Narayanan, Kocheril Raman (1920–2005)

Indian politician and public servant, president 1997–2002. A dalit (‘untouchable’) from the southern state of Kerala, after a career chiefly as a diplomat, he became vice-president in 1992 and, in July 1997, was indirectly elected, with cross-party support, as the country's first ever dalit president.

Born into a poor family in the southern state of Kerala, his father practised traditional Indian medicine. He was educated in India and England, where he studied political science at the London School of Economics, and worked as a journalist, before joining the Indian Foreign Service in 1949. He worked in Myanmar, Japan, Australia, and the UK, and was appointed ambassador to Thailand (1967–69), Turkey (1973–75), China (1976–78), and the USA (1980–84). After being elected in 1984 to the Lok Sabha, the lower house of parliament, as Kerala constituency representative, he held ministerial positions 1985–88, including minister of state for external affairs and minister of science and technology during the administration of prime minister Rajiv Gandhi.