In Chennai on 10 March 1938, a boy named Veeraswamy Seshiah was born. He completed his MBBS at Madras Medical College in 1962, served in the Army Medical Corps during the Indo-Pakistani War—earning the Samar Seva Star—and later returned to earn his MD. Teaching and clinical work followed at Stanley and Madras Medical Colleges.

In 1978 he founded India’s first dedicated Department of Diabetology at Madras Medical College and became its first professor while still in his early forties. He saw what many had not yet recognised: diabetes was rising fast, and its roots often began in pregnancy. He established a Pregnancy and Diabetes division and later founded the Diabetes in Pregnancy Study Group India (DIPSI). His simple “single-test” procedure for diagnosing gestational diabetes made screening practical across the country.

One young doctor once asked him why he focused so intensely on pregnant women.

Seshiah answered, “The health of the mother shapes the health of the next generation. If we prevent diabetes in pregnancy, we protect both mother and child for life. That is where the real battle is won.”

He trained generations of physicians, wrote widely used handbooks, advised the World Health Organization and the International Diabetes Federation, and pushed for national awareness. The Government of India later declared his birthday, 10 March, as India GDM Awareness Day. In 1988 he received the Dr. B.C. Roy National Award for developing diabetology as a specialty. In 2017 the International Diabetes Federation gave him its Lifetime Achievement Award—the first Indian to receive it. In 2022 the nation conferred the Padma Shri for his lifelong contribution to medicine.

Even in his eighties, Professor Veeraswamy Seshiah continues to teach, write and advocate. From the wards of Madras Medical College to the national stage, he has spent more than five decades turning early insight into lasting protection against a disease that once seemed inevitable.