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Coimbatore is today the largest jewellery manufacturing centre in South India. The city was among the earliest to have guild for jewellers in this part of the country. The pioneering jeweller from Coimbatore P.A.Raju Chettiar (1895-1984) was instrumental in ensuring that the modern day jeweller was united with his creed while also providing the best to the customer. P.A.Raju Chettiar (the jeweller who happened to be the first to hallmark jewellery in India and gurantee the buy back of jewels from customers way back during the year 1917) felt that the jewellers could use their trade bodies to serve the needs of the poor in addition to addressing their issues as part of social responsibility. He founded the Coimbatore Arya Vysya Nagai Vyabarigal Mahasabhai during the year 1923 and brought in the common rate policy for the jewellers of this region, a move which was much ahead of the times.
Jewellers of the then Madras State used to visit Coimbatore and seek guidance on a regular basis from P.A.Raju Chettiar and this fueled the need to establish the Coimbatore & Jewellery Fine Arts Association in 1951 which eventually led to the founding of the Tamilnadu Thangam Velli Vairam Nagai Vyabarigal Sammelanam (Tamilnadu Jewellers Federation) by the year 1952. The first meeting of the Tamilnadu Jewellers Federation was held at Madurai and it was the first ever conference of jewellers from all over the State. Our State was known as "Madras" then, however the jewellers felt the need to call their guild so due to their love for Tamil and it was P.A.Raju Chettiar who motivated them to do so.
P.A.Raju Chettiar at the head of the table, along with the jewellers and Meenakshisundaram Achari, diamond smith and close friend of M.K.Thyagaraja Bhagavathar
All the leading jewellers of Tamilnadu attended the conference and they included Vummidi Pandurangaiah, Nathella Sampath Chetty, K.Ramakrishna Pillai of K.R & Sons (Coimbatore), K.R.Radhakrishnan, Meenakshisundaram Achari (Coimbatore) - the wonderful diamond smith and personal friend of the first Superstar of Tamil cinema M.K.Thyagaraja Bhagavathar etc., The conference went on for two days and the jewellers of Madurai played host for the same. P.A.Raju Chettiar was elected as the Chairman of the conference and the Minister for Handicrafts, Government of Madras Dr.U.Krishna Rao was the Chief Guest. The "Mani Vizha" Malar - a souvenir authored and published by S.A.Manickkam the Editor of "Kovai Murasu" on the occasion of the Diamond Jubilee of P.A.Raju Chettiar, carries the inaugural address which sheds light on the problems and issues faced by the jewellers of the yonder era.
P.A.Raju Chettair addressing the jewellers
In his inaugural address, the veteran jeweller P.A.Raju Chettiar who put Coimbatore on the jewellery map of the world extolled the jewellers of the State to set up local Jewellery Guilds and affiliate them with the Federation. Its surprising to note that the Tamilnadu Jewellers Federation was born before several of the Jewellers Associations who joined in later. Thanks to the founding of the Jewellers Federation, the cities and towns with jewellers followed common trade practices and this was in the interest of the customers. The speech of P.A.Raju Chettiar addressed the issues relating to Sales Tax and license fees, the Factories Act wherein he stated that an exemption was required for jewellery manufacture for it was a craft which had to be learnt from childhood. He stressed the need to use common weights and measures all over the State while also seeking exemptions from the Shops and Establishments Act with regard to holidays on 'Muhurtham' days for people would want to purchase ornaments on such auspicious days. Again he spoke about the need to let off the jewellers from the clutches of the "Levadevi Sattam" dealing with pawn broking for the jewellers used to really help the common man by lending up to 75% of the value of the ornaments compared to pawnbrokers who used to lend up to a value of 50% only. Those days the eyes of law were not kind to jewellers in connection with retrieval of stolen ornaments and a number of jewellers went through ordeals due to the same. Several innocent jewellers got into trouble with the police and the attention of the Honourable Dr.U.Krishna Rao was drawn towards this issue too.
The First conference of the Jewellers from all over Madras State held under the auspices of the Tamilnadu Jewellers Federation was a grand success and the Government of Madras granted exemptions to the jewellery sector. P.A.Raju Chettiar who was known as the "Henry Ford" of the jewellery sector during the period of change in India did much for the jewellers, craftsmen and everyone concerned with this sector during his long career. Coimbatore has thus far had three people who have headed the Tamilnadu Jewellers Federation and they are P.A.Raju Chettiar, K.Govindarajulu and D.R.Raghunath. Several jewellers from Coimbatore including the pioneering wholesale jeweller K.S.Pandurangan have done much for the Tamilnadu Jewellers Federation.
From the first ever conference of Jewellers at the time of the historic founding of the Tamilnadu Jewellers Federation