Page:Heroes of the hour- Mahatma Gandhi, Tilak Maharaj, Sir Subramanya Iyer.djvu/251

 token of his ceaseless activities which showed the extraordinary power of devotion to any cause in which he was engaged, and the faith he had in himself. Born in 1794, he died in 1844 when Subramanya Aiyar, his last and third son was an infant, two years old. He was the Vakil of Ramnad Zemindar, Vakil in those days meaning not a legal practitioner but a kind of foreign minister for transacting business with the authorities of the East India Company. Every Ruler, and Zemindar and every great financier had his "Vakeel." Subbaiyar rendered signal services to the zemin at a time when its continuance and integrity were threatened and the old tradition, still surviving in the district, tells of his devotion to the cause of his master, regardless of insecurity of person and property of those days and with an intrepid courage which took no thought of possible personal risks. The integrity of Ramnad as a Zemindari: to-day, is due to his services more than to any other single circumstance, and it may be stated in passing that neither Subbaiyar nor the then Zemindar ever choose to think of themselves as Brahmins or non-Brahmins in the sphere of secular and civic functions that devolved on