Lieutenant General Kunhirāman Pālātt Kandèt,PVSM (23 October 1916 – 19 May 2003) was a senior officer in the Indian Army who played a commanding role in the Liberation of Goa from Portuguese control in 1961, and briefly served as the Military Governor of Goa, Daman and Diu. He later served as the Deputy Chief of Army Staff based in GHQ in New Delhi during the second war in 1965, and later effectively commanded the Western Command during the third war with Pakistan in 1971.

Early life

He was born in Ottapalam, Malabar District (now Kerala) in British India (now India) to M. A. Candeth, the son of the Nayanar landlord and writer Vengayil Kunhiraman Nayanar. His maternal grandfather was Sir C. Sankaran Nair, who was the President of the Indian National Congress.

Military career

Pre-independence

Commissioned into the Royal Artillery in 1936, Candeth saw action in West Asia during the Second World War. Shortly before India's independence from colonial rule, he was deployed in the North West Frontier Province, bordering Afghanistan, to quell local tribal uprisings. The mountainous terrain gave Candeth the experience for his later operations against Nagaland separatists in the North East. He attended the Military Services Staff College at Quetta, capital of Baluchistan in 1945.

Kashmir 1947

After Independence, Candeth was commanding an artillery regiment that was deployed to Jammu and Kashmir after Pakistan-backed tribesmen attacked and captured a third of the province before being forced back by the Indian Army. Thereafter, Candeth held a series of senior appointments, including that of Director General of Artillery at Army Headquarters in Delhi, to which he was appointed on 8 September 1959, with the acting rank of major-general (substantive colonel).

Goa

Following Indian independence from British rule, certain parts of India were still under foreign rule. While the French left India in 1954, the Portuguese, however, refused to leave. After complex diplomatic pressure and negotiations had failed, on 18 December 1961 Defence Minister V.K. Krishna Menon ordered the military to overrun Goa and oust the Portuguese. Candeth, whose father was close to Menon, all three of them being related as elite Nairs, was chosen by Menon to command in Operation Vijay—the Liberation of Goa, Daman and Diu from Portuguese rule. In an obituary tribute to Candeth, The Independent of London however referred to him as "born into a middle-class Anglo-Indian family" while early scholarly references also referred to him as Kenneth P. Candeth. https://web.stanford.edu/group/tomzgroup/pmwiki/uploads/1074-1971-Rubinoff-a-BTS.pdf As 17 Infantry Division commander, Candeth took the colony within a day and was immediately appointed Goa's first Indian administrator (acting as the Military Governor), a post he held till June 1962. Controversial as the military action was, Candeth inevitably received critical coverage in the western press, although the primary brunt of criticism was Menon, followed by Nehru.

North East

After relinquishing command as Goa's Military Governor in 1963, Candeth was appointed GOC, Nagaland on 23 August 1963. He took command of the newly raised 8 Mountain Division in the North-East on 15 November 1963, where he battled, although with little success, the highly organised Naga insurgents. The insurgency in the North East has not been quelled completely to this day. On 7 May 1965, he was appointed Deputy Chief of the Army Staff (DCOAS) with the acting rank of lieutenant-general. He was promoted to lieutenant-general on 17 January 1966, and was appointed GOC-in-C, Western Command on 27 September 1969.

Awards and later life

Lt. Gen. Kunhiraman Palat Candeth was awarded the Param Vishisht Seva Medal and also the Padma Bhushan by the Government of India. Retiring from the army on 21 October 1972, he joined the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the 1990s and was appointed a member of the Party's Executive Committee.

Dates of rank