50 Years of The C.P. Ramaswami Aiyar Foundation of THE C.P. RAMASWAMI AIYAR FOUNDATION The Grove, 1 Eldams Road, Chennai 600018 www.cprafoundation.org 1 50 Years of The C.P. Ramaswami Aiyar Foundation © The C.P. Ramaswami Aiyar Foundation 2016 The C.P. Ramaswami Aiyar Foundation 1 Eldams Road Chennai 600 018 Tel : 2434 1778 / 2435 9366 Fax : 91-44-24351022 E-Mail: [email protected] Website: www.cprfoundation.org 2 50 Years of The C.P. Ramaswami Aiyar Foundation Contents 1. Sir C.P. Ramaswami Aiyar 7 2. The C.P. Ramaswami Aiyar Foundation 15 3. C.P. Art Centre 37 4. C.P.R. Institute of Indological Research 76 5. Saraswathi Kendra Learning Centre for Children 107 6. The Grove School 117 7. Rangammal Vidyalaya Nursery and Primary School, Kanchipuram 121 8. C.P. Ramaswami Aiyar Memorial Nursery and Primary School, Kumbakonam 122 9. Each One Teach One 123 10. Training Adolescent Girls in Traditional Drawing and Painting 127 11. Vocational Courses 129 12. Saraswathi Award and the Navaratri Festival of Music 131 13. Women’s Development 132 14. Shakunthala Jagannathan Museum of Kanchi, Kanchipuram 133 15. Temple of Varahishwara in Damal, Kanchipuram 139 16. Tribal Welfare 141 17. Inter-School Sanskrit Drama Competition 147 18. Revival of Folk Art Forms in Schools 148 19. Health and Nutrition 153 20. Tsunami Relief and Rehabilitation 154 21. C.P.R. Environmental Education Centre 157 22. National Environmental Awareness Campaign 176 23. Kindness Kids 178 24. Clean Chennai Green Chennai 180 3 50 Years of The C.P. Ramaswami Aiyar Foundation 4 50 Years of The C.P. Ramaswami Aiyar Foundation Acknowledgements ‘50 Golden Years of The C.P. Ramaswami Aiyar Foundation’ is a compilation of memories. Some information has been taken from past reports, but most come from the memories of the people who have been working here. The staff of the C.P. Ramaswami Aiyar Foundation have chosen to put together the memories of their contribution over a long period, so that future generations can see the effort that was taken to make a small Foundation with little money and less people into a centre of art, culture and intellectual conversation in Chennai. To accompany this publication, we have put up an exhibition of ‘50 Years of the C.P. Ramaswami Aiyar Foundation’ where our eight institutes and several schemes have been presented to the people of Chennai. The interviews with the staff were done by Hema Vijay, a journalist and writer. It was difficult to decide on the people to be interviewed by her, so we decided that those who have been working here for 25 years, or who have been responsible for the establishment of Institutes or project, would be covered. 50 years from now, this book will be old and moth eaten. I hope the young reader who picks it up will appreciate the hard work that was put in the first 50 years to bring the Foundation to international standards in its goals, functioning and management. The material in this book has been contributed by several staff members. However, a few people have worked hard to put them together into this book and in the exhibition. They are Dr. G. J. Sudhakar, H. Manikandan, K. Shantha, T. Pichulakshmi, Malathy Narasimhan, P. Sudhakar, Kausalya Santhanam, R.Sathyanarayanan, G. Balaji and Y. Venkatesh. To the unborn child of the future, who will, I hope, read this book, “Happy Reading”. October 15, 2016 Dr. Nanditha Krishna Chennai President The C.P. Ramaswami Aiyar Foundation 5 50 Years of The C.P. Ramaswami Aiyar Foundation Sir C.P. RAMASWAMI AIYAR (painting by Svetislav Roerich) 6 50 Years of The C.P. Ramaswami Aiyar Foundation 1 Sir C.P. RAMASWAMI AIYAR November 13, 1879 – September 26, 1966 Sir C.P. Ramaswami Aiyar, who lived to be nearly 87 years, represented a felicitous fusion of the cultures of the East and the West. He bestrode the political, intellectual and cultural arena of India in its pre-independence and post-independence epoch-spanning period, exceeding sixty years, like a colossus. He started life as an advocate and soon became leader of the Original Side of Madras High Court. He appeared in and won several important cases: Besant vs. Narayaniah (for custody of J. Krishnamurthi by his father); the Ashe murder case; Subramanya Bharathi; and V.O. Chidambaram Pillai. He was one of the founders of the Indian Bank and Ramakrishna Students’ Home. He was Secretary of the All India Home Rule League and editor of the “New India”. He was General Secretary of the Calcutta Session of the Indian National Congress in 1917-18 along with Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru; India’s delegate at the League of Nations, Geneva, in 1926-27; and delegate to the First Indian Round Table Conference in London in 1931. Sir C.P. has