The Vengalil family is an aristocratic

Aristocracy (class)

The aristocracy are people considered to be in the highest social class in a society which has or once had a political system of Aristocracy. Aristocrats possess hereditary titles granted by a monarch, which once granted them feudal or legal privileges, or deriving, as in Ancient Greece and India,...

 Nair

Nair

Nair , also known as Nayar , refers to "not a unitary group but a named category of castes", which historically embody several castes and many subdivisions, not all of whom bore the Nair title. These people historically live in the present-day Indian state of Kerala...

 family from Malabar

Malabar District

Malabar District was an administrative district of Madras Presidency in British India and independent India's Madras State. The British district included the present-day districts of Kannur, Kozhikode, Wayanad, Malappuram, Palakkad , and Chavakad Taluk of Thrissur District in the northern part of...

 that was powerful in India

India

India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...

 during much of the British Raj

British Raj

British Raj was the British rule in the Indian subcontinent between 1858 and 1947; The term can also refer to the period of dominion...

, and known as intimates of the Nehru-Gandhi family

Nehru-Gandhi family

The Nehru–Gandhi family or Nehru - Feroze Gandhi family is an Indian political family which has been dominant in the Indian National Congress for most of India's history since independence...

.

Background

Closely affiliated with the Dewan

Dewan

The originally Persian title of dewan has, at various points in Islamic history, designated various differing though similar functions.-Etymology:...

ship of Travancore

Travancore

Kingdom of Travancore was a former Hindu feudal kingdom and Indian Princely State with its capital at Padmanabhapuram or Trivandrum ruled by the Travancore Royal Family. The Kingdom of Travancore comprised most of modern day southern Kerala, Kanyakumari district, and the southernmost parts of...

 and related to the royal families of Cochin

Kingdom of Cochin

Kingdom of Cochin was a late medieval Hindu kingdom and later Princely State on the Malabar Coast, South India...

 and Travancore, the Vengalil family were ranked among India's greatest landowners until the rise of the communist government in Kerala, owning such controversial regions as the hydroelectric power center of Kuttiyadi. The family originated through the marriage of Raman Menon, Dewan of Travancore (1815–1817) serving Maharani Gowri Parvati Bayi and his wife, Narayani Amma.

Influential members include politician V. K. Krishna Menon and author Janaki Ram

Janaki Ram

Janaki Ram is an Indian-American author who has written biographies and collections of short stories, as well as a prominent figure in Asian art auctions. She is a relative of Krishna Menon and Sir C.P. Ramaswami Iyer and a member of the powerful South Indian Vengalil family. She was a founder and...

, as well as C. P. Ramaswami Aiyar by marriage. Numerous members of the Vengalil family held titles equivalent to that of Thakur

Thakur (Indian title)

Thakur is an Indian feudal title in several Indian languages, literally meaning "lord". A Thikana is the state or estate of a Thakur. A Thakurani is the wife of a Thakur...

 or Raja

Raja

Raja is an Indian term for a monarch, or princely ruler of the Kshatriya varna...

in north India.