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B. N. Rau
Sir Benegal Narsing Rau CIE (26 February 1887 – 30 November 1953) was an Indian civil servant, jurist, diplomat and statesman known for his role as the constitutional advisor to the Constituent Assembly of India. He was also India's representative to the United Nations Security Council from 1950 to 1952.
Rau helped draft the constitutions of Burma in 1947 and India in 1950. He was the constitutional advisor of the constituent assembly of India. He was India's representative to the United Nations Security Council from 1950 to 1952, and was serving as its president when it recommended armed assistance to South Korea in June 1950. Later he was a member of the Korean War post Armistice United Nations Command Military Armistice Commission (UNCMAC).
A graduate of the Universities of Madras and Cambridge, Rau entered the Indian civil service in 1910. After revising the entire Indian statutory code (1935–37), he was knighted in 1938 and made judge of the Bengal High Court at Calcutta in 1939. His writings on Indian law include a noted study on constitutional precedents as well as articles on human rights in India. He served briefly (1944–45) as Minister of Jammu and Kashmir state. From February 1952 until his death, he was a judge of the International Court of Justice at The Hague. Before his election to the court, he was regarded as a candidate for secretary-general of the United Nations. Sir B. N. Rau's brothers were Governor of the Reserve Bank of India Benegal Rama Rau and journalist and politician B. Shiva Rao.
B. N. Rau was born during the late British Raj on 26 February 1887 in a Hindu Konkani-speaking Saraswat Brahmin family. His father Benegal Raghavendra Rau was an eminent doctor. Rau graduated from the Canara High School, Mangalore (Ancient Tulunad Head quarters), topping the list of students of the entire Madras Presidency. He graduated in 1905 with a triple first degree in English, Physics, and Sanskrit, and gained an additional first in Mathematics in 1906. On a scholarship, he proceeded to Trinity College, Cambridge, and took his Tripos in 1909, just missing the Wranglership coming out ninth.
B. N. Rau returned to British India after successfully passing the Indian Civil Service Examination in 1909, posted to Bengal. Doing well on the executive side, in 1909 he moved to the judiciary thereafter, and served as a judge in several districts in East Bengal. In 1925, he was offered a dual position by the Assam government, as Secretary to the provincial council and Legal Remembrancer to the government. He served in this position for about eight years. In addition to these duties, he occasionally fulfilled additional functions for the Assam government, such as drafting memoranda for financial support for the Simon Commission's tour of India in 1928–29, and presenting their case before the Joint Select Committee of Parliament in London after the third Round Table Conference in 1933. He also worked with Sir John Kerr to prepare a note on how provincial legislatures in India might be designed to work better.
On his return to India in 1935, Rau worked with the Reforms Office of the Government of India, on drafting the Government of India Act, 1935. At the end of this project, Sir Maurice Gwyer, the first Chief Justice of India's Federal Court, suggested that he gain the necessary five years' experience that would qualify him to serve as a judge on the Federal Court as well. He served thereafter as a judge on the Calcutta High Court, but his tenure was interrupted by two additional projects that he was assigned to by the Government of India – he first presided over a court of inquiry concerning wages and working conditions on railways in India, and thereafter with a commission working on reforms concerning Hindu law. He also was reassigned to chair the Indus Waters Commission, which submitted a report on riparian rights on in 1942.
His distinguished work brought him a Companion of the Order of the Indian Empire (CIE) in the 1934 New Year Honours list and a knighthood in 1938. Rau retired from service in 1944, and was then appointed as the Prime Minister of the princely state of Jammu and Kashmir. He resigned from this position in 1945, following differences with the then-Maharaja of Kashmir, writing in his resignation letter that "...I have been conscious for some time that we do not see eye to eye on certain fundamental matters of external and internal policy. And that leads, as it must lead, to disagreement in many a detail. I have never questioned and I do not now question, the position that in all these matters Your Highness' decision must be final. The Prime Minister must either accept it or resign."
Following his resignation as Chief Minister of Kashmir, Rau was asked to serve in a temporary capacity in the Reforms Office of the Government of India, which he did so. He was also offered, and declined, the position of a permanent judge on the Calcutta High Court, preferring to stay in the Reforms office and work on constitutional and federal issues. He was consequently appointed as a Secretary in the Governor-General's office, working on constitutional reforms, until he became the Constitutional Advisor to the Constituent Assembly in 1946.