left many legacies – in terms of public utility undertakings like Hydro-electric Dams and Industrial enterprises. These include Mettur, Pykara and Lower Bhavani in Tamilnadu, the Pallivasal and Periyar Schemes in Travancore (Kerala), apart from the various industries set up by him (many of them the first of their kind in India). He was responsible for initiating the Cochin, Visakhapatnam and Tuticorin Port Schemes. He was one of the earliest to plead for the linking of the great rivers of India and in particular for the Ganga-Cauvery Project. A most vital social reform measure for which he made himself responsible was the Temple Entry Proclamation of the Maharajah of Travancore in 1936. It was his condition for accepting the post of Dewan of Travancore and his first act as Dewan. It was the first time the avarnas, as they were known, were accepted into Hindu temples. It was hailed by Mahatma Gandhi as an epoch-making measure. In 1940, he was first to nationalize Road Transport in India and was responsible for the construction of the first cement, concrete road from Trivandrum to Cape Comorin. He was the first in India to start Aluminium Ceramic, Fertilizer and Rayon and other industries; the first to abolish capital punishment, introduce adult franchise and to appoint a lady advocate as District Judge in Travancore. On February 12, 1946, Sir C.P. Ramaswami Aiyar visited the Government High School at Vellamadam in the then State of Travancore (now Kanyakumari district, Tamilnadu), and inaugurated the scheme of compulsory education for children above five years. He introduced at this school, for the first 7 50 Years of The C.P. Ramaswami Aiyar Foundation time in India, the free midday meal scheme for poor and needy students. He inaugurated the Vanchi Poor Fund and Seethalakshmi Ammal Anna Dhana Samajam (named after his mother) to fund the free midday meal scheme. These two schemes were to have far-reaching results, making Kerala a 100% literate state with the highest levels of education in India. They were the fore-runners for the free midday meal scheme, conceived much later by Shri. K. Kamaraj and introduced by Shri. M.G. Ramachandran, in Tamilnadu. After retiring as Dewan he became Vice Chancellor of Annamalai University and Banaras Hindu University. He was the Chairman of the Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments Commission, Government of India, in 1960; National Integration Committee, Government of India (as a result of which Parliament passed a bill making the demand for secession an offence); and Standing Committee on University Education, Government of India, in 1962. THE C.P. RAMASWAMI AIYAR FOUNDATION, a cultural and educational centre for organizing and administering studies and research in subjects dear to the heart of Sir C.P. Ramaswami Aiyar, was founded by his friends and admirers after his passing away, on October 14, 1966. His eldest son, Shri. C.R. Pattabhi Raman, gifted the old family house and the surrounding lands to The C.P. RAMASWAMI AIYAR FOUNDATION in 1967. In implementing his marathon welfare projects in Madras and Travancore during an exceptionally critical period of the nation’s history, C.P. earned more foes than friends. But generations to come will acknowledge that C.P. was the man of the hour, needed most in a society driven by caste and creed, religion, language and social prejudices. Sir C.P was married to Seetha and the couple had three sons - Pattabhi Raman, Venkatasubban and Sundaram. C P’s Father and Mother – The young couple - Pattabhiraman and Rangammal C P and Seetha 8 50 Years of The C.P. Ramaswami Aiyar Foundation Sir C.P. on Education: “The school shall have served its purpose best, fulfilled its object effectively if, in addition to the teaching of the three R’s and all the things that go by the scholastic name, the wonderful niceties of life are also inculcated, without which man as a gregarious animal would be written down in history as a failure. Let the school be the centre, the nucleus, the focus, radiating not distrust, not factions, not a spirit of partnership, but the spirit of oneness and harmony towards conjoint effort and the fulfilment of conjoint purpose and the reaching towards that goal for which all of us are yearning.” Sir C.P. on Culture: “Culture involves a vivid awareness of the meaning of life, a conspectus of the world’s problems in the proper order and relative importance and the deliberate choice of things that are really worthwhile.” Sir C.P. on Law: In 1919, Sir C.P. was offered the Judgeship of the Madras High Court. He declined it saying, in his letter thanking the Chief Justice, “I prefer to talk nonsense for a short while, to hearing it all day long.” THE DEWAN by W.