By TN Ashok
Perungulam S Krishnan (86), an IAS officer of Andhra Pradesh cadre, is one of those rare dedicated civil service officers, who worked ceaselessly towards the betterment of social justice.
Made famous by his handle bar moustache, that earned him the secret whisper of a sobriquet called Meeshai in Tamil ( mustachio) in administrative circles, he was close to the then Prime Minister V P Singh and Welfare Minister Ram Vilas Pawan, who literally adored him. He was the man behind the implementation of the Mandal Commission (appointed by the then BJP government) report in Toto that caused nationwide stir. I used to argue with him on how reservations had raised the hornets’ nest among the upper castes, to which he would immediately take me to his enormous; library at home of famous authors works on social justice. He said: We admire the USA so much and they too have affirmative action for the blacks “and the indigenous people. What is wrong with our reservation system he used to ask me, to which I had no answer?
His death at the age of 86 (1932 – 2019 RIP), in Gurgaon, leaves a deep void for the under privileged and the crusade for a classless society. Krishnan was also associated with many land mark legislations such as grant of constitutional status to the National Commission for SCs and STs and SC &ST (prevention of atrocities) act 1989. He is survived by his daughter ,an IPS officer , who chose corporate life to become an executive in COKE and his son in law , who works for TCS, and his wife , who hails from a rich traditional aristocratic Andhra family, he married out of caste.
Krishnan was not only a rare breed of IAS officers of the government but also a jolly good uncle. He was my maternal uncle and I have many fond childhood memories of the lighter side of his persona. We admired him for his crusade against the cast system and also his ability to learn languages; believe it or not, he knew almost all the 23 officially recognised languages in our constitution, that he could read and write ,which brought him closer to the people he served as an government officer in any part of the country. He also learnt foreign languages such as French, Spanish, Italian etc. easily that made his overseas official trips easier .
Krishnan’s advocacy for social reforms and raising the status of the under privileged classes in the country made many in his peer group think he was a committed DALIT who was a very intelligent person. This he claimed made him up against a deep seated prejudice of the bureaucracy. A top bureaucrat once said Krishnan is a very intelligent officer despite being a DALIT. Once revealed that he belonged a high caste tam brahm family settled in Kerala, the same bureaucrat remarked, no wonder he is so intelligent. Paradox.
His wife, that is my aunt, used to havea wise crack at him. She used to say her relatives and friends used to ask her “How did you marry a Dalit?” when actually he hailed from a high caste Tam Brahms family and she hailed from Andhra Pradesh. I was mistaken for a high caste tam brahm, my aunt used to say jocularly. She was a very pious person who woke up earlyin the morning to offer pujas in the puja room that was so pristine and pure.
Krishnan was an admirer and follower of the father of our constitution Dr BabasahebAmbedkar ,Mahathma Gandhi and Karl Marx ( Kerala influence?). He claimed Swami Vivekananda influenced his life very much. Hebelieved in a tradition of social justice that included revolutionary poetssuch as Sant Ravi Das,andBasaveswara.A dialogue within tradition among mahatma Gandhi, ambedkar Karl Marx and Periyar was essential to strengthen anti-caste politics.
Krishnan was born in Tiruvananthapuram and hailed from a high caste tam brahm family settled in Kerala . He is predeceased by two brothers and a sister. His eldest brother Laxminarayan was enterprising entrepreneur in Madurai who popularised the use of plastic buckets. His elder brother was an Income Tax commissioner in Mumbai Vishwanathan , in Mumbai , famous for his anti-tax evasion raids.. And his immediate elder brother was P S Kailasam , a fellow of the royal institute of chemistry,FRIC, who headed the refineries in Digboi,Duliajan ,Assam for Assam oil company as the Chief Chemist , now Indian Oil, who worked in hostile geo political conditions to ensure the purity of the oil supplied through the pipelines to refineries. Because of the rigours of his office that often involved checking pipelines for their security at late nights and wee hours of the morning quit his job earlyto become the principal of the Blue Mountain school in Ooty and later the Vice Principal of the world renowned Lawrence school in Love Dale, a valley near Ooty. He used to teach chemistry to students. His juniors Rathnam and his peer groups went onto become the CEOs of Oil India.
Krishanan’s sisters son was a long-time associate of the communist patriarch SA Dange. He served him as his officer on special duty and as virtually his conscience keeper.We still remember his famous punch line, whenever he used to invite us for a late night dinner or an ice cream parlour:” The Night is still Very Young “. Indeed he was pretty ahead of his time in thoughts and understood the foibles of human character very well and was very close to the under privileged, who will miss him immensely. He listened more to the villagers than the village officers. He was also industry secretry under VengalRao as CM in AP.
His epitaph should read: Here lies a MAN who led a relentless crusade towards the destruction of the caste order exposing its institutional manifestations and hypocrisies that is the malaise of our society”. The world of under privileged wills miss a great missionary and our family a very fond and loving uncle. What really set him off on his social crusade was his father’s remark on his laid back life style in childhood of getting up late, and going through the morning chores of brushing his teeth and late baths, “ You look like a pariah”. He asked his father what pariah meant and when explained someone from the lower classes, he wondered why this class inequality, among equal humans by birth. That fired his relentless mission for a castles society, he used to tell me.
The author, a nephew of Krishnan, served as the COB of PTI and its Economics Editor