CHENNAI: When MAM Ramaswamy sat beside his cousin and declared his intention to make him the custodian of his fortune last week, he signalled the end of a spat that had spanned more than a decade.
For, before he fell out with his adopted and now disowned son, he was involved in a longer falling out with the man helming SPIC—AC Muthiah.
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 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 Chettiar community.
The line traces its swagger and poise to the very first ‘Raja of Chettinad’—S Rm M Annamalai Chettiar.
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.
When British financial giant Arbuthnot Bank collapsed in 1906, the Indian Bank was born out of its ashes. Annamalai’s elder brother, S Rm M Ramaswamy Chettiar, became a founding director in 1907. A year later, Annamalai took his place, gradually dominating operations.
Wealth also opened other doors. When Lord Willingdon became the Governor of Madras in 1919, Annamalai, along with CP Ramaswamy Iyer, became favourites of Lady Willingdon. “The family’s association with Lady Willingdon opened some very highly placed doors,” said a source.
Annamalai 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 same year, the British Crown conferred the title by which he and the family are still known—the Rajas of Chettinad. The next 60 years saw three generations build two of the largest industrial conglomerates in South India.
From Financiers to Industrialists
Annamalai’s two sons—M A Muthiah and M A Chidambaram were pioneers. “We were traditionally bankers and financiers and Annamalai ventured into education, but only as a charitable task. His sons followed their distant cousins, the Murugappa Group, and became industrialists,” said a family member. The trigger was the end of Colonialism after 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 one 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, 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.
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. 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.
While he lived the public life, his cousin AC Muthiah took SPIC, and the MAC group, into the top five industries conglomerates in the country.
The spotlights stayed on them but time saw some sheen stripped away. Alleged mismanagement saw Ramaswamay losing control of the Annamalai University, SPIC and the MAC Group went through crisis after crisis. All the while, the family has been plagued by internecine squabbles—the latest resulting in the disowning of MAMR Muthiah only the most acrimonious.
Father and son at loggerheads
The feud between Ramaswamy and son MAMR Muthiah, running for nearly a decade now, has at its roots a tussle for control over the vast properties of the Chettinad wealth, estimated by sources at more than Rs 7000 crore. But the trigger remains emotional with Ramaswamy feeling his son was stingy and power hungry. His son feels his father is old and ill advised. The feud worsened after wife Sigappi Achi’s death in 2005 and at present stands with Muthiah being disowned and written out of the will. The case is likely to be contested in court.
Tale of a feud
M A M Ramaswamy vs A C Muthiah
1984: Feud starts. Raja Muthiah Chettiar dies leaving M A M Ramaswamy as heir. But A C Muthiah’s father M A Chidambaram, younger brother of Muthiah Chettiar remains alive and is oldest male member.
Late 1984: Ramaswamy wins tussle for inheriting ancestral wealth.
1984-1989: A C Muthiah and SPIC Group flourish with close government support. Ramaswamy does not see same successes. Feud worsens.
1989: Government changes. Ramaswamy falls in with new establishment, gets coal handling contracts.
1989-1991: SPIC and A C Muthiah face harassment. Liquor businesses faces scandal. SPIC sees first signs of trouble from fellow stakeholder TIDCO.
1991-1996: Government changes. A C Muthiah gets reprieve but business languishes. Ramaswamy retains TNEB coal contracts, flourishes.
1995: Ramaswamy adopts M A M R Muthiah.
2000-2005: Rumours of Ramaswamy and A C Muthiah patching up make rounds. M A M R Muthiah runs day-to-day business of Chettinad Group.