Diwan BahadurPalakkal Raman MenonDalawaMannadinayar (alsoPalakkad Raman Menon andAnkarath Raman Menon)[1] wasDewan of Travancore, servingMaharani Gowri Lakshmi Bayi, and thenMaharani Gowri Parvati Bayi during their successive regencies forMaharaja Swathi Thirunal Rama Varma, from 1815 to 1817,[2][3][4] andDalawa ofTravancore thereafter, holding auxiliary office asFouzdar.[1][5]
Previously he served as aSheristadar and justice of the Huzhur Court of Travancore,[6] asSarvadhikari of thekingdom of Cochin, servingKerala Varma III, and asSarvadhikari of thekingdom of Calicut.[1][7] Colonial administratorGeneral John Munro, 9th of Teaninich was his patron, and, later, antagonist.[8][9]
Reddy Row's successful intriguing displaced Menon from the Diwanship to the obsolete offices ofDalawa andFouzdar in 1817, whereupon Menon elected to not even bother dignifying the sinecures' demands. He did ally to himself a youngRai Raya Rai Venkata Rao, then new to Munro's retinue as a fresh, scholarly, English-speaking young bureaucrat, facilitating Rao's selection asDiwan Peishkar.[10] WhenReddy Row accepted the smalljagir of two villages inSengottai (Sambavarvadakarai) from Maharani Gowri Parvati Bayi as thanks for having skilfully married off Princess Rukmini Bayi, and, concurrently, Newall retired, Menon and Rao struck; highlighting the prospect of corrupt dealing to the incoming Resident, who opened an investigation into possible impropriety. Reddy Row was ultimately forced from the Diwanship in only 1821, whereupon R. Venkata Rao succeeded him.[11]
In 1828 the new Maharaja of Cochin,Rama Varma XI, apologized for the expropriation of Menon's family's assets, restoring them, and conferring the title ofMannadi Nair on Raman Menon, his brother, and their descendants, with women receiving the style ofNethyar Amma.
Menon was born to Narikkode Kunjulakshmi Amma and Kunjunni Thampuran of theMankadakovilakam of theVelattiri royal family of Valluvanad.[12] He married Narayani Amma - possibly his maternal first cousin[3] - late in life, founding with her the Vengaliltharavadu and building its eponymous sixteen-halledpathinarukettu inPanniyankara,Calicut, while his younger brother Krishnan founded the Ankarath tharavadu. His eldest daughter, Valiyammalu, married Kunhiraman, the lastKoothali Nair; their only daughter Lakshmikutty married the son of Udayavarma,Porlathiri Raja ofKadathanad, and was mother to IndianDefence Minister andde factoForeign MinisterV. K. Krishna Menon, the Sanskritist and feminist V. Chinnamalu Amma, and the consort ofRama Varma XIX, the lastMaharaja of Cochin.[13] Another daughter, Lakshmi, married P.C.V. Manavikraman Kuttunni Thampuran, reigningZamorin ofCalicut from 1915 to 1928; their daughter Kunjilakshmi married P.C. Anujan Thampuran, who succeeded his father-in-law as Zamorin, reigning from 1928 to 1931.[14] His son Vengalil Raman Menon was aMunsif and father to politicianKonnanath Balakrishna Menon,[15] while his son Vengalil Sankara Menon was a leading South Indian lawyer, and father to famed trial lawyer K. Kunhirama Menon andKalakshetra director K. Sankara Menon, who wasRukmini Devi Arundale's second husband and successor.[2]