For a community that considers low profiles one of the highest of virtues, no family has cut as flamboyant a path as the line of Raja Sir Annamalai Chettiar. For so long and so much has the family occupied public attention, by pioneering industry, charity, education and more recently, family intrigues and coups, that it has come to be known as the de facto ‘First Family’ of the immensely wealthy Chettiar community.
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But while the more modern descendents of the line might have garnered more headlines, the line traces its swagger and poise to the very first ‘Raja of Chettinad’ — S Rm M Annamalai Chettiar. Banker, industrialist, educationalist, philanthropist, socialite — the adjectives bestowed on the man are endless.
Of colleges, banks and tea parties
Annamalai and his brothers trace their descent from one of the several Chettiar families that rode the bow waves of South Asian colonialism to enhance their already prodigious wealth. And before the end of his life, he had used that wealth to hop onto the first glimmers of institutionalism, founding a dynasty that has gone on to pioneer and dominate industry in South India for decades — all in high style.
The first step towards this came in 1906, when British financial giant, Arbuthnot Bank collapsed and the Indian Bank was born out of its ashes. And while the family was not among its first promoters — the list from 1906 doesn’t have a single C hettiar on it - ready capital had its advantages. Annamalai’s elder brother, S Rm M Ramaswamy Chettiar became a founding director in 1907. A year later, Annamalai had taken his place, gradually coming to dominate its operations.
Wealth also opened other doors. When the Lord Willingdon landed in Madras as its Governor in 1919, Annamalai, along with CP Ramaswamy Iyer, became favourites of the inimitable Lady Willingdon — for years fixtures at tea parties, lunches and balls, where swishing gowns and gay music drowned out favours traded at the highest echelons. “Lady Willingdon was a formidable person. And the family’s association with her opened some very highly placed doors,” said a source. “It is said that when the Lady snapped her fingers, the Lord jumped.”
Annamalai, an avowed believer in education, proceeded to open some of the earliest colleges in the state. The Meenakshi College in Chidambaram, founded in 1920, and the Sanskrit, Tamil and Music colleges which followed it, served an excellent nucleus for the Annamalai University in 1929. The university, a centre of academic excellence for nigh on eight decades, remains what Annamalai is best remembered for.
The same year, the British Crown conferred the title by which he, and his family, are still known by - the Rajas of Chettinad. “But it wasn’t business prowess for which it was awarded. It was for his work in Burma and his service in education,” said the source. Annamalai passed away on June 15, 1948, but the family had just gotten started.
The next 60 years saw three generations build what were, and still are, two of the largest industrial conglomerates in South India - all the while remaining in the limelight.
From Financiers to Industrialists
Annamalai’s two sons - M A Muthiah and M A Chidambaram were pioneers in the truest sense of the word. “We were traditionally bankers and financiers and Annamalai ventured into education, but only as a charitable task. His sons however, followed their distant cousins, the Murugappa Group, and became industrialists,” said a family member. The trigger was something wholly out of their control - the end of Colonialism after the World War II.
With the granting of independence to Britain’s colonies in the 40s and 50s came catastrophe for the Chettiar community. According to MAMR Ramaswamy, the family owned over 1 lakh acres of paddy fields in what was then Burma. “We also had over a 100 branches of the Bank of Chettinad and huge properties in Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Vietnam and Sri Lanka,” he said. The wave of independence wrecked those holdings.
But the two sons had already started establishing another kind of empire. By the late 1950s, MA Chidambaram had entered his first industrial venture - a scooter factory manufacturing the popular Lambretta brand. The venture failed eventually, but not before MAC had begun the Southern Petrochemical Industries Corporation (SPIC).
MA Muthiah, then at the forefront of Indian Bank, also began diversifying into industry. By the late 50s and early 60s, he began expanding into construction, cement and minerals, giving rise to the Chettinad Cement Corporation in the 1960s - the flagship of the Chettinad Group and the company in the midst of the current acrimonious feud between his son and grandson.
But throughout these years, as their ventures flourished, the family continued swashbuckling through society. MA Muthiah was the first mayor of Madras and at the top of its rarified social circles. He even hosted a lunch for Queen Elizabeth II and the Duke of Wellingdon in the 50s - a social coup the likes of which few can boast of.
The chair the Duke of Wellington sat on during that lunch is still pulled out for important events - as it was when his son Ramaswamy publicly disowned his adopted son last week.
Muthiah’s brother, MA Chidambaram, while a noted and powerful industrialist, was rather more attached to his more glamourous posts - president of the Board of Control for Cricket in India and the president of the TNCA.
The glory years of MAM Ramaswamy
The third generation however, belongs to one man. For no Chettiar has ever matched the renown and dazzle that the current doyen of the family enjoyed and still enjoys. MAM Ramaswamy, while carrying on the businesses founded by his father, rampaged through the world of horse-racing, education and high society in grand style - for over four decades.
In fact, Ramaswamy’s enduring, and often problematic, love affair with horses was quite accidental. “He only wanted to be a professional tennis player. But when his brother MAM Muthiah, who had an extensive stable, met with an untimely death, he inherited it. He became interested, took it forward and was hooked,” said a close family source. “It has also become a vice. After all, his differences of opinion with his adopted son (MAMR Muthiah) first began there,” he added.
And as MAM Ramaswamy lived the public life, the other branch of the family lived a quieter if as successful version. His cousin and childhood playmate AC Muthiah - the two played polo together, took SPIC, and the MAC group, into the top five industries conglomerates in the country.
The spotlights stayed on them but the decades preceding and following the turn of the century has seen some of the sheen stripped away. Alleged mismanagement saw Ramaswmay losing control of the Annamalai University, SPIC and the MAC Group went through crisis after crisis - and all the while the family has been plagued by a series of internecine squabbles - the latest resulting in the disowning of MAMR Muthiah only the most acrimonious. The headlines have remained with them, but they are not as flattering anymore.