Here's a neat story about Mom's father, L.S. Vaidyanathan...

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MADRAS MISCELLANY

LIC's first leadership

THEY MADE HISTORY L. S. Vaidyanathan.

As the Life Insurance Corporation of India enters the second half of its Golden Jubilee year (it came into being on September 1,1956), the thought struck me that little about its fifty years had appeared in print and less about those who first got LIC off the ground. It was a thought that occurred while searching for information about a scandal that had brought a major Bombay insurance company to its knees in 1951; it was a cause celébré that hastened the decision to nationalise insurance. The first two to lead the Corporation were two with Madras roots, Joint Managing Directors L.S. Vaidyanathan and A. Rajagopalan. Chairing the Corporation at that time in part-time capacity was H.M. Patel, I.C.S., who was then the Principal Finance Secretary to the Government of India.

Swaminathan Vaidyanathan from Lalgudi, educated in Kumbakonam and at Presidency in Madras, taught Mathematics in `Trichinopoly' and Baroda before he left for England in 1924 as a 31-year-old Bombay Government Scholar. When he qualified as a Fellow of the Institute of Actuaries two years later, he was the first Indian to do so. Returning to India, he joined the Oriental Government Security Life Assurance Company, Bombay, a firm founded in 1874 and which was to become and remain till nationalisation the biggest Indian insurance company.

A. Rajagopalan.

While at Orient, Vaidyanathan taught Actuarial Science in Sydenham College, Bombay. A history of insurance in India says, "The growth of the actuarial profession in India is largely the result of the missionary zeal Vaidyanathan displayed." He was Oriental's Actuary from 1933 to 1943, when he was appointed by Government as the first Indian to the post of Superintendent of Insurance, a watchdog assignment created under the Insurance Act of 1938, succeeding J.H. Thomas. In 1946, Oriental wanted Vaidyanathan back and he returned to head the Company till he retired after nationalisation and accepted the Joint Managing Directorship of the Corporation. On his retirement, Sir Cowasji Jehangir, who had headed the Insurance Enquiry Committee of 1945 and whose Member Secretary was Vaidyanathan, said, "When the history of Indian insurance for the last two decades comes to be written, Shri Vaidyanathan's name will be written in letters of gold, for, inspired by the single purpose of propagating adoption of fair and correct practices in life insurance administration in India, he strove to eradicate evil wherever he found it, fought injustice wherever it was perpetrated, and upheld sound traditions fearlessly and selflessly." In 1959, he and Rajagopalan laid down office on retirement after successfully steering the Corporation through stormy weather in its first years.

Rajagopalan came to LIC by another route. He too qualified as an actuary and he too joined Oriental. But after a short stint there he joined government service as an Assistant Secretary. When the Department of Insurance was created, he was assigned to it and by 1951 rose to head it as Controller of Insurance. It was in this role that he "prepared the ground for nationalisation" and became known as one of "the architects of the nationalisation of the industry." After he retired, he was invited by the Government of Ceylon to advise it on the life insurance business which it had nationalised. Sadly, I haven't heard very much about the contribution of both to LIC in the first six months of its Golden Jubilee celebrations. Hopefully, a history of those 50 years is forthcoming where they'd find the place due to them.

S. MUTHIAH

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