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B. N. Rau
Sir Benegal Narsing Rau CIE (26 February 1887 – 30 November 1953) was an Indian civil servant, jurist, diplomat and statesman known for his role as the constitutional advisor to the Constituent Assembly of India. He was also India's representative to the United Nations Security Council from 1950 to 1952.
Rau helped draft the constitutions of Burma in 1947 and India in 1950. He was the constitutional advisor of the constituent assembly of India. He was India's representative to the United Nations Security Council from 1950 to 1952, and was serving as its president when it recommended armed assistance to South Korea in June 1950. Later he was a member of the Korean War post Armistice United Nations Command Military Armistice Commission (UNCMAC).
A graduate of the Universities of Madras and Cambridge, Rau entered the Indian civil service in 1910. After revising the entire Indian statutory code (1935–37), he was knighted in 1938 and made judge of the Bengal High Court at Calcutta in 1939. His writings on Indian law include a noted study on constitutional precedents as well as articles on human rights in India. He served briefly (1944–45) as Minister of Jammu and Kashmir state. From February 1952 until his death, he was a judge of the International Court of Justice at The Hague. Before his election to the court, he was regarded as a candidate for secretary-general of the United Nations. Sir B. N. Rau's brothers were Governor of the Reserve Bank of India Benegal Rama Rau and journalist and politician B. Shiva Rao.
B. N. Rau was born during the late British Raj on 26 February 1887 in a Hindu Konkani-speaking Saraswat Brahmin family. His father Benegal Raghavendra Rau was an eminent doctor. Rau graduated from the Canara High School, Mangalore (Ancient Tulunad Head quarters), topping the list of students of the entire Madras Presidency. He graduated in 1905 with a triple first degree in English, Physics, and Sanskrit, and gained an additional first in Mathematics in 1906. On a scholarship, he proceeded to Trinity College, Cambridge, and took his Tripos in 1909, just missing the Wranglership coming out ninth.
B. N. Rau returned to British India after successfully passing the Indian Civil Service Examination in 1909, posted to Bengal. Doing well on the executive side, in 1909 he moved to the judiciary thereafter, and served as a judge in several districts in East Bengal. In 1925, he was offered a dual position by the Assam government, as Secretary to the provincial council and Legal Remembrancer to the government. He served in this position for about eight years. In addition to these duties, he occasionally fulfilled additional functions for the Assam government, such as drafting memoranda for financial support for the Simon Commission's tour of India in 1928–29, and presenting their case before the Joint Select Committee of Parliament in London after the third Round Table Conference in 1933. He also worked with Sir John Kerr to prepare a note on how provincial legislatures in India might be designed to work better.
On his return to India in 1935, Rau worked with the Reforms Office of the Government of India, on drafting the Government of India Act, 1935. At the end of this project, Sir Maurice Gwyer, the first Chief Justice of India's Federal Court, suggested that he gain the necessary five years' experience that would qualify him to serve as a judge on the Federal Court as well. He served thereafter as a judge on the Calcutta High Court, but his tenure was interrupted by two additional projects that he was assigned to by the Government of India – he first presided over a court of inquiry concerning wages and working conditions on railways in India, and thereafter with a commission working on reforms concerning Hindu law. He also was reassigned to chair the Indus Waters Commission, which submitted a report on riparian rights on in 1942.
His distinguished work brought him a Companion of the Order of the Indian Empire (CIE) in the 1934 New Year Honours list and a knighthood in 1938. Rau retired from service in 1944, and was then appointed as the Prime Minister of the princely state of Jammu and Kashmir. He resigned from this position in 1945, following differences with the then-Maharaja of Kashmir, writing in his resignation letter that "...I have been conscious for some time that we do not see eye to eye on certain fundamental matters of external and internal policy. And that leads, as it must lead, to disagreement in many a detail. I have never questioned and I do not now question, the position that in all these matters Your Highness' decision must be final. The Prime Minister must either accept it or resign."
Following his resignation as Chief Minister of Kashmir, Rau was asked to serve in a temporary capacity in the Reforms Office of the Government of India, which he did so. He was also offered, and declined, the position of a permanent judge on the Calcutta High Court, preferring to stay in the Reforms office and work on constitutional and federal issues. He was consequently appointed as a Secretary in the Governor-General's office, working on constitutional reforms, until he became the Constitutional Advisor to the Constituent Assembly in 1946.