the First World War broke out Nair served as one of the surgeons on the hospital ship SS Madras, and was commissioned as a lieutenant. At the end of the war he was awarded the Kaiser-i-Hind medal and posthumously the War Service medal. In the Indian National Congress Nair was associated with the Indian National Congress right from the time of his return to India in 1897. In the Congress sessions in 1898 and 1899, he strongly condemned the present status of Indian officers in the Medical services and campaigned for equal treatment to be meted out to them. He presided over the District Congress at Chittoor, North Arcot in 1907. Formation of the South Indian Liberal Federation When Nair lost the elections to the Imperial Legislature of India held in 1916 he blamed caste-based prejudices in the Indian National Congress for his loss. Nair felt that the Brahmins were dominating the Indian National Congress. He protested the Home Rule Movement launched by Annie Besant. In 1917 Nair left the Indian National Congress. At a meeting in August 1917 he said: In October 1917, Nair launched the South Indian Liberal Federation, also known as the Justice Party in collaboration with Sir Pitti Theagaroya Chetty. Editorship of the Justice In November 1916 a meeting was held at Madras in which Sir P. Theagaroya Chetty and Nair participated. The meeting brought out a resolution mandating the establishment of a newspaper for voicing the aspirations of non-Brahmins. From 26 February 1917 onwards, the Justice began to be published. Nair was the chief editor until his death in 1919. In his newspaper he attacked his opponents in the Indian National Movement and supporters of the Home Rule Movement. Once when the Indian National Congress carried out agitations in Ernad Tirur and Valluvanad, he prophesied that "the Congress was smoking in a gunpowder magazine". His words proved to be true when the Moplah Rebellion broke out in the region in the year 1921. Mission to England and death In 1918–19, despite warnings from fellow doctors not to travel abroad as his health was deteriorating, he led a mission to England to speak in support of communal representations before a Joint Parliamentary Committee. He remains one of the few Indians to have addressed a meeting of the members of the UK Parliament. However he was prohibited from speaking to the public on the orders of Edwin