Mulki Sunder Ram Shetty: He walked so we could run

A Name Like the Bank

There was a rumour in my family that my paternal grandfather wanted to name me Vijaya Lakshmi. My grandmother told me about it several times. I was born on the Vijaya Dashami festival that signifies the end of the Dasara festival. There was another rumour that on the nine days of Navaratri, the hospital I was born in had only boy babies born. So the nurses came and told my mother happily, "Don’t you worry, you too shall have a son."

My mother wanted anything but another son in our family. So she prayed for a girl child. And on the festival day of Vijaya Dashami that year, I was the first girl born in that hospital. My paternal grandfather had insisted they name me Vijaya Lakshmi. “Vijaya Dashami puttidinaal, Vijaya Lakshmi.”

My mother apparently rolled her eyes and ensured she gave me the toughest name humans would hear. When I first heard this story, I groaned — “Eww, why would you ever name me after a festival?”

My grandmother only smiled and said, “Why not? Even Vijaya Bank was named that way.” I found no logic in her argument — you mean to say you wanted me to be named like the bank?

My grandmother trusted only Vijaya Bank. She even showed remorse when it became a part of Bank of Baroda, still refusing to move her deposits from there. On occasion, if I were given the responsibility to accompany her to the bank, she would begin the story of Vijaya Bank. I loved stories. I loved listening to them, I loved reading them, I loved understanding them. I wanted to know every part of the story. She’d tell me of how Vijaya Bank came to be. And when we stood in the manager's cabin waiting for their attention, she’d point to a picture of a man who, like my paternal grandfather, had a shiny bald head on top with a bit of hair on either side. “That’s Mulki Sunder Ram Shetty,” she would say. I didn’t know Mulki was a place back then — I thought his name was Mulki. I thought it was a cute name. It rhymed with kulfi, my favourite dessert at the time. So when we got to her home, as she served me ganji with some lime pickle and yoghurt, I insisted she tell me the story of Mulki.

She told me of how he had provided jobs to women in our family, too. “Aar masth maldher, Ammu,” she would click her tongue and shove that ganji in my mouth while her face beamed with admiration for the man in the picture. “Have you met him?” I asked. She hadn’t. But she knew a lot about him.

When I started this series after my sociology class — the one where I found it insulting that people didn’t know Tulu was different from Telugu, and who the Bunts were — I started with the big names. Of course, there was B.R. Shetty, there was A.B. Shetty, there was Aishwarya Rai, and Suniel Shetty. But the name that made me think, well, everyone says he’s done a lot, but I don’t really know what he was known for, was Mulki Sunder Ram Shetty.

If you’ve read my work before, you know what I did next. Rabbit hole alert!

Cradle of Indian Banking

But I want to set up context for you, too. One thing people miss about the Dakshina Kannada and Udupi region is that we are very unique from the rest of the country. And your response to that from outside this region may be, well, who doesn’t think that about where they come from?

Fair. But really. We are unique. Let me draw your attention to how today India has one of the best banking systems in the world. We have 284 billionaires. But our richest man today wouldn’t be so rich without his ties to this region.

Dakshina Kannada and the Udupi region were known as the cradle of the Indian banking system. The Pai's started Syndicate Bank and Canara Bank, which financed Dhirubhai Ambani’s dreams and fueled his legacy. Corporation Bank was started by immigrant Muslims and the Beary community. Our people skills, our grit, and integrity drove businessmen to rely on us, and our risk appetite bankrolled many dreams that turned into billionaire realities.

Before you come at people about discrimination and racism here, I want you to put in context the time period of their inception and working. Our future generations are bound to find something wrong with us, too. So bear with me.

Back then, these banks prioritised their own communities. The Pais did empower many communities, but the Konkani community profited from the bias in their favour. Corporation Bank catered to the Beary and other Muslim communities at the time. And this wasn’t racism or discrimination. This was a normal thing. It wasn’t nepotism either. This was just the social construct of that time.

Fourteen Promoters and a Dream

So the Bunts, who were traditionally feudal lords and came from wealthy households, didn’t really bank. Their pettiges (wooden trunks) were their banks. It didn’t gain interest; it didn’t do anything. They had their own honour systems within the community. “Adaav,” “Saala,” were known words, and it happened within the community. They were money-minded and understood money, but they didn’t have a separate financial institution. So when Canara Bank (est. 1906), Syndicate Bank (est. 1925), and Corporation Bank (est. 1906) were all thriving and empowering communities in the area, A.B. Shetty, along with 14 promoters who were Bunts from prominent families, came together to start a bank they said was for agriculturists. But as I looked into it and understood the sentiment of the time, it was a bank by the people for its people. So on Vijaya Dashami day of 1931, “Vijaya Dashami’d puttudina, Vijaya Bank” — Vijaya Bank was born.

