Krishnaswami Srinivas Sanjivi

Krishnaswami Srinivas Sanjivi (1903–1994) was an Indian medical doctor, Gandhian, social worker and the founder of Voluntary Health Services (VHS), a medical facility in Chennai reported to be serving the lower and middle-class people of the society. He was honoured by the Government of India in 1971 with Padma Shri, the fourth highest Indian civilian award. Five years later, the government followed it up by awarding him the third highest civilian award of Padma Bhushan in 1976.

Biography K. S. Sanjivi was born in 1903 at Pudukkottai in the south Indian state of Tamil Nadu to Dharmambal and P. S. Krishnaswami Iyer, the self-appointed guardian of Muthulakshmi Reddi, a renowned Indian physician and the first woman legislator in India, during her college days. He was the youngest of their four children, the eldest a daughter, Veda and his elder brothers, Krishnaswami Swaminathan, noted journalist and the chief editor of The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi and Krishnaswami Venkataraman, former director of the National Chemical Laboratory; both would go on to win Padma Bhushan awards. Declining the offer of the post of a professor of medicine at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi and choosing not to resort to private practice, he engaged himself fully into the work associated with VHS. and Ravi Narayan being some of the notable personalities who have delivered the lecture in the past.

K. S. Sanjivi died in October 1994 at the age of 91.