NO MATCH TO THE GLOW THAT LIT UP MANY LIVES

Shanmuga Nadar and P Ayya Nadar are no Prometheuses, but the fire they ignited a century ago has turned out to be a game-changer, bringing in phenomenal economic growth to the once-backward Sivakasi and nearby areas, reeling under agricultural crisis.

- S GODSON WISELY DASS @ Thoothukudi

The pioneers of the safety match industry in the state, Shanmuga and Ayya, related to each other as cousins, learnt the trick of making safety matches by staying for eight months in Kolkata in 1922, before setting up the first safety match factory – National Match Works – a year later in Sivakasi.

That was just the beginning. In the years that followed, matchbox factories would start mushrooming across the region.

Speaking to TNIE, G Athipathy, grandson of Ayya Nadar, said it was P Sinna Nadar who conveyed the business potential of match factories to his cousins Shanmuga Nadar and Ayya Nadar after reading an article.

The cousins, deeply influenced by the Swadeshi movement, initially set up the factory with crude machinery. “However, they shifted their machines to a factory in Sri Lanka and launched a hand-made unit so as to provide jobs to the poor,” Athipathy said, adding the industry thrived in Sivakasi and nearby areas, as rainfed agriculture was a failure in the region.

Ask safety match manufacturers, they would say once Sivakasi was home to 500 artists, drawing logos and symbols on the matchboxes.