(1) Attavar Balakrishna Shetty, (2) Sooryanna Shetty, (3) Venkappa Punja, (4) Katapady Beedu Jaganath Ballal, (5) Hariyanna Hegde, (6) Sowkur Anthayya Shetty, (7) Venkappa Shetty, (8) Manjayya Hegde, (9) Narayana Bhandary, (10) Mahabala Rai, (11) Dr. Mahabala Adyanthaya, (12) Krishnayya Hegde, (13) Naganna Hegde and (14) Ramakrishna Punja. These were lawyers, social reformers, feudal lords, and a doctor. The one thing they had in common was that they were all Bunts. Some were yajamanas of their houses and held more responsibilities than most, but believed that Bunts needed their own financial institution. The other communities had banking habits, and so did they.

But they knew little of banking, and most of them had intention but no time, with other responsibilities burdening them. They appointed directors. Now again, I want you to pay attention to the time this happened. 1931. Pre-independence.

They didn’t have Lean Six Sigma courses. They had no MBAs or executive leadership programs. They had the natural instinct to know they needed someone capable to run the bank. They were a board without even labelling it. You will only understand its genius if you place it in the right time period. They were ahead of their time. Bunts naturally knew how to run businesses and spot talent. They were feudal lords and descended from dynasties like the Venur, Ajila, Alupa, Ballal, Ullal, and Chowta dynasties. This was knowledge they grew up with, and they were used to doing it at a large scale.

Yet Vijaya Bank was floundering. It made no sense. So I dived deeper into the society of that era — into trust, mobility, infrastructure, and why people still kept their pettiges rather than trusting a branch.

Pre-independence. We still hadn’t been hit with the Declaration and the Land Reforms Act. The exodus to Madras, Mysore and Bombay had already begun but was still slow. Bunts trusted their pettiges more, and road infrastructure was still backward. Going to a branch office was too much of a hassle, and their pettiges were good. So the bank was for its people, but the people that were using it weren’t the upper echelons of Bunt society. It was those who left their guthus, left their homes. Families who had burned houses, huge dowries, and huge debts. But if the upper echelons and richer ones don’t bank, how does a bank survive? They lacked collateral, they lacked profitability.

But then, Independent India came, and everything was changing.

Enter Mulki Sunder Ram Shetty

The promoters of the bank and the former director had identified a 6’4 tall man who many described as someone who could command a room when he walked in. He had a rich voice, they said, and a lasting presence. One woman said he had the kindest eyes and the softest smile. In 1946, Mulki Sunder Ram Shetty joined Vijaya Bank to save it from sinking to the bottom. He was a man who seemed to carry ten steps of foresight in his pocket. He read no management books, but he lived the wisdom of them.

Feudal lords were losing their rights, losing money, and starting to venture into new fields. They needed capital. Mulki Sunder Ram Shetty was a man who was a genius of his time. He understood the economy, he understood the wants and needs of the people, and he was able to cater to them.

But to understand his impact, I had to tell you all of this. Because if you didn’t understand this bit of history, you wouldn’t understand his genius. And for those with MBAs and those who grew up in the 2000s, his story may not seem that out of the box. But he walked, so Peppa could run!

This isn’t his biography. I know only from what I’ve heard and read about him. But his genius, I have understood greatly. His impact, I have understood deeply. And I am only trying to unpack that. He was born way before my time, and we never overlapped on this earth. So I know nothing of his personal relationships. So again, as with my disclaimer in my previous article about B.R. Shetty, I am only shedding light on Mulki Sunder Ram Shetty’s genius and impact.

A Matrilineal Culture at Crossroads

Again, you have to bear with me while I explain some historical context so you can understand the genius he was. Bunts were and remain a matrilineal and matriarchal culture. But as all systems do, when we interact with external forces, we imbibe some of their traits into our own. With the exodus of Bunts to Madras, Maharashtra and Mysore, and very few to the UK, they adapted to patriarchal-dominated cultures and brought back with them their influence. The ones back home, influenced by those who had made it out of the village, adapted back here, too.

Women in Bunt communities were entrepreneurial and worked long before women in other communities. The work was never new to them. But many influenced by these patriarchal roles of women staying in the kitchen had created a new rule to the gender roles in Bunt communities. Women remained at home. This didn’t mean they stopped working, but they didn’t seek jobs. By 1946, men were working for other men. Women stayed home.

Canara Bank, Corporation Bank and Syndicate Bank employed predominantly men. I found single-digit evidence of women in the workforce at these banks at this time. Again, you have to understand. The GSB community remains a patriarchal community, and so does the Muslim community. (Not the Bearys. You can refer to my other article to understand how Beary women were different.) Their women stayed home.

