Who was the most globally recognised Malayali of the 20th century? There could be many contenders. But after reading Narayani Basu’s magisterial biography, A Man for All Seasons: The Life of K.M. Panikkar (Context, 2025), this writer is convinced about who deserves that historic distinction. It is undoubtedly Kavalam Madhava Panikkar (1895–1963), better known as Sardar Panikkar. He stands much ahead of even VK Krishna Menon, often is hailed as Kerala’s Viswapouran, the global citizen.

How many individuals can be described, without exaggeration, as a “nationalist, an anarchist, a novelist, a constitutional lawyer, an academic, a historian, a foreign policy mandarin, a journalist, a diplomat, an administrator, and a poet” — all rolled into one? How many can you think of who walked in the company of the giants of modern history, such as Gandhi, Nehru, Patel, Mao, Zhou Enlai and Nasser, had audiences with Mussolini and the Pope or angered American President Harry S Truman? He was also a man on whom history bestowed several mutually contradictory labels — a nationalist, a proud Hindu, a Zionist, a royalist, even a Communist. Though he was none of these in full measure, Panikkar had displayed shades of all of them at different moments of his long and turbulent public life. No wonder Basu calls him the “man of all seasons”.

No Indian who stood outside the arena of active politics left their imprint on so many decisive moments of the nation’s 20th century journey as Panikkar did. Born in the dying years of the 19th century in a hamlet amid the backwaters and paddy fields of Kuttanad — incidentally India’s lowest geographical point — Panikkar scaled dizzy heights in life. Imagine: the scion of a prosperous landlord family (prominent poets K. Ayyappa Panikkar and Kavalam Narayana Panikkar were his nephews) was a poor student who failed matriculation twice and even attempted suicide in sheer desperation. Yet, desperation gave way to determination as he was to emerge from Oxford as the second Indian to graduate in history with a first class. According to Basu, the first to achieve this glory was also a........

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