Illustration by V Vijayakumar
Tiruvellore Thattai Krishnamachariar (TTK) [1899-1974] was considered one of the makers of modern India, with his meteoric success as a businessman and industrialist and astute stewardship of the Union finance ministry under the leadership of Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru. TTK was also a connoisseur of Carnatic music, to which he made a lasting contribution by co-founding the Madras Music Academy, donating his vast collection of music and books to the institution.
Born into a middle class Tamil Iyengar family, Krishnamachari graduated from Madras Christian College, where he later became a visiting professor in the department of economics. He did two stints as Indian Finance Minister from 1956-1958 and from 1964-1966.
TTK was the son of a district judge, but chose to be a businessman. Starting at 20, he became an apprentice under A R Doraisami Iyengar, who was running an indenting firm in Madras representing the Lever Brothers, selling soap and oil. There, TTK had a highly successful sales career, selling soap from door to door. The popularity of Sunlight soap in the South has often been attributed to his pioneering sales and marketing efforts. When Doraisami Iyengar passed away in 1928, the Lever Brothers awarded TTK the agency.
TTK the businessman was born. That year, he started T T Krishnamachari & Co. which grew by leaps and bounds and today stands tall as the TTK
Group. He transformed the business of selling. If earlier the agency played safe by booking indents, he now decided to stock and sell directly to dealers in several towns. He opened depots, set up a sales organisation, and introduced new accounting practices. “The concept of redistribution, of taking the goods from dealers to retailers was introduced by TTK & Co,” according to one account of the business.
TTK was a dynamic innovator who introduced several daring new practices which have become standard practice today. “He conducted market surveys to study customer preferences, he adopted unique methods of sales promotion and advertising like skywriting, distributing leaflets by air-dropping them, giving away attractive calendars.”
Rural marketing was TTK’s forte. He ventured into it decades ago, conducting fairs, melas and prize schemes to attract customers. The company was well established by the mid-1930s.
TTK entered politics in 1936. According to his son, TT Vasu, he was a politician by accident, thanks to his personal association with Rajaji and Kamaraj, two stalwarts of the freedom movement. He was also very close to Nehru.
Initially elected to the Madras Legislative Assembly as an independent member, he joined the Congress. In 1946, he was made a member of the Constituent Assembly at the Centre. “Once he joined the Congress, he gave up everything else and went on to lay the foundation for the economic and industrial infrastructure of the country.” He was a member of the draft committee of the Indian Constitution. The Union Minister of Commerce and Industry (1952-56) and Iron and Steel (1955-57), TTK was instrumental in setting up the country’s three major steel plants and financial institutions like IDBI, ICICI and UTI. He introduced path-breaking tax reforms during his stint as Finance Minister. He made his biggest contribution to the nation in this capacity during the period 1963-1965.
In pathbreaking measures of social security, TTK expanded an existing scheme to cover the families of government servants by introducing a new Family Pension Scheme in 1964. He was the author of the Rajasthan Canal Schemes, and the Dandakaranya and Damodar Valley Projects and a catalyst of the Neyveli lignite project.
His initiatives gave a major fillip to the Rourkela
and Bhilai plants and the growth of small industry in India. One of his major schemes called the Freight Equalisation Policy made coal and other natural resources of eastern India cheaply available to the other parts.
TTK resigned from the post of Minister in 1965 when controversy hit his ministry, but led an intellectually active life till illness overtook him.
A commemorative postage stamp on TTK was released on 31 December 2002, when C V Narasimhan, former Under-Secretary General of the United Nations, speaking on this occasion said “a stamp in his honour was a fitting tribute to a man who had ‘left a stamp of class’ in his work for the progress of the country”.
The group TTK founded is reputed for its quality consumer products at affordable prices. It has a solid reputation, especially in the south, built over the last eight decades by TTK’s successors. Its pathbreaking marketing ideas were mostly fathered and masterminded by its founder TTK. The core values that made the former indenting agency into a marketing giant of consumer durables continue to define the framework of the TTK Group, a multi-product, multi-unit, multi-location conglomerate.
It has a presence across several segments of industry such as consumer durables, pharmaceuticals and supplements, bio-medical devices, maps and atlases, consular visa services, virtual assistant services, and health care services. It has been associated with several brands, which are now household names in India, such as Prestige Pressure Cookers, Woodward’s Gripe Water, Kohinoor condoms, Brylcreem and Kiwi Shoe polishes.
The group is today an integrated manufacturing and marketing entity. While maintaining leadership in specific product categories in India, it also reaches out to the world with such products as kitchenware, pharmaceuticals, medical devices, and food products. TTK Maps is the leading publisher of maps and map-based products in the private sector. Its maps, atlases and guidebooks help students, travellers and tourists.
TTK was a connoisseur of art and music. The Music Academy, Chennai, owes much of its present relevance to his initiative. Fittingly, its main auditorium bears his name and his substantial library is now in the possession of the academy.