Krishna Raja Wadiyar IV
Maharaja of Mysore
Krishnaraja Wadiyar IV (4 June 1884 – 3 August 1940) was the twenty-fourth Maharaja of Mysore, reigning from 1902 until his death in 1940. Krishnaraja Wadiyar IV is popularly deemed a rajarshi, or 'saintly king', a moniker with which Mahatma Gandhi revered the king in 1925 for his administrative reforms and achievements. He was a philosopher king, seen by Paul Brunton as living the ideal expressed in Plato's Republic. Viscount Herbert Samuel compared him to Emperor Ashoka. Acknowledging the maharaja's noble and efficient kingship, Viscount John Sankey declared in 1930 at the first Round Table Conference in London, "Mysore is the best administered state in the world". He is often regarded as the "father of modern Mysore" and his reign the "golden age of Mysore". Pundit Madan Mohan Malaviya described the maharaja as "dharmic" (virtuous in conduct). John Gunther, the American author, heaped praise on the king. In an obituary, The Times called him "a ruling prince second to none in esteem and affection inspired by both his impressive administration and his attractive personality". At the time of his death, Krishnaraja Wadiyar IV was one of the world's wealthiest men, with a personal fortune estimated in 1940 to be worth US$400 million, equivalent to $7 billion in 2018 prices. He was the second-wealthiest Indian, after Nizam Osman Ali Khan. Krishnaraja Wadiyar
IV was born on 4 June 1884 in Mysore Palace as the son of Maharaja Chamarajendra Wadiyar X and Maharani Kempananjammanni Devi. After the sudden death of his father in Calcutta in 1894, the widowed queen mother Kempananjammanni Devi ruled the state as regent from 1895 to 1902, until Krishnaraja Wadiyar reached the age of majority on 8 August 1902. Upon accession to the throne, he became the fourth king of Mysore by the name, hence known in the vernacular language Kannada as Nalwadi Krishnaraja Wadiyar. The maharaja had his early education and training at Lokaranjan Palace in Mysore under the direction of P. Raghavendra Rao. In addition to Western studies, he was instructed in Kannada and Sanskrit. He was taught horse-riding and Indian and Western classical music. His early administrative training was imparted by Sir Stuart Fraser of the Bombay Civil Service. The study of the principles of jurisprudence and methods of revenue administration was supplemented by extensive tours of the state during which he gained immense knowledge of the nature of the country which he was later to govern. Shortly after the death of his father Maharaja Chamarajendra Wadiyar X on 28 December 1894, Krishnaraja Wodeyar IV, still a boy of eleven, ascended the throne on 1 February 1895. His mother Maharani Kemparajammanni Devi ruled as queen regent until Krishnaraja Wodeyar IV took over on 8 February 1902. The yuvaraja was invested as the Maharaja of Mysore, with full ruling powers, by Marquess George Curzon, the Governor-General of India, on 8 August 1902 at a ceremony at Jaganmohana Palace. During the maharaja's reign, the Kingdom of Mysore witnessed development in a range of fields. Mysore became the first Indian state to generate hydroelectric power in Asia, and Bangalore was the first Asian city to have street lights. The maharaja worked towards alleviating poverty and improving rural reconstruction, public health, industry and economic regeneration, education and the fine arts. He abolished child marriage (for girls below the age 8), gave special importance for girls' education, and offered scholarship for widowed women. At a time when support for domestic products was pivotal for India's self-reliance and eventual independence from British India, the maharaja encouraged spinning at scale, for which Gandhi greatly praised him. The maharaja was a patron of Indian, both Carnatic and Hindustani, and Western classical music. He was an accomplished musician and, like his predecessors, patronised fine arts. The maharaja was a connoisseur of Carnatic and Hindustani music himself. He played eight musical instruments: flute, violin, saxophone, piano, mridangam, nadaswara, sitar, and veena. Members of the Agra Gharana, including Nattan Khan and Ustad Vilayat Hussain Khan, were guests of the maharajah at Mysore, as were Abdul Karim Khan and Gauhar Jan. Barkatullah Khan was a palace musician. Asthana Vidwan Kadagathur Seshacharya has written various works and is famous for his contributions towards Sanskrit and Kannada literature. The maharaja also composed many poems in Kannada himself.