When Vijaya Bank started, again, I found single-digit evidence of women going to the office.

Mulki Sunder Ram Shetty was a father of daughters, but also, according to anecdotal evidence, a very close son to his mother. He respected his wife and daughters, and from my interviews, he was of the belief that women could do anything men could.

He brought women to the workforce.

Where others saw widows, he saw tellers. Where others saw wives bound to kitchens, he saw clerks, accountants, and managers.

One widow whose husband was lost at sea found a lifeline as a teller at Vijaya Bank. Another, married to a gambler, was given a steady role in a second branch. A young woman who simply wanted to work was put to documenting ledgers. Their children still speak his name with reverence.

“He didn’t think he was doing anything out of the ordinary,” said one. But it was out of the ordinary. India was colonised by a people who belonged to patriarchal social constructs that had seeped into our social institutions. His re-empowering of women in the workforce and being unperturbed by what society dictated as normal at the time was not only impactful but ahead of its time.

He didn’t call it feminism, didn’t dress it up in jargon — he just opened doors and pulled out chairs, long before society gave him permission.

The Blueprint Maker

He didn’t have an MBA from Wharton, nor did he read at Oxford. He was ahead of his time by understanding pain points before there was a term for it. He understood SWOT without labelling it and understood a PESTEL analysis and Porter’s Five Forces without anyone having to teach it to him. He understood political, economic, and legal implications and thought ten steps ahead. If you head over to his Wikipedia page, you won’t find much. But you will read about how he was credited with merging smaller banks into Vijaya Bank.

He walked, so M&A specialists could run!

If you go back and study how smoothly he ensured the mergers and acquisitions of nine smaller banks into Vijaya Bank, he created a blueprint for M&A in Indian banking history. Bank of Baroda could never!

He ensured there was almost no loss of jobs. He ensured the expansion happened fast but not too fast. He brought in the culture of being posted at a branch and aided family relocations to keep families happy and together. He merged banks the way a careful gardener grafts branches — with precision, patience, and an eye on the bloom.

I once took a class with a professor at INSEAD, and he asked the class, “Do you know why INSEAD hires couples?” And we all shook our heads. Mulki Sunder Ram Shetty would have answered that question. Because they were less likely to leave, they were more likely to be happy and less stressed, and if they were all that, they were productive. And if they were productive, the bank ran efficiently, and what does that mean? Thousands of employees could live another day stress-free, with food on the table.

Do you know why he’d be able to answer that? Because he did just that. Not now in the 2000s.

In 1947! Are you getting closer to understanding how cool he was?

Okay, what else did he do, though?

A bit more of history, boo, bear with me.

Land Reforms and New Dreams

In 1961, the government hit everyone with the Land Reforms Act. Bunts lost their lands. The very agriculture loans and debts they needed for large-scale farming were now moot with all the changes the Land Reforms Act brought. It brought reforms to tenancy, it brought a cap on land holdings, and all this saw the fall of feudal lords who still held land and symbolic aristocracy in their villages.

This meant more had to go out to work. Some had to start businesses, hotels, and get an education. Some had to send that son to med school. This created stress for families who needed to marry their girls off. They needed a dowry and liquid cash to raise a wedding (*maddme lakkauna*). For families staring at cracked walls and empty pettiges, he became the architect of second chances.

Remember what I said about pain points? Mulki Sunder Ram Shetty understood buying behaviour before the textbooks did. He understood spending behaviour too. He also built a culture of trust between banker and client. He enabled all of that to happen. He made education dreams come true, wedding woes go away, and enabled entrepreneurs to build their businesses by creating schemes allowing them to create good debt.

Now, for those of you who don’t know what a good debt is.

Listen up…

This is a lesson my father taught me. Good debt is something that enables you to achieve something and has a good return on investment — education, a house, whatever floats your boat. A bad debt is something like a debt for gambling and other vices.

Mulki Sunder Ram Shetty enabled good debt, and his leadership allowed millions of people to be further employed.

Don’t you think the credit should go to the 14 promoters who started Vijaya Bank in the first place? It does. They invested money and resources, and yes, 100% without them, there wouldn’t be a Vijaya Bank. But if Mulki Sunder Ram Shetty hadn’t saved the sinking boat of Vijaya Bank, there wouldn’t be a Vijaya Bank.

Wait, I’m not done.

