Sir ''Sir'' is a formal honorific address in English for men, derived from Sire in the High Middle Ages. Both are derived from the old French "" (Lord), brought to England by the French-speaking Normans, and which now exist in French only as part ...

Muthiah Annamalai Muthiah Chettiar, Rajah of Chettinad KCSI (5 August 1905 – 12 May 1984) better known as Rajah Sir Muthiah Chettiar was an Indian Industrialist, banker, politician, philanthropist, and cultural activist who served as First Mayor of Madras city (1933) and Minister of Excise and Education (1936–37) in the provincial government of

Madras Presidency The Madras Presidency or Madras Province, officially called the Presidency of Fort St. George until 1937, was an administrative subdivision (province) of British India and later the Dominion of India. At its greatest extent, the presidency i ...

.Tamil scholar honoured
''The Hindu''. 6 August 2005.
''The Hindu''. 6 August 2006. Muthiah Chettiar was holder of the hereditary title Kumar-rajah (1929–48) and later, Rajah of Chettinad (1948–84). His father Rajah Sir Annamalai Chettiar was also a famous educationist and founder of the

Annamalai University The Annamalai University (AU) is a public state university in Chidambaram, Tamil Nadu, India. The sprawling campus offers courses of higher education in arts, science, engineering, management, humanities, agriculture, and physical education. ...

in the town of

Chidambaram Chidambaram is a major town and municipality in Cuddalore district in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu, on the banks of the Vellar River where it meets the Bay of Bengal. It is the headquarters of the Chidambaram taluk. The town is believed to b ...

in Tamil Nadu.Dr. Rajah Sir Muthiah Chettiar – Biography on release of postal stamp on his honour
Indianpost.com. Retrieved on 10 December 2018. He was also the third

Nattukottai Chettiar Nagarathar (நகரத்தார்) is a Tamil caste found native in Tamil Nadu, India. The Nagarathar community was not originally a single caste, but developed from an assortment of related subcastes, which over time became known under th ...

to be

knight A knight is a person granted an honorary title of a knighthood by a head of state (including the pope) or representative for service to the monarch, the church, or the country, especially in a military capacity. The concept of a knighthood ...

ed; the first two were his nephew and father.Muthiah, S. (8 September 2003) . ''The Hindu''. The government of Tamil Nadu honoured him with the title ''Tamil Isai Kavalar''.

Early life

He was born on 5 August 1905, son of Dr. Rajah Sir Annamalai Chettiar, the Raja of Chettinad and a distinguished member of the Nattukottai Nagarathar community. He studied mostly in

Madras Chennai, also known as Madras ( its official name until 1996), is the capital and largest city of Tamil Nadu, the southernmost state of India. It is located on the Coromandel Coast of the Bay of Bengal. According to the 2011 Indian ce ...

, graduating from the

Presidency College, Chennai Presidency College is an art, commerce, and science college in the city of Chennai in Tamil Nadu, India. On 16 October 1840, this school was established as the Madras Preparatory School before being repurposed as a high school, and then a gra ...

in 1922. He then went to

Burma Myanmar, officially the Republic of the Union of Myanmar; and also referred to as Burma (the official English name until 1989), is a country in northwest Southeast Asia. It is the largest country by area in Mainland Southeast Asia and ha ...

on his family's business, acquiring expertise in banking.

As a banker

He became a member of the Madras Legislative Council, representing the South Indian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, with which he was associated for 50 years, and was elected its President in 1941. He was appointed member of the Provincial Banking Enquiry Committee (1931). In 1929, he became a member of the Corporation of Madras and was elected mayor in 1933 and 1934. In 1943, he was elected president of the Federation of the Indian Chambers of Commerce and industry. He was associated with the Imperial Bank of India (now the

State Bank of India State Bank of India (SBI) is an Indian Multinational corporation, multinational Public sector undertakings in India, public sector bank and financial service body headquartered in Mumbai. It is the largest bank in India with a 23% market shar ...

) and the

Indian Bank Indian Bank is an Indian public sector bank, established in 1907 and headquartered in Chennai. It serves over 100 million customers with 40,002 employees, 5,901 branches with 5,268 ATMs and Cash deposit machines. Total business of the bank has ...

As an educationist

Interest in education was part of the family heritage. He was associated with his father in making Sri Meenakshi College, Chidambaram the nucleus of

. While pursuing his political career as Chief Whip and Legislative Assembly Chairman of the Justice Party, he retained his interest in education. In 1936 he was appointed Minister-in-Charge of education, Public Health and Excise, and was also the pro-Chancellor of

Madras University The University of Madras is a public university, public State university (India), state university in Chennai (Madras), Tamil Nadu, India. Established in 1857, it is one of the oldest and most prominent universities in India, incorporated by an ...

for over a year. He remained on the Board of Management of the Pachaiyappa's Charities for 33 years. He was also on the Syndicate of the Madras University and the Board of Management of the

Indian Institute of Technology, Madras The Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IIT Madras or IIT-M) is a Public university, public technical university located in Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India. It is one of the eight public Institutes of Eminence of India. As an Indian Institutes of ...