The Mysore army. The princely state of Mysore thought under British tutelage had its own army consisting of infantry, cavalry and a transport corps. The Mysore army assisted the British in their wars both inside and outside India, supplemented the state police during emergencies, guarded taluq and district treasuries, accompanied dignitaries during their itinerary and played ceremonial duties. The majority of men in the army belonged to the Maratha and Muslim communities, the former dominating the cavalry and the latter dominating in the infantry and transport wing. Persons from Brahmin, Rajput, Christian and other communities formed the rest of the crew in the army. During 1872-73 the pay of a cavalryman (who had to maintain his horse) was Rs 26 a month and that of a 1st class sepoy in the Infantry was Rs seven. There also existed a military band where trumpeters, drummers, fifers and buglers were given regular instructions by European musicians. In April 1892 the cavalry regiment of Mysore State Troops was reorganized into two corps, one for the imperial service called Mysore Lancers stationed in Bangalore and another for state service called Mysore Horse stationed at Mysore with outposts in the frontier taluq of Jagalur and Pavagada. In pay, discipline and equipment the men of the Mysore Lancers were similar to Her Majesty’s Native Cavalry as far as possible. There were two riding schools one at Mysore and another at Bangalore. The Government Stud Farm at Kunigal provided the horses for the state
cavalry. In August 1894 a school was opened for instructing men of the Mysore Lancers in English. The Mysore State Force had three Infantry units of which the 1st battalion was stationed in the districts of Bangalore and Kolar, the 2nd in the district of Shimoga, Hassan, Kadur and Chitradurga and the 3rd battalion in the district of Mysore and Tumkur. The Animal Transport corps was formed to assist the Mysore Lancers. Apart from ferrying troops and supplies the Transport Corps services were utilized for harvesting, collecting and carting of grass at the Hesaraghatta grass farm.
The Wadiyar dynasty (formerly spelt Wodeyer or Odeyer Kannada, also referred to as the Wadiyars of Mysore), is a late-medieval/early-modern South Indian Hindu royal family of former kings of Mysore from the Urs clan originally based in Mysore city. As Maharajas of Mysore, the Wadiyars ruled the Kingdom of Mysore from the late 1300s until 1950. Members of the Wadiyar dynasty and the Urs clan have also been royal advisers as Diwans to their reigning siblings, cousins, nephews, or distant relatives. Some members have also commanded army divisions as dalvoys (commander-in-chief) for their reigning monarch. During the late 14th century, the family was originally poleygars (Kannada for garrison) defending the regions in and around Mysore town for the Vijayanagara Empire, their feudal overlords. With the fall and decline of the empire in the 17th century, the Wadiyars declared independence when Raja Wadiyar seized the nearby town of Srirangapattana, the seat of Tirumala, Sriranga II's viceroy, in 1610. Between 1766 and 1799, when Hyder Ali and Tipu dictated the kingdom, the Wadiyar rulers as maharajas were largely nominal without any actual powers. After Tipu's execution in 1799, the
British Crown which was ruling India at that time restored the kingdom back to the Wadiyars under a subsidiary alliance. After India's independence from the Crown, the ruling Maharaja Jayachamaraja Wadiyar ceded the kingdom into the newly formed Dominion of India. The Wadiyars claim descent from the deity Krishna. Legend has it that they arrived from Dvaraka. However, historians like P. V. Nanjaraj Urs, Shyam Prasad, Nobuhiro Ota, David Leeming, and Aya Ikegame instead suggest that the Wadiyars were local feudal lords who asserted Puranic ancestry to claim themselves as direct descendants of the legendary Lunar Dynasty, more of an Rajput origin of Chandravamsha. The Wadiyar dynasty started when Yaduraya, a garrison leader (poleygar), was made the prefect of Mysore and the surrounding regions his overlord Harihara II of the Vijayanagara Empire in 1399. With this, Yaduraya assumed the title Raja and the honorary surname Wadiyar. He and his successors ruled the fiefdom of Mysore as rajas under the vassalage of the Vijayanagara Empire until around 1553. The Vijayanagara Empire disintegrated in 1565. With the fall of the empire, Mysore became an independent kingdom, the first independent king being Timmaraja Wodeyar II, the great-great-great-grandson of the founding ruler Yaduraya. In 1831, on a specious plea of non-payment by Maharaja Krishnaraja Wadiyar III, the kingdom was placed under Mysore Commission that lasted from 1831 to 1881. Mark Cubbon and L. B. Bowring are among the well-known commissioners of the period. In 1868, upon Krishnaraja Wadiyar III's demise, his five-year-old adopted son Yuvaraja Chamaraja Wadiyar X became the heir to the throne. When in 1881 he attained the age of majority, through an act of parliament, the British Parliament once again transferred power back to the Wadiyars. The maharaja changed the English spelling of their royal name from Wodeyar to Wadiyar and assumed the title Bahadur. He established the Mysore Representative Assembly; for the first time in India, democratic experiments were being conducted in Mysore. Chamaraja Wadiyar X's son and successor Maharaja Krishnaraja Wadiyar IV earned great fame as a saintly king (rajarishi), and his kingdom was hailed as Ramarajya by Mahatma Gandhi–as an ideal kingdom comparable to the one ruled by Lord Rama.
Awards: Sash and star of the Order of Gandaberunda.