A Dinner Table of Giants

While I’m writing this, I also found an answer to that New York Times question: If you could have dinner with five people, dead or alive, who would it be? My table would be Mulki Sunder Ram Shetty, Emily Dickinson, Edith Wharton, Virginia Woolf, and Ada Lovelace. I don’t think Mulki Sunder Ram Shetty would even mind being in our company. I think he’d even learn from Ada, and perhaps together they would have figured out UPI way before the 2010s. I imagine him at that table, sipping tea with Woolf and debating futures with Lovelace, nodding along as Dickinson read aloud her abolitionist verse.

I think Edith would have even spoken to him about *The Custom of the Country*. Because Mulki Sunder Ram Shetty understood the customs of the county. He understood society. No other leadership understood the woes of a father who had to marry off his daughter and the expenses that came with it.

Again, that’s not all.

Building Beyond Bunts

He’d have had an abolitionist conversation with Dickinson. He was ahead of his time here. He broke glass ceilings by being an equal employment opportunity employer before the Fortune 500 thought it was cool. He understood diversity and what that brought to the table in the 1960s. Whattt? Exactly.

He hired regardless of caste and creed. Vijaya Bank had 7,000+ employees under his leadership. They didn’t have to be Bunt, they didn’t have to be GSB. He allowed for all. Yes, he started with Bunt women in the workforce because they were the only community that dared and didn’t think twice to go to work as women.

In 1965, he did something even cooler. Our boy, Mulki Sunder Ram Shetty, understood brand recognition and brand visibility and got a logo registered. Although, they used a man in the logo. Sigh, maybe it appealed to the masses then.

In 1969, he said, "Yeah, we need to geographically be more accessible." So he moved the headquarters to Bangalore. Yeah. He understood gentrification before it had a label. He understood geographical clustering before the scholars. Why is he not a case study already?

He also understood networking and the power of moving with grace as a leader in political and social circles. Like I said, he understood the PESTEL analysis without ever calling it that. He met with Indira Gandhi, S.M. Krishna, and others, always maintaining political civility while conducting himself like a modern CEO. He wore suits, carried himself with humility, yet commanded respect. He made people feel comfortable, and years later, his employees still regard him as a god who walked among men.

I’m not exaggerating. To many, he was Tom Brady in a banker’s suit. Employees I spoke to who actually knew him said they still light lamps for him in their homes. Why? Because when they didn’t see gods saving them from poverty through divine miracles, Mulki Sunder Ram Shetty was the one who sent them a lifeboat in the form of an employment contract. He carried himself like a banyan tree: rooted in Mulki, shading many, branching into futures he would never live to see.

What Did This Mean for Bunts?

Beyond the numbers, beyond the loans and branches, lies the real story.

1. They were his first clients; he enabled their entrepreneurial dreams and created schemes that gave them wings.

2. He understood society’s pressures and created borrowing schemes that allowed fathers to marry off their daughters with dignity.

   
   

3. He built a nationwide presence for a bank that started in a small coastal town. And he ensured employees could move across states by picking up languages, getting trained, and relying on their natural charm.

   
   

4. He gave back to his town, he gave back to his people — and you won’t hear a single Bunt utter an ill word about him.

   
   

5. Unlike Bunts with money who create impact through donations and plaques, our boy Mulki Sunder Ram Shetty, donated time and enabled agency. He gave Bunts the financial spine to rebuild after land reforms.

   
   

6. In 1975, after the Vietnam War, doctors were recruited from India to the U.S. to help with the shortage. His leadership even provided loans for those who migrated.

   
   

7. He built a blueprint for the banking system with mergers and acquisitions.

   
   

8. He believed in dreams — and in the people who dreamed them.

   
   

9. And yes, he was just a cool person.

Symbol, System, and Sociology

George Herbert Mead reminds us that meaning is not inherent in objects — it is created in interaction. Mulki Sunder Ram Shetty was not just a banker. He became a symbol, and symbols gain power when people bring them into reality. Every lamp lit in his honour, every teller he hired, every father who could marry off a daughter with dignity — each was an interaction that built his legacy. Thousands of girls were able to get an educational loan to fuel their educational dreams!

Institutional theory would say he did more than chair a bank. He anchored a system. He turned Vijaya Bank from an idea into an institution by shaping its culture, embedding trust, and modelling values others would copy.

For Bunts, he was proof that our community could move from wooden trunks to modern institutions, from feudal estates to professional futures. For India, he showed that institutions are not born from regulations alone — they are born from vision.

He may not walk among us any longer. But each girl entering banking in Mangalore, each father who sighs in relief, signing a loan, every lamp lit before his image — these are his footprints in time. He lives not just as a banker, but as the symbol of what a community can become when it learns to dream in advance.

Disclaimer: I'm sorry I was so Gen Z in my writing. I've been chronically online and using TikTok a bit too much

P.S. Have you visited the MG Road museum in Bangalore in Vijaya Tower? He truly does have kind eyes and a compassionate smile