The birth centenary of N Mahalingam (NM), founder of the Sakthi Group of companies, was recently
celebrated at the Kumaraguru College of Engineering, Coimbatore.
I recall my long association with NM and his institutions. My first meeting was around 1965 when we
jointly participated in a road safety seminar organised by the Police Commissionerate of Chennai. NM was
present when IE was launched in 1968 and at its Silver Jubilee. He was a regular contributor to IE on emerging issues. His interests were indeed vast: from politics to religion, finance, synthetic gems, sugar, textiles, transport…
An ardent Congressman, NM was a member of the state legislative assembly. But he soon quit active politics and focused on industry. His industrial empire expanded rapidly. He liberally spent on very many social and religious causes. His 10-day long annual celebrations from Gandhi Jayanthi on 02 October had a rich variety of programmes, literary and cultural. I should make particular reference to the support he extended to C Subramaniam after the latter lost the elections in 1967. Remember, in those days MLAs, MPs and ministers were not known for accumulating wealth. After nearly 15 years serving as minister in the state and at the Centre, CS was in need of such support!
NM also had Avvai Natarajan as his secretary for literary affairs. Later Natarajan obtained his Ph.D. and was Vice-Chancellor of the Tamil University and has been one of the prized Tamil scholars.
NM nurtured a number of educational institutions. The Kumaraguru College of Engineering has emerged the most renowned of these. The good work of NM is continued by his son-in-law Krishnaraj and sons Manickam, Balasubramaniam and Srinivasan and their children.
