Amid local suspicion, diplomat hailed Dave

In 1976, when it was charged that Brahmins had once again come to occupy key positions in the TN bureaucracy, the US Consulate General in Chennai felt that P K Dave, then advisor to the Governor, was being needlessly suspected of a role in this.

A cable said that when Dave was confronted by a journalist on the reentry of Brahmin bureaucrats, he said he had been “born a Brahmin but not bred a Brahmin” and added he had not come across such “class distinctions” in his service.

Commenting on the press interaction (which, incidentally, never made it to print), a US diplomat said: “We would guess that Dave personally is irritated by this issue which seems peculiar to TN. To a man sincerely trying to do a job, as Dave appears to be doing, politicizing the caste issue could be frustrating.”

In another cable, the consulate said “Dave is far more popular than Subramaniam and is widely respected in Tamil circles.”

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