S. N. Sadasivan

Who was S. N. Sadasivan?

Dr. S.N. Sadasivan was an Indian author and theorist of public administration. Sadasivan was the son of M.C. Narayanan, an early twentieth century social reform activist from the Central Travancore town of Mavelikara and a younger generation contemporary and follower of social reformer and saint Sree Narayana Guru.

Sadasivan is the author of various books on Public Administration. He was a professor of public administration who served at various of India’s institutes of public governance, such the Lal Bahadur Sastri National Academy of Administration at Mussoorie, Uttarakhand, and the Indian Institute of Public Administration, New Delhi. Sadasivan was also instrumental in setting up the Kerala Institute of Public Administration at Thiruvanathapuram, Kerala in the early 1980s.

He was an alumnus of the University of Poona from where he took his BA and MA in Economics, LLB, and PhD degrees. For over four decades he was involved with to civil service training and was a regular contributor to training literature including course designs, case studies and training methods and techniques. He authored 14 books and few journal papers.

Through his book River Disputes in India: Kerala Rivers Under Siege and other writings and talks on the subject, Sadasivan was one of the first to address the issue of the Mullaperiyar dam from a scholarly angle, and put forth thought-provoking questions; particularly the question of whether an age-old agreement entered into by an erstwhile local ruler, under pressure from an erstwhile colonial power, should hold valid in the current two-tier federal and state governmental model; and whether any irrational arrangement from history should be binding on the people of present day Kerala, who he saw as being potentially at risk of an environmental disaster.