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He founded Madras’ MIT
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Chinnaswami Rajam sold both his palatial bungalows to start the Madras Institute of Technology to produce the engineers India needed
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It was on November 28 125 years ago that there was born the man who started Madras’s own MIT (the Madras Institute of Technology) which helped produce one of India’s leading space scientists, a man who went on to become a President of India, Abdul Kalam.
Chinnaswami Rajam was born in Swamimalai in modest circumstances. After his schooling in Kumbakonam, he found employment hard to come by. So he joined the Salem Government Weaving School in 1904 to learn the art of weaving. With the skills he acquired, he started a small handloom factory in Salem, but when there were differences with his partner he sold it to him in 1906 and moved to Madras.
A stint as a Congress volunteer followed, but there was still the necessity of earning a living. He sold ghee, tamarind, and textiles, but did not make any financial headway. In 1909, he agreed to join Mysore Tanneries selling leather goods on a commission basis – and suddenly discovered he was a successful leather goods salesman. After travelling throughout India for Mysore Tanneries, he was appointed its showroom manager in Calcutta. He raised money for Mysore Tanneries, helped it manage the Berhampur Leather Manufacturing Company, and then found himself at odds with the former – and struck out on his own.
The Indian Company Limited he started became his flagship company. Coal tar, coal and cars became his lines of business. As agent for Oldsmobile cars he did well in the years after World War I when motoring was becoming an acceptable mode of travel. His car business led to the founding of Garage Limited, which soon began winning long-term postal contracts. But it was the Madras agency for Tata Steel that made him a business success in Madras. He next brought electricity to Kumbakonam and Nagapattinam, starting the Kumbakonam and Nagapattinam Electric Supply Corporations, in 1932 and 1933 respectively. And in 1933 he also set up the Indian Steel Rolling Mills. The fact that to start all three he needed to get engineers from abroad nagged him. Why weren’t there engineers in India, he fretted.
When his wife died in 1944, he decided to answer the question. He sold both his palatial bungalows and donated Rs.5 lakh to start the Madras Institute of Technology to produce those engineers India needed. Nurturing the Institute is what he spent the rest of his life on, hoping it would one day become a university. It was a hope that was to remain unfulfilled – private universities were to become a reality only about five years after his death in 1955.
His home on Edward Elliot’s Road, across from the Music Academy, became film mogul S. S. Vasan’s and on its site now is a gloomy looking glass-and-steel behemoth.
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