What was the position held by Dr. S. Radhakrishnan, before he became the Vice-President of India ?

Correct — D, (d) Ambassador to the Soviet Union.

Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan served as India's AMBASSADOR TO THE SOVIET UNION from 12 July 1949 to 12 May 1952, and he moved directly from that posting to the vice-presidency: he was elected the first Vice-President of India in 1952, and served two terms before being elected the second President of India, holding that office from 1962 to 1967. So the post held immediately before the vice-presidency was the Moscow embassy, and that is option (d).

The appointment is worth understanding rather than merely remembering, because it looks odd at first sight. Radhakrishnan was a professional philosopher, not a diplomat — he had held the chair of Eastern Religions and Ethics at Oxford and had been Vice-Chancellor of Banaras Hindu University from 1939 to 1948 — and Moscow in 1949 was the most difficult embassy India had. Nehru's choice of a scholar of world standing rather than a career official for that post was deliberate: India was establishing itself as a country that would deal with both blocs, and the ambassador's own eminence was part of what was being communicated.

The rest of his career is the reason the other three options exist. Every one of them names a position that is either adjacent to something he really did or is structurally impossible for him to have held, and separating those two kinds of wrongness is the exercise.

Two further facts about him are worth carrying, since papers of this kind use them. He was among the FIRST recipients of the Bharat Ratna: the award was instituted on 2 January 1954 and the first conferments, all in 1954, went to three people together — C. Rajagopalachari, Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan and C. V. Raman. And his birthday, 5 September, is observed in India as Teachers' Day.

The comma after 'Dr. S. Radhakrishnan,' before 'before' is as printed, and 'U.S.A.' and 'U.G.C.' carry full stops while 'Vice-President' is hyphenated, all as the booklet sets them.

Why the others are wrong

• (a)Ambassador to the U.S.A. — The right kind of post and the wrong country, which makes it the natural first guess for a candidate who remembers only that Radhakrishnan had been an ambassador. He was India's envoy in MOSCOW, not in Washington, and the distinction is not incidental. The Soviet posting between 1949 and 1952 was the harder and more significant of the two assignments in the terms of the moment: relations with the Soviet Union were being built from very little, the Cold War was hardening, and India was working out what non-alignment would mean in practice. Sending a philosopher of international reputation to Moscow was a considered act of policy, and transposing it to Washington loses the whole point of the appointment.
• (b)Chairman, U.G.C. — This is the best-constructed of the three, because it is built on something real. Radhakrishnan DID chair a national body on higher education — the UNIVERSITY EDUCATION COMMISSION, set up in 1948 to report on Indian university education and to suggest improvements and extensions — and one of its recommendations concerned the reconstitution of the body that became the University Grants Commission. But the Commission he chaired and the Commission named in this option are different things, and the dates settle it independently: the University Grants Commission came into being in 1953 and was given statutory status by the University Grants Commission Act, 1956, by which time Radhakrishnan had already been Vice-President for a year or more. A body that did not yet exist cannot have been the post he held immediately before taking that office.
• (c)Chairman, Planning Commission — Structurally impossible, and knowing why is worth more than knowing the answer. The PRIME MINISTER was the ex-officio Chairman of the Planning Commission from its creation by Cabinet resolution in 1950 until its dissolution in 2014, and the same arrangement carried over to NITI Aayog. The chairmanship was therefore never an appointment that could be given to anyone outside that office, and Radhakrishnan was never Prime Minister. An option that names a post held ex officio by someone else can be eliminated without knowing anything about the person in the stem, and that is a general technique worth applying whenever a body's headship is tied to an office rather than filled by selection.

S. RADHAKRISHNAN moved through three careers, and questions about him can come from any of them, so the sequence is worth holding in order.

THE PHILOSOPHER. An academic career in Indian philosophy and comparative religion, including the chair of Eastern Religions and Ethics at Oxford, and Vice-Chancellor of Banaras Hindu University from 1939 to 1948. His scholarly work presented Indian philosophical traditions to a Western readership and is the basis of his international standing. THE PUBLIC EDUCATOR AND DIPLOMAT. Chairman of the University Education Commission set up in 1948, which reported on Indian university education and shaped the framework of higher-education policy after independence; then Ambassador to the Soviet Union from 12 July 1949 to 12 May 1952. THE CONSTITUTIONAL OFFICE-HOLDER. First Vice-President of India from 1952, serving two terms, and second President of India from 1962 to 1967. His birthday, 5 September, is Teachers' Day.

