PLAIN SPEAKING: A Sudra’s Story - a book worth a read
The memoirs and lectures of A N Sattanathan (1905 -1991), edited by his grand daughter UttaraNatarajan was released recently.
Sattanathan was born in Shencottah in a poor family belonging to the Padayachi caste. His father was a musician who wanted an English education and Government job for his son. Helped by some wealthy benefactors, outside whose gates he had to humiliatingly wait, Sattanathan obtained a First Class Honours degree in History in 1926 and qualified for the Superior Civil Service in 1929.
After retirement from Government Service, he was appointed as the first Chairman of the Tamil Nadu Backward Classes Commission in 1969 by the then and now Chief Minister Karunanidhi. He had recommended an income limit to prevent the accumulation of reservation benefits by an “upper crust”. He remarked that poverty is a great motive force.
Why is DDT interested in all this? Sattanathan, the ICS officer was a Collector of Customs in Calcutta and as Member of the Central Revenue Board, he was the Author of the Tobacco Excise Manual – a great treatise on excise administration.