Thirukkurungudi Vengaram Sundram Iyengar (22 March 1877 – 28 April 1955) was an Indian industrialist and automobile pioneer. In 1911, he founded T. V. Sundram Iyengar & Sons, a bus company which later diversified into automobile production and emerged as the parent company of the

TVS Group TVS Group is an Indian multinational conglomerate with its principal headquarters in Madurai and international headquarters in Chennai. It has more than 50 subsidiaries including the two-wheeler manufacturer TVS Motor Company and TVS Supply C ...

, one of India's biggest business conglomerates.TVS Iyengar
With his humble beginning as a lawyer, he grew into one of the most successful industrialists of his time. The flagship company of the group is TVS Motors established by his son T. S. Doraiswamy. He laid foundation for road transport industry in the erstwhile

Madras Presidency The Madras Presidency, or the Presidency of Fort St. George, also known as Madras Province, was an administrative subdivision (presidency) of British India. At its greatest extent, the presidency included most of southern India, including the ...

through the state's first bus service. The TVS group he thus started now extends from motor industry, auto services to financial services.

Birth and early life

T. V. Sundram Iyengar was born in a

Tamil Tamil may refer to: * Tamils, an ethnic group native to India and some other parts of Asia ** Sri Lankan Tamils, Tamil people native to Sri Lanka also called ilankai tamils **Tamil Malaysians, Tamil people native to Malaysia * Tamil language, na ...

Brahmin Brahmin (; sa, ब्राह्मण, brāhmaṇa) is a varna as well as a caste within Hindu society. The Brahmins are designated as the priestly class as they serve as priests ( purohit, pandit, or pujari) and religious teachers ( ...

family in early 1877 in

Thirukkurungudi Thirukkurungudi is a town which is located in Tirunelveli district, Tamil Nadu, South India. Thirukkurungudi is part of Nanguneri taluk and is part of the Tamil Nadu legislative assembly constituency of Nanguneri. At the foothills of the Wes ...

, in the state of

Tamil Nadu Tamil Nadu (; , TN) is a state in southern India. It is the tenth largest Indian state by area and the sixth largest by population. Its capital and largest city is Chennai. Tamil Nadu is the home of the Tamil people, whose Tamil language ...

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area, the List of countries and dependencies by population, second-most populous ...

. Sundram Iyengar started his career as a lawyer. As per his father's wishes, he then moved to work for the

Indian Railways Indian Railways (IR) is a statutory body under the ownership of Ministry of Railways, Government of India that operates India's national railway system. It manages the fourth largest national railway system in the world by size, with a tota ...

and later in a bank.

As an industrialist

Sundram Iyengar later quit his jobs60 years in business – Outlook Business
/ref> and laid the foundation for the motor transport industry in South India when he first started a bus service in the city of

Madurai Madurai ( , also , ) is a major city in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu. It is the cultural capital of Tamil Nadu and the administrative headquarters of Madurai District. As of the 2011 census, it was the third largest Urban agglomeration i ...

in the year 1911.T.V. Sundram Iyengar dead
/ref> He established the T. V. Sundram Iyengar and Sons Limited in 1911, which by his death in 1955, operated a number of buses and lorries under the title of Southern Roadways Limited. This paved the way for the genesis of the

. During the times of the second world war, Madras Presidency was met with petrol scarcity. To meet the demands, Sundram Iyengar designed and produced the TVS Gas Plant. He also started a factory for rubber retreading, besides two more concerns, the Madras Auto Service Ltd and the Sundaram Motors, a division of T. V. Sundram Iyengar & Sons Ltd. The former was the largest distributor for General Motors in the 1950s. What started as a single man's passion soon became the business of a family. Sundram Iyengar had five sons and three daughters, and in his patriarchal Tamil Brahmin family all male members got into the business. With his son, T. S. Doraisamy's early death, four other sons — T. S. Rajam, T. S. Santhanam, T. S. Srinivasan and T. S. Krishna – became an integral part of the business, and ever since there have been four largely distinct branches that have worked under the TVS umbrella. The group established by Sri Sundram Iyengar, according to the company, is currently the largest automobile distribution company in India, enjoys a turnover of about US$8.5 Billion and has an employee strength of over 60,000. The group operates in diverse fields like automotive component manufacturing, automotive dealerships, finance and electronics, as well as into IT solutions and services.

Personal life

T. V. Sundram Iyengar married Lakshmi Ammal and they had eight children - five sons and three daughters. Their son T. S. Doraiswamy, died at an early age. T. V. Sundram Iyengar accepted his daughter T. S. Soundaram, then a teenage widow who remarried G. Ramachandran (social reformer), under the compulsion of

Mahatma Gandhi Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (; ; 2 October 1869 – 30 January 1948), popularly known as Mahatma Gandhi, was an Indian lawyer, anti-colonial nationalist Quote: "... marks Gandhi as a hybrid cosmopolitan figure who transformed ... anti- ...

. T. S. Soundaram then involved herself in the

Indian independence movement The Indian independence movement was a series of historic events with the ultimate aim of ending British rule in India. It lasted from 1857 to 1947. The first nationalistic revolutionary movement for Indian independence emerged from Bengal ...

along with Gandhi. She was later honoured with a postal stamp released in her honour. Apart from being a successful business man, T. V. Sundram Iyengar was a patron of the arts. He was praised by

Rajaji Chakravarti Rajagopalachari (10 December 1878 – 25 December 1972), popularly known as Rajaji or C.R., also known as Mootharignar Rajaji (Rajaji'', the Scholar Emeritus''), was an Indian statesman, writer, lawyer, and independence activis ...

, a senior statesmen and governor general of India at that time, for his gesture of retiring and handing over the trade to his sons.

Later years and death

He died in the early hours of 28 April 1955 at his residence in

Kodaikanal Kodaikanal () is a hill station which is located in Dindigul district in the state of Tamil Nadu, India. Its name in the Tamil language means "The Gift of the Forest". Kodaikanal is referred to as the "Princess of Hill stations" and has a long ...

at the age of 78 and at that time was survived by his wife, four sons and three daughters.

Honours

Sundram Iyengar was honoured by the

Union Government of India The Government of India (ISO: ; often abbreviated as GoI), known as the Union Government or Central Government but often simply as the Centre, is the national government of the Republic of India, a federal democracy located in South Asia, c ...

by unveiling bust in bronze and in marble in the city of

on 7 August 1956.Tributes to TVS Iyengar
/ref>

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Iyengar Businesspeople from Tamil Nadu 1877 births 1955 deaths Automotive industry in India People in the automobile industry TVS Group Industrialists in British India