Vappala Pangunni Menon CSI CIE (30 September 1893 – 31 December 1965) was an Indian civil servant who served as Secretary to the Government of India in the Ministry of the States, under Sardar Patel.

He also was the Constitutional Adviser[1][2] and Political Reforms Commissioner to the last three successive Viceroys (Linlithgow, Wavell and Mountbatten) during British rule in India.

In May 1948, at the initiative of V. P. Menon, a meeting was held in Delhi between the Rajpramukhs of the princely unions and the States Department, at the end of which the Rajpramukhs signed new Instruments of Accession which gave the Government of India the power to pass laws in respect of all matters that fell within the seventh schedule of the Government of India Act 1935.

[4] By working assiduously, encouraged by Edwin Montagu, Menon rose through the ranks to become the highest serving Indian officer in British India.

[8] He was offered a knighthood as a Knight Commander of the Order of the Star of India (KCSI) in a final imperial honours list in 1948,[9] but refused.

When the interim Government had collapsed due to the rivalry between the Indian National Congress and the Muslim League, Menon had proposed to Mountbatten, Jawaharlal Nehru and Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, the Indian leaders, the Muslim League's plan to partition India into two independent nations - India and Pakistan, helping draft the instrument of accession.

[5] Menon's resourcefulness during this period caught the eye of Sardar Patel, who would become the Deputy Prime Minister of India in 1947.

Menon along with Mehr Chand Mahajan (Prime Minister J&K) left for New Delhi by air on the morning of 26 October.

[12] After the independence of India, Menon became the secretary of the Ministry of the States, headed by Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, with whom he had developed a bond of trust.

[15] In 2020, his great-granddaughter Narayani Basu wrote a biography on him named, V. P. Menon: The Unsung Architect of Modern India.