The IAS story of the Iyer Swami from Changanacherry

This is the The IAS story of the Iyer Swami from Changanacherry. Life....Live ...


The script almost looks like a masala Malayalam movie from Shaji Kailas. For a change in this script , the hero is not an IPS officer but a honest IAS officer with high calibre , qualifications and integrity.

First Rank in State in Secondary School Examination , Kerala State
First Rank in Plus Two , Mahatma Gandhi University
Tenth Rank in IIT JEE
First Rank in IIT Computer Science , B :tech

He gets a scholarship from the prestigious Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA . Instead of going there he writes the Indian Civil Service Examination and two more things in his profile.

First Rank in IAS Entrance Examination
First Rank in IAS Training Institute.

Some of you may remember the story in the front pages of Malayalam Newspapers way back in 1989 when a small frail guy from Kerala topped civil services. There was a complete supplement in Manorama on a Sunday tracing the academic journey of the iyer swami from Changanacherry who wanted to give back to the nation.Moi remember that even now because I felt it strange to read that somebody had topped all exams that he wrote in his life.

It is interesting to check the career of Iyer Swami after this. Just take a wild guess on what would have happened ?

13 positions in 15 years from Kasargod to Thiruvananthapuram.

Once in a while a controversy appears in Malayalam newspapers which involve Iyer Swami but it has been proved beyond doubt that he is a man of high integrity and honesty.

One of those brilliant minds which would have been used in Silicon Valley being wasted in Kerala Civil Services.

Here is an excerpt from the Indian Express report

This middle class Iyer from Changanassery, known for taking on political and other heavies like few IAS officers would dare, has remained a pariah for most parties in Kerala’s two political halves. The brushes soon came to a point where he took on his father-in-law, a big-time contractor, who wanted to block off a public road to a poor neighbourhood of Scheduled Castes to wall up land for himself.

“I requested my father-in-law not to misuse my position as the local Sub-Collector, but he wouldn’t listen. I invoked the Criminal Procedure Code and served orders on him, called in the police and carried out the demolition,” recounts the man who once led a raid on the home of one of Kerala’s politically influential liquor barons who wouldn’t pay up the Rs 11 crore that he owed the government in taxes, and seized his belongings. A minister rang up, asking him to lay off and return the seized stuff, Narayanaswamy refused and was on the political hitlist yet again.

Controversies, and trouble, have always been with Narayanaswamy, the topper of the 1991 IAS batch — he topped the SSC exams as well — and a topper at IIT Chennai’s computer science department who turned down an MIT scholarship to enter the Civil Service. Nine years ago, he bulldozed the sides of an important Thrissur road to widen it, hitting businesses with clout who pulled strings to perpetually harass him. Five years ago, he had a run-in with a prominent north Kerala minister in Kasargod. Narayanaswamy refused to recommend sanction as the local District Collector, to turn a hospital that the minister owned into a private medical college, without prescribed infrastructure.

Now , all his controversies are not like this . After reading this and another controversy about his car when he was the Thrissur Collector, I always wondered what he was doing. May be the articles would have been framed by someone to tarnish his image . It seems highly unlikely that Iyer Swami would have been a culprit in all these cases.

May be Iyer Swami is over qualified and a person of his caliber should not have witten the civil services exam. Civil Services need only tail wagging "YES" men who has rubber spines who will bend according to the wills of corrupt political bosses.


There is a huge hue and cry when people from elite institutes leave this country in search of better pastures . Iyer Swami is a living example of a brilliant mind with honesty and integrity that is being wasted in a system which has so much bureaucratic hurdles , nepotism and corruption. Everyone cries about the corruption in the country and people laments that this country will go to dogs . When someone takes the responsibility he finds himself sans of any support to him/her from the political bosses or common man who anyway doesn't have a voice in the decision making of this country.



May be the careers of many civil service officers like Iyer Swami , T N Seshan , Alphonse Kannanthanam , G R Khairnar etcc shows that IAS officers cant take free decisions above the illiterate and selfish politicians / political parties in India and you can't blame the young generation for leaving this country for better pastures.


But I hope a million officers like Iyer Swami will stay back and clean up the system and make it transparent for common man.

My heart is like an open highway
Like Frankie said I did it my way
I just want to live while I'm alive 'Cause it's my life

Better stand tall when they're calling you out
Don't bend, don't break, baby, don't back down

Good Luck , Dude :)