Iravatham Mahadevan (IM) earned a reputation as an upright, principled and efficient officer of the IAS. He served the Industry Department at the Centre when he worked with his minister of industry, George Fernandes during 1977-79. Remember, Fernandes’ initiating several fundamental changes in industrial policy like limiting foreign holdings in corporates to 40 per cent?
IM’s passion was epigraphy. He was an expert on the Indus Valley and the Tamil Brahmi script. After opting for early retirement from IAS he devoted entirely to study India’s early writing systems. Unlike the mostly known works of foreigners on the heritage and antiquity of Indian language scripts, IM’s research and studies threw new insights. He established that the Tamil script was different from the Mauryan Brahmi script and not a derivative or younger. With a grant from the Indian Council of Historical Research he compiled a monumental work on the Indus Script – Text, Concordance and Tables in 1977. This continues to be an authoritative resource on the Harappa and Mohenjadaro epigraphics. Early Tamil epigraphy published by the Harvard University and Cre-A in 2003 again established the antiquity and early evolution of the Tamil script.
When the popular and widely acclaimed editor of the Tamil Daily Dinamani, A N Sivaraman, died after 45 years of service as editor, IM took charge as the editor in 1987 and maintained the reputation of the daily for its sharp focus on economic and social issues.
His service colleague, K P Geethakrishnan, referred to the sterling qualities of the multifacted IM, not just as the principled, upright officer but also as a philanthropist. When one of IM’s sons died in a fire accident soon followed by the death of his wife, he sold off his high value property at Chamiers Road, shifted to a modest flat in Tiruvanmiyur and donated the surplus to Sankara Nethralaya, to the setting up of Vidyasagar Educational Trust to support under-privileged children in memory of his late son as also to setting up the Indus Research Centre at the Roja Muthiah Research Library.
The Centre honoured him with the Padmashri and the Tholkappiar Award.
