Mathunny Mathews (Toyota Sunny) (1936-2017) was an Indian, a resident in Kuwait and was one of the people credited with the safe airlift evacuation of about 170,000 Indians from Kuwait during the 1990 Invasion of Kuwait, which is hailed as the world's largest air civilian evacuation in history.

Early life

Matthews was born in 1936. He hails from Kerala (

Eraviperoor Eraviperoor is a village in Thiruvalla Taluk,Pathanamthitta district in the state of Kerala . Eraviperoor is the part of Thiruvalla Taluk in east location and is part of the Aranmula legislative assembly constituency.It Comes Under Thiruvalla ...

Kumbanad Kumbanad is a town located in the Koipuram Town Panchayath Along with Pullad. It is part of Thiruvalla Taluk of Pathanamthitta district in the State of Kerala. It is an important town situated on T.K. Road, equidistant from Eraviperoor and ...

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

and was popularly known as Toyota Sunny, owing to his work in Kuwait with the

Toyota is a Japanese multinational automotive manufacturer headquartered in Toyota City, Aichi, Japan. It was founded by Kiichiro Toyoda and incorporated on . Toyota is one of the largest automobile manufacturers in the world, producing about 10 ...

agency owned by the Al-Sayer Group. He retired in 1989 as its MD. During the early phase of industrialization in Kuwait, Matthews had reached Kuwait by ship in 1956 as a prospective immigrant for employment. He was also the chairman of the Jabriya Indian School in Kuwait and one of the founding members of the Indian Art’s Circle, a widely recognized cultural association of all Indian expatriates in Kuwait.

Indian Airlift Evacuation

With the help of Mathunny Mathews, the airlift of Indians was carried out from 13 August to 11 October 1990 after the

Invasion of Kuwait The Iraqi invasion of Kuwait was an operation conducted by Iraq on 2 August 1990, whereby it invaded the neighboring State of Kuwait, consequently resulting in a seven-month-long Iraqi military occupation of the country. The invasion and Ira ...

Air India Air India is the flag carrier airline of India, headquartered at New Delhi. It is owned by Talace Private Limited, a Special-Purpose Vehicle (SPV) of Tata Sons, after Air India Limited's former owner, the Government of India, completed the ...

holds the Guinness Book of World Records for the most people evacuated by a civil airliner as a result of this effort. The operation was carried out during the

Persian Gulf War The Gulf War was a 1990–1991 armed campaign waged by a Coalition of the Gulf War, 35-country military coalition in response to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. Spearheaded by the United States, the coalition's efforts against Ba'athist Iraq, ...

in 1990 to evacuate Indian expatriates from

Kuwait Kuwait (; ar, الكويت ', or ), officially the State of Kuwait ( ar, دولة الكويت '), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated in the northern edge of Eastern Arabia at the tip of the Persian Gulf, bordering Iraq to the nort ...

and

Iraq Iraq,; ku, عێراق, translit=Êraq officially the Republic of Iraq, '; ku, کۆماری عێراق, translit=Komarî Êraq is a country in Western Asia. It is bordered by Turkey to the north, Iran to the east, the Persian Gulf and K ...

. It is believed to be the largest civilian evacuation in history. The Indians based in Kuwait also helped in the evacuation efforts. Leading daily ''Times of India'' reported that Kuwait-based Malayali entrepreneur Mathunny Mathews (also known as Toyota Sunny) duly supported by Harbhajan Singh Vedi, played a stellar role in co-ordinating the evacuation operation by meeting Indian ambassador in Baghdad and overseeing the transport of thousands of Indians to Amman via Baghdad by bus after striking a deal with Iraqi transporters, Indian authorities and UN.Article title
/ref> On 22 January 2016, Airlift, a Hindi film playing

Akshay Kumar Rajiv Hari Om Bhatia (born 9 September 1967), known professionally as Akshay Kumar (), is an Indian-born naturalised Canadian Quote: "(Former prime minister Stephen) Harper campaigned in 2011 alongside one of Modi's biggest celebrity backer ...

as Ranjit Katyal, a fictional character somewhat merged character based on Mathunny Mathews and Harbhajan Singh Vedi was released.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Mathews, Mathunny 1990 in India Evacuations of Indians Airlifts Gulf War India–Kuwait relations Air India 1990 in aviation Year of birth missing 2017 deaths