THE VICE-PRESIDENCY itself is worth attaching to the same piece of preparation, because it is examined constantly. Article 63 creates the office. ARTICLE 64 makes the Vice-President the ex-officio Chairman of the Council of States and bars him from holding any other office of profit, and ARTICLE 66(2) provides that a sitting member of either House of Parliament or of a State legislature who is elected Vice-President is deemed to have vacated that seat on the day he enters office — so the Vice-President presides over the Rajya Sabha WITHOUT being a member of it. He is elected by an electoral college consisting of the members of both Houses of Parliament, unlike the President, whose electoral college also includes elected members of the State legislative assemblies.

VICE-PRESIDENTS WHO BECAME PRESIDENT are a recurring item: S. Radhakrishnan, Zakir Husain, V. V. Giri, R. Venkataraman, Shankar Dayal Sharma and K. R. Narayanan. Neelam Sanjiva Reddy, by contrast, went to the presidency from the office of Speaker of the Lok Sabha and was never Vice-President, which is the standard trap in that family of questions.

THE GENERAL METHOD for a 'which post did X hold before Y' question is to reconstruct the person's career as a dated sequence rather than as a set of achievements. Many such questions can be settled on dates alone — as this one can, since the body named in option (b) did not exist when the appointment in the stem was made.

Key facts

• S. Radhakrishnan was India's Ambassador to the Soviet Union from 12 July 1949 to 12 May 1952, immediately before becoming Vice-President.
• He was elected the first Vice-President of India in 1952 and served two terms, then was the second President of India from 1962 to 1967.
• He was Vice-Chancellor of Banaras Hindu University from 1939 to 1948 and held the chair of Eastern Religions and Ethics at Oxford.
• He chaired the University Education Commission set up in 1948 to report on Indian university education — a different body from the University Grants Commission.
• The University Grants Commission came into being in 1953 and was given statutory status by the University Grants Commission Act, 1956.
• The Prime Minister was ex-officio Chairman of the Planning Commission from its creation in 1950 to its dissolution in 2014, so the post could not be held by anyone else.
• The Bharat Ratna was instituted on 2 January 1954, and the first conferments went jointly to C. Rajagopalachari, S. Radhakrishnan and C. V. Raman in 1954.
• Article 64 makes the Vice-President ex-officio Chairman of the Council of States; Article 66(2) means he presides over the Rajya Sabha without being a member of it.
• Radhakrishnan's birthday, 5 September, is observed as Teachers' Day in India.

Common traps

• Recalling that he was an ambassador and defaulting to Washington. The posting was Moscow, from 1949 to 1952.
• Confusing the University Education Commission, which he chaired in 1948, with the University Grants Commission, which came into being in 1953.
• Overlooking that the Planning Commission was headed ex officio by the Prime Minister, which makes option (c) impossible for anyone else.
• Ignoring the chronological qualifier. The question asks what he held IMMEDIATELY before the vice-presidency, not what he held at any time.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Who among the following served as Vice-President of India before becoming President ?

  • (a)Rajendra Prasad
  • (b)S. Radhakrishnan
  • (c)Neelam Sanjiva Reddy
  • (d)A. P. J. Abdul Kalam

  Answer(b) S. Radhakrishnan — he was the first Vice-President from 1952, serving two terms, and then the second President from 1962 to 1967. Rajendra Prasad went to the presidency from the chair of the Constituent Assembly; Neelam Sanjiva Reddy from the office of Speaker of the Lok Sabha; and Abdul Kalam from a career in science and technology administration.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The Chairman of the erstwhile Planning Commission of India was

  • (a)the President of India
  • (b)the Prime Minister of India, ex officio
  • (c)the Union Finance Minister
  • (d)an economist appointed by the President

  Answer(b) the Prime Minister of India, ex officio — the Planning Commission, created by a Cabinet resolution in 1950 and dissolved in 2014, was always headed by the Prime Minister, with a Deputy Chairman running it in practice. NITI Aayog, which replaced it, retains the same arrangement, with the Prime Minister as Chairperson and a Vice-Chairperson appointed by him.