judge in the Madras High Court in 1908. He played an active role in the Indian National Congress and served as their President in 1897. He founded and edited The Madras Review and The Madras Law Journal. In 1915 he became a member of the India Council.
Nair visited Britain in 1920 as part of the Indian deputation to the Southborough Committee on Indian franchise. He had travelled with Herabai Tata and Mithan Lam to put forward the case for female suffrage in India. He served as councillor to the Secretary of State for India in London 1920–1. During his time in Britain he gave a number of addresses and was involved in a campaign for a residential club for Indian female students in London.
Sankaran Nair continued to pursue an active political career when he returned to India. In 1922 he wrote Gandhi and Anarchy, which criticized Gandhi's non-cooperation movement but also criticized Michael O'Dwyer and British suppression. He was Chair of the All-India Committee which met with the Simon Commission in 1928–9.
G. K. Chettur (nephew), Mithan J. Lam, Herabai Tata.
Britain and India Association
Gandhi and Anarchy (Indore: Holkar State Printing Press, 1922)
Autobiography (Madras: M. Nair, 1966)
Image credit
Sir Chettur Sankaran Nair by Bassano Ltd, whole-plate glass negative, 5 March 1920, NPG x120293
© National Portrait Gallery, London, Creative Commons, http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/
