Inducting businessmen into governance is an experiment that has gone awry twice in the past. But that hasn’t deterred Prime Minister Manmohan Singh
Most Indians have heard of T.T. Krishnamachari, who founded Chennai-based TTK Group way back in 1928. He was one among three key businessmen — the other two being R.K. Shanmukham Chetty and John Mathai — that Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru relied on. All of them occupied important positions in his Cabinet and all of them were graduates of the Madras Christian College (MCC). Enough reason for talk in government circles of how MCC alumni had a stranglehold on important economic portfolios.
TTK was minister for industry and later finance between 1952 and 1965. He built three steel plants, set up IDBI, ICICI and UTI, and crafted the Family Pension Scheme as an instrument of social security. In hindsight, he is considered one of the founding fathers of modern India. Back then though, he went out in ignominy when questions were raised in Parliament about LIC’s investments in convicted scamster Haridas Mundhra’s sinking companies.
Controversy claimed another key member of Nehru’s Cabinet – Shanmukham Chetty. A member of the Tamil Vannia Chetty business family, he presented independent India’s first budget. At the end of year one, he too had to go. Some say he was asked to resign by Nehru due to a minor dereliction of duty by a subordinate official. Yet another account in The Hindu talked about a cloud around Chetty’s unusual interest in a tax case involving mill owners in Tamil Nadu with whom he was close to.
(This story appears in the 19 February, 2010 issue of Forbes India. To visit our Archives, click here.)