Sir P. Theagaraya Chetty
1852 – 1925
Lawyer, industrialist and Madras Corporation leader who co-founded the Justice Party, led it until his death and started meals for poor schoolchildren in the city.
Sir Pitti Theagaraya Chetty (27 April 1852 – 28 April 1925) was a lawyer, industrialist and political leader of the Madras Presidency. After graduating from Presidency College, Madras, he served as a corporator and legislator and was a member of the Indian National Congress before helping to found the South Indian Liberal Federation. He served as its president from 1917 until his death in 1925.
As president of the Corporation of Madras, he is credited with starting meals for poor children in city schools, a programme later recognised as a forerunner of Tamil Nadu's school-feeding schemes. In 1917 he cabled Edwin Montagu, the Secretary of State for India, asking for communal representation for non-Brahmins in the provincial legislature.
The Madras neighbourhood of Theagaroya Nagar, now T. Nagar, laid out in the 1920s, is named after him. His record also has hard edges: Wikipedia notes that he told the council that political prisoners were worse than dacoits and robbers, a remark opposed even by members of his own party.
Key contributions
- Co-founder of the South Indian Liberal Federation, 1916
- President of the party from 1917 to 1925
- Started meals for poor children in Madras Corporation schools
- Pressed the Secretary of State for communal representation in 1917
In our pages
- Madras High Court opens suo motu case to strip caste names from Tamil Nadu's streets
- Breakfast now reaches Class 8: 34.64 lakh Tamil Nadu children to be fed before lessons begin
- A street should not carry a caste
- A hundred years of feeding children at school
- 20 November 1916: the evening a movement was founded in Madras
- December 1916: the Non-Brahmin Manifesto and the storm it raised
- 26 February 1917: the newspaper that gave a party its name
- Temples, universities and T. Nagar: the Raja of Panagal's lasting reforms