List of people from Madurai

The following is a list of notable people from the Indian city of Madurai, Tamil Nadu.

This is a dynamic list and may never be able to satisfy particular standards for completeness. You can help by adding missing items with reliable sources.

Religious figures

• Bodhisena
• Chithalai Chathanar
• Mangayarkkarasiyar
• Manikkavacakar
• Kulachirai Nayanar
• Santhananda

Scholars

• Ganapathy Baskaran
• Augustus De Morgan
• S. Subramania Iyer
• Solomon Pappaiah
• Vida Dutton Scudder

Dancers

• Rukmini Devi Arundale – Bharatanatyam dancer; founder of the Kalakshetra Foundation, an art and cultural academy
• Anita Ratnam – classical and contemporary dancer

Entrepreneurs and business leaders

• Chitra Bharucha – former vice chairman of the BBC Trust ^[1]
• Rajashree Birla – wife of Aditya Vikram Birla
• Karumuttu Thiagarajan Chettiar – Indian independence activist, industrialist and the founder of Thiagarajar College of Engineering and Thiagarajar School of Management
• Sundar Pichai – chief executive officer of Alphabet Inc. and its subsidiary Google Inc.

Social activists

• Narayanan Krishnan
• Gopi Shankar Madurai ^[2] – The Commonwealth Awardee, ^{[3] [4]} youngest candidate in the Tamil Nadu Assembly election and also the first openly intersex and genderqueer person to do so ^{[5] [6] [7] [8]}
• S. Swapna – first Indian transgender to take the Tamil Nadu Public Service Commission (TNPSC) recruitment examination for public-service employees in the Tamil Nadu state

Literature

• Kausalya Hart
• Karmegha Konar
• Mu. Metha
• S. Abdul Rahman
• Ba. Venkatesan
• S. Venkatesan

Music

• Madurai Mani Iyer
• Ramnad Raghavan
• T. N. Seshagopalan
• T. M. Soundararajan
• M. S. Subbulakshmi

Film industry

• Ameer (director)
• Atlee (director)
• Bala (director)
• Bharathiraja
• Cheran (director)
• Chimbu Deven
• Susi Ganeshan
• G. Gnanasambandam
• Ilaiyaraaja
• Kanika
• Ganja Karuppu
• C. V. Kumar
• Maniratnam
• Meenal
• Pandi (actor)
• Solomon Pappaiah
• Mohan Raja
• Pattimandram Raja
• Ramarajan
• Jayam Ravi
• Samudrakani
• M. Sasikumar
• Vijay Sethupathi
• Shaam
• Robo Shankar
• Shanmugarajan
• Soori (actor)
• Srinivasan (Tamil actor)
• Karthik Subbaraj
• Vadivelu
• Velraj
• Vijayakanth
• Vivek (actor)

Politicians and public servants

• P. Amudha
• S. K. Balakrishnan
• Mayandi Bharathi
• R. Chidambara Bharathi
• Angidi Chettiar – former vice president of Mauritius
• A. Vaidyanatha Iyer
• Jana Krishnamurthi
• P. Mohan
• S. Muthu
• Pazha Nedumaran
• P. T. Rajan
• Palanivel Rajan
• S. M. Muhammed Sheriff – former Consecutive Member of Parliament
• Nirmala Sitharaman – Minister of Finance
• Palanivel Thiagarajan

Sportsmen

• A. Palanisamy
• Magesh Chandran Panchanathan
• Mohan Ukkrapandian

Software

• Sundar Pichai

References

1. "DITN: Chitra Bharucha, Acting Head of the BBC". Archived from the original on 5 March 2016. Retrieved 16 July 2015.
2. Vasudevan, Shilpa Kappur (13 April 2015). "One Who Fights For an Other". The New Indian Express . Archived from the original on 19 May 2015.
3. "Finalists of 2016 Commonwealth Youth Worker Awards Announced". Commonwealth Secretariat. 27 October 2016. Retrieved 2 March 2025.
4. Veerappan, Devanathan (21 October 2016). "Gender Rights Activist Shortlisted for International Award". The Times of India . Retrieved 2 March 2025.
5. "Intersex Person to Contest from Madurai North". The Hindu . 30 April 2016. Retrieved 2 March 2025.
6. Menon, Priya (22 April 2016). "3rd Gender Gets a New Champion in Tamil Nadu Poll Ring". The Times of India . Retrieved 2 March 2025.
7. "Intersex Candidate Alleges Harassment". The Times of India . 10 May 2016. Retrieved 2 March 2025.
8. Mathew, Pheba (24 April 2016). "This Intersex Person Is Contesting TN Polls, 'Ze' Wants to Change Your Mind on Sexual Minorities". The News Minute . Retrieved 2 March 2025.