Shri Kalyan Subramani Aiyar (1859-1940), better known as K. S. Aiyar, was a pioneer of commercial and accounting education in India. He started and established educational courses and institutions dedicated to commerce and accounting. He also served as the headmaster of first commercial School in India started by the Pachiyappa College Charities at Madras from 1886 to 1889.
He got elected as an Associate of the Society of Incorporated Accountants & Auditors (SIAA) of the UK in 1890 and started his public practice. He set up his own firm, in 1900, probably the earliest accountants’ firm in India established by an Indian. Starting his practice in Calicut in 1897, he shifted to Bombay in 1900. In fact, it was Sir Byramjee Jeejeebhoy, a 19th century philanthropist and a big land owner, who found several educational institutions in Bombay invited Shri Aiyar to Bombay in the first decade of the twentieth century and later appointed him the Principal of the Byramjee Jeejeebhoy Parsee Charitable Institution (B. J. P. C. I), Bombay. Shri Aiyar later converted that Institution into College of Commerce in 1900, which aimed at preparing students for the London Chamber of Commerce examinations. Within a couple of months, he also started the first Night School of Commerce in Bombay.
He credited for procuring the permission in 1905 from the SIAA to train apprentices in India for their London examinations. Shri Sorab S. Engineer was the first Incorporated Accountant to serve his apprenticeship in India under Shri Aiyar in his firm from 1905 to 1908, and then served the same firm for another five years. Shri Engineer has been proclaimed guru of the first President of The Institute of Charted Accountants of India, Shri G. P. Kapadia. In 1912, Shri Aiyar instituted the first Bachelor of Commerce degree in the Bombay University. He established an important education centre of commerce Sydenham Collehe of Commerce, in Bombay in 1913, and acted as its first honorary Principal. Shri Aiyar wrote the scheme of the Government Diploma in Accountancy (GDA) for the Government of Bombay on the recommendations of the Accountancy Diploma Board. This Diploma empowered the accountants with Unrestricted Certificate to practice accountancy in India. The Accountancy Diploma Board held its first GDA examination in 1918, while the Government of Bombay gave its sanction for the same only in 1919. The diploma required a three-year articleship under an approved accountant in practice and holders of this diploma were eligible for the award of a permanent Unrestricted Auditors Certificate under the Indian Companies Act, 1913, which entitled the holders to practice throughout the British India. In 1890, he wrote a descriptive textbook on bookkeeping, The Principles and Practices of Bookkeeping.
Shri Aiyar was elected as a Fellow and a Senate member of the University of Madras and of the University of Bombay where he served his term for a huge thirty years.
He always regarded his firm as a medium to further the cause of commercial education. For him, his firm was, foremost, an institution dedicated to shaping the young mind for the honoured accountancy profession. His vision, based on principle of service with integrity to stakeholders, should serve as a model of young charted accountants. He, writes Shri Kapadia in his acclaimed documented History of the Accountancy Profession in India, “is acknowledged on all hands to be a pioneer of Commercial Education in India and his contribution in his field has been significant.” Being a dedicated educationist, arguably, Shri Aiyar is worthy of being called the father of accountancy in India.
(Contributed by the Journal Section of ICAI)
Published in the ‘The Charted Accountant’, Issue: May 2010, Series: Legends in the Accounting Tradition of India
