India, Dec. 8 -- The late Prof MP Manmadhan (1915-1994) belonged to that rare tribe of public intellectuals Kerala once produced in abundance-men who combined scholarship with activism, conviction with compassion. A Gandhian to the core, an uncompromising anti-liquor campaigner, a spellbinding orator and Principal of Mahatma Gandhi College, Thiruvananthapuram, Manmadhan was a contemporary of Mannath Padmanabhan, the visionary founder of the Nair Service Society, which went on to build an empire of educational and medical institutions.

I had the privilege of hearing him once at my alma mater, St Thomas College, Kozhencherry. He was invited to speak on a subject that was electrifying campuses worldwide at the time: students' unrest. Americ...