Krishna Krishna Chettur ICS (10 March 1901 – 29 April 1956) was an Indian civil servant and diplomat who served as India's first ambassador to Japan.

Career

After university, during which he took an MA, Chettur entered the Indian Civil Service on 5 March 1925, serving in the Indian Audit Department. From October 1930 to April 1933, he was posted as a currency officer in Rangoon (now

Yangon Yangon ( my, ရန်ကုန်; ; ), formerly spelled as Rangoon, is the capital of the Yangon Region and the largest city of Myanmar (also known as Burma). Yangon served as the capital of Myanmar until 2006, when the military government ...

), the capital of British Burma (now

Myanmar Myanmar, ; UK pronunciations: US pronunciations incl. . Note: Wikipedia's IPA conventions require indicating /r/ even in British English although only some British English speakers pronounce r at the end of syllables. As John Wells explai ...

) and then a province of British India. From 1933 until May 1937, he served in the same role in Calcutta (now

Kolkata Kolkata (, or , ; also known as Calcutta , the official name until 2001) is the capital of the Indian state of West Bengal, on the eastern bank of the Hooghly River west of the border with Bangladesh. It is the primary business, comme ...

) before being posted to the Finance Department of the Government of India as an under-secretary. He was promoted to deputy secretary (''ex-officio'') in April 1940 and to deputy secretary in the Commerce Department in August 1944. Following India's independence in August 1947, he rose to the officiating rank of a Secretary in the Commerce Department. In March 1950, Chettur was posted to

Tokyo Tokyo (; ja, 東京, , ), officially the Tokyo Metropolis ( ja, 東京都, label=none, ), is the capital and List of cities in Japan, largest city of Japan. Formerly known as Edo, its metropolitan area () is the most populous in the world, ...

as the Indian Political Representative in Japan and Head of the Indian Liaison Mission. On 28 April 1952, following India's official peace treaty with Japan, he was appointed as India's first Ambassador to Japan, and served in that role until 25 July 1952, when he was appointed Ambassador to Burma. In September 1954, he was appointed as Ambassador to

Belgium Belgium, ; french: Belgique ; german: Belgien officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. The country is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeast, France to th ...

, formally retiring from government service on his 55th birthday, but continuing to serve as Ambassador to Belgium. Just over a month later, while playing

golf Golf is a club-and-ball sport in which players use various clubs to hit balls into a series of holes on a course in as few strokes as possible. Golf, unlike most ball games, cannot and does not use a standardized playing area, and coping ...

, he succumbed to a sudden

heart attack A myocardial infarction (MI), commonly known as a heart attack, occurs when blood flow decreases or stops to the coronary artery of the heart, causing damage to the heart muscle. The most common symptom is chest pain or discomfort which ma ...

in Brussels on 29 April 1956.

Personal life

Chettur was born into a distinguished political family. His uncle was Sir C. Sankaran Nair, a judge of the Madras High Court and the

President of the Indian National Congress The President of the Indian National Congress is the chief executive of the Indian National Congress (INC), one of the principal political parties in India. Constitutionally, the president is elected by an electoral college composed of members ...

in 1897, who subsequently served as Advocate-General of the Madras Presidency from 1906 to 1908. Among his cousins was the

Indian Army The Indian Army is the land-based branch and the largest component of the Indian Armed Forces. The President of India is the Supreme Commander of the Indian Army, and its professional head is the Chief of Army Staff (COAS), who is a four- ...

general

Kunhiraman Palat Candeth Lieutenant General Kunhiraman Palat Candeth, PVSM (Hindi: कुँहिरामन पलट कंडेथ; 23 October 1916 – 19 May 2003) was a senior army officer in the Indian Army who played a commanding role in Liberation of Go ...

. Chettur's daughter

Jaya Jaitly Jaya Jaitly (born 14 June 1942) is an Indian politician and former President of Samata Party (now led by Uday Mandal its current President), an activist, author and Indian handicrafts curator. She stepped down as party president because of the Op ...

is a noted socialist politician and activist who founded the

Samata Party The Samata Party (SAP) is a political party in India, initially formed in 1994 by George Fernandes and Nitish Kumar, now led by Uday Mandal its National President. Samata Party once launched Nitish Kumar as the Chief Minister of Bihar. It was ...

; his granddaughter Aditi is married to cricketer

Ajay Jadeja Ajaysinhji Jadeja ( born 1 February 1971), known as Ajay Jadeja, is an Indian former professional cricketer, who was a regular member of the Indian cricket team between 1992 and 2000. He played 15 Test matches and 196 One Day Internationals f ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Chettur, K. K. Indian civil servants Indian Civil Service (British India) officers Ambassadors of India to Luxembourg Ambassadors of India to Japan Ambassadors of India to Myanmar Ambassadors of India to Belgium Kerala politicians Malayali people 1901 births 1956 deaths 20th-century Indian politicians