. In 1948 he became Pro-Chancellor of Annamalai University which expanded to include the faculties of Education, Fine Arts, Culture, Law and Medicine. Two UGC centres of advanced study in

marine biology Marine biology is the scientific study of the biology of marine life, organisms that inhabit the sea. Given that in biology many scientific classification, phyla, family (biology), families and genera have some species that live in the sea and ...

and

linguistics Linguistics is the scientific study of language. The areas of linguistic analysis are syntax (rules governing the structure of sentences), semantics (meaning), Morphology (linguistics), morphology (structure of words), phonetics (speech sounds ...

came into being. The Engineering and Technology Department developed into a post-graduate centre. The Muthiah Polytechnic, Annamalainagar, and the Annamalai Polytechnic, Chettinad, were established. He was interested in the study of

Tamil language Tamil (, , , also written as ''Tamizhil'' according to linguistic pronunciation) is a Dravidian language natively spoken by the Tamil people of South Asia. It is one of the longest-surviving classical languages in the world,. "Tamil is one of ...

literature Literature is any collection of Writing, written work, but it is also used more narrowly for writings specifically considered to be an art form, especially novels, Play (theatre), plays, and poetry, poems. It includes both print and Electroni ...

music Music is the arrangement of sound to create some combination of Musical form, form, harmony, melody, rhythm, or otherwise Musical expression, expressive content. Music is generally agreed to be a cultural universal that is present in all hum ...

and culture. His services to the Tamil cause earned him the title of ''Tamil Isai Kavalar''.Encomiums on Raja Muthiah Chettiar – The Hindu
Hindu.com (4 August 2004). Retrieved on 2018-12-10.

In politics

He earned the reputation of being a sensitive Parliamentarian,

impartial Impartiality (also called evenhandedness or fair-mindedness) is a principle of justice holding that decisions should be based on objective criteria, rather than on the basis of bias, prejudice, or preferring the benefit to one person over anothe ...

and balanced, as a leader of the opposition in 1939 and when he held charge of Local Administration and

Hindu Hindus (; ; also known as Sanātanīs) are people who religiously adhere to Hinduism, also known by its endonym Sanātana Dharma. Jeffery D. Long (2007), A Vision for Hinduism, IB Tauris, , pp. 35–37 Historically, the term has also be ...

Religious Endowments. He was the first Mayor of Chennai (then called Madras) when the mayoralty was reinstated for the Corporation of Chennai in 1933. The mayoralty had been earlier removed in 1792, when the act made Madras a municipality. In 1946 he was elected member of the Constituent Assembly at New Delhi.

Awards and legacy

He was

knighted A knight is a person granted an honorary title of a knighthood by a head of state (including the pope) or representative for service to the monarch, the church, or the country, especially in a military capacity. The concept of a knighthood ...

in the 1941

King's Birthday Honours The Birthday Honours, in some Commonwealth realms, mark the reigning monarch's official birthday in each realm by granting various individuals appointment into national or dynastic orders or the award of decorations and medals. The honours are ...

, and was invested by the

Viceroy of India The governor-general of India (1833 to 1950, from 1858 to 1947 the viceroy and governor-general of India, commonly shortened to viceroy of India) was the representative of the monarch of the United Kingdom in their capacity as the Emperor of ...

on 24 June 1941. He also had the rare honour of hosting a lunch in the Chettinad House for

Queen Elizabeth II Elizabeth II (Elizabeth Alexandra Mary; 21 April 19268 September 2022) was Queen of the United Kingdom and other Commonwealth realms from 6 February 1952 until Death and state funeral of Elizabeth II, her death in 2022. ...

and the

Duke of Edinburgh Duke of Edinburgh, named after the capital city of Scotland, Edinburgh, is a substantive title that has been created four times since 1726 for members of the British royal family. It does not include any territorial landholdings and does not pr ...

. The government of India bestowed on him

Padma Bhushan The Padma Bhushan (IAST: ''Padma Bhūṣaṇa'', lit. 'Lotus Decoration') is the third-highest civilian award in the Republic of India, preceded by the Bharat Ratna and the Padma Vibhushan and followed by the Padma Shri. Instituted on 2 Januar ...

in 1973, and the Tamil Nadu government honoured him with the "Tamil Isai Kavalar" title in 1979. New York World University awarded an honorary doctorate to him in 1982. He died on 12 May 1984 in Madras leaving an impressive record of interests and achievements. The Indian government honoured him with a postal stamp issued on his memory on 21 December 1987.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Muthiah Chettiar, M A 1905 births 1984 deaths Tamil Nadu politicians Indian bankers 20th-century Indian educational theorists Mayors of Chennai Recipients of the Padma Bhushan in trade and industry Indian Knights Bachelor Academic staff of Annamalai University Businesspeople from Chennai 20th-century Indian businesspeople 20th-century Indian philanthropists