Chettiar

Kanadukathan Chettinadu Palace entrance - chettinadu architecture.

Chettiar or Chetti is a title used by many mercantile, agricultural and land owning castes in South India, especially in the states of Tamil Nadu and Kerala.They are categorised as Forward community in India. ^[1][2]

Notable people

• Alagappa Chettiar, founder of Alagappa University, Karaikudi.
• A. M. M. Murugappa Chettiar, founder of Murugappa Group.
• Annamalai Chettiar, founder of Annamalai University, Chidambaram and Founder of Chettinad group of Companies.
• Avichi Meiyappa Chettiar, founder of AVM Productions
• Karumuttu Thiagarajan Chettiar, founder of The Bank of Madurai, Thiagarajar College of Engineering, Madurai.
• M. A. Muthiah Chettiar, first Mayor of Chennai.
• M. Ct. M. Chidambaram Chettyar, founder of Indian Overseas Bank.
• Ramaswami Chettiar, a co-founder of Indian Bank.

See also

• Nattukottai Chettiar, also known as Nattukottai Nagarathar
• Vaniya Chettiar
• Twenty four Manai Telugu Chettiars
• Tamil diaspora

References

Further reading

• Christine Dobson, Asian Entrepreneurial Minorities, Curzon Press UK, 1996. (A chapter in the book is devoted to the Chettiars who set up businesses in Burma.)
• Rajeswary Brown (1993) "Chettiar capital and Southeast Asian credit networks in the inter-war period". In G. Austin and K. Sugihara, eds. Local Suppliers of Credit in the Third World, 1750-1960. (New York: St. Martin's Press).
• Kudaisya, Medha M. (2009). "Marwari and Chettiar Merchants. 1850s-1950s: Comparative Trajectories". In Kudaisya, Medha M.; Ng, Chin-Keong. Chinese and Indian Business: Historical Antecedents. Leiden: BRILL. ISBN 9789004172791.
• David Rudner (1989) Banker's Trust and the Culture of Banking among the Nattukottai Chettiars of Colonial South India. Modern Asian Studies 23 (3), 417-458.
• Heiko Schrader (1996) Chettiar Finance in Colonial Asia. Zeitschrift fur Ethnologie 121, 101-126.