Krishna Raja Wadiyar IV

Krishna Raja Wadiyar IV (June 4, 1884 – August 3, 1940, Bangalore Palace), also known as Nalwadi Krishna Raja Wadiyar, was the Maharaja of the princely state of Mysore of the Wodeyar dynasty of Mysore from 1902 until his death in 1940. He had a celebrated status among the princely rulers of the Indian States under the British rule and living the ideal expressed in Plato's Republic. He was called a philosopher-king, Rajarshi. He was also a connoisseur of both Carnatic Music and Hindustani Music, and his reign was described by some as "the golden age of Carnatic classical music". He was one of the world's wealthiest men, with a personal fortune estimated in 1940 to be worth $400 million which would be equivalent to $56 billion in 2010 prices.

Quotes

 * How important are the responsibilities, which now devolve upon me I fully realise, and it is my intention to prove by performance rather than by words. The inhertitance to which I succeed is no ordinary one, and I appreciate what Mysore owes to the administration of wise statesmen, and the care of British Government under the regency of my revered mother….may heaven grant me the ability as well the ambition to make a full and wise use of the great opportunities of my position, and to govern, without fear or favour for the lasting happiness of my people.
 * In his speech on being installed as the Maharaja of Mysroe at the age of 18Quoted in

As ruler of the state

 * Here, in India, the problem is peculiar. Our trade tends steadily to expand and it is possible to demonstrate by means of statistics the increasing prosperity of the country generally. On the other hand, we in India know that the ancient handicrafts are decaying, that the fabrics for which India was renowned in the past are supplanted by the products of Western looms, and that our industries are not displaying that renewed vitality which will enable them to compete successfully in the home or the foreign market. The cutivator on the margin of subsistence remains a starveling cultivator, the educated man seeks Government employment or the readily available profession of a lawyer, while the belated artisan works on the lines marked out for him by his forefathers for a return that barely keeps body and soul together. It is said that India is dependent on agriculture and must always remain so.That may be so ; but there can, I venture to think, be little doubt that the solution of the ever recurring famine problem is to be found not merely in the improvement of agriculture, the cheapening of loans, or the more equitable distribution of taxation, but still more in the removal from the land to industrial pursuits of a great portion of those, who, at the best, gain but a miserable subsistence, and on the slightest failure of the season are thrown on public charity. It is time for us in India to be up and doing ; new markets must be found, new methods adopted and new handicrafts developed, whilst the educated unemployed, no less than the skilled and unskilled labourers, all those, in fact, whose precarious means of livelihood is a standing menace to the well-being of the State must find employment in reorganised and progressive industries It seems to me that what we want is more outside light and assistance from those interested in industries. Our schools should not be left entirely to officials who are either fully occupied with their other duties or whose ideas are prone, in the nature of things, to run in official grooves. I should like to see all those who "think" and “know" giving us their active assistance and not merely their criticism of our results. It is not Governments or forms of Government that have made the great industrial nations, but the spirit of the people and the energy of one and all working to a common end.
 * On the occasion of the opening of Industrial and Arts Exhibition on 26 December 1903 in Madras (now known as Chennai)
 * The fortunes of Mysore will ever be associated in history with the consolidation of the British Power in India. It was in Mysore that the great Duke of Wellington received his baptism of fire and won his first laurels. It was with the aid of the Mysore Horse and the Transport that he gained imperishable fame on the battle fields of the Deccan....I beg Your Royal Highness to convey to His Gracious Majesty the assurance that whenever the call may come, Mysore will not be found wanting.
 * Said at the banquet in honour of the Prince and Princess of Wales on the 30th January 1906.
 * Various expedients have been tried in the past for bringing together capital and labour to the greatest advantage of the community at large. Western countries such as Germany, Denmark, England have found out by experience that the best method of doing this is by a co-operation of the workers for purposes of mutual benefit. This idea of co-operation is based on the great principle of self-help and combination Self-help and combination for mutual benefit are, in fact, essential for our advancement as a community and Co-operative Societies bring these two forces together for our economic advantage, a thing which the most ignorant person can understand, work for and profit by.
 * Spoke on the occasion of the Economic Conference held during Dussera festival 1911 which brought wide awareness of the people on the effectiveness of Cooperative Societies.
 * I recall to mind on this occasion, said His Highness, "the words which I spoke nearly 21 years ago when I opened the Representative Assembly in person for the first time after I assumed the reins of Government. The hopes I then expressed of the value of the yearly gatherings of the Assembly in contributing to the well-being and contentment of my subjects have been amply fulfilled. The Legislative Council, too, which came into existence in 1907.
 * At the Inauguration of the Reformed Legislative Council and the Representative Assembly on the 17th March 1924
 * That no one who had followed the events of the Great War could help realising that while it had resulted in overthrowing the three great monarchies of Europe, its effect on the British Empire had been to strengthen the bonds between king and people and to leave the British Throne more deeply seated in the affections of every class of His Imperial Majesty's subjects.
 * Said at the banquet speech on the 19th January 1922 after the World War I while proposing the toast to his guest.
 * I thank God who has blessed Mysore so abundantly in material ways that He has blessed her also with a sincere, modest, liberal-minded and industrious people; and I thank my people themselves, my Government and my officers that by their hearty co-operation for the good of Mysore they have earned for it the name of the Model State and the signal proof of appreciation which we have just received from the Supreme Government....And I appeal specially to the rising generation to hold before themselves always the ideal of brotherhood and good citizenship, so that when they come to fill our places, they may continue in all good ways to advance and increase the welfare of our beloved Motherland.
 * In his address to the public on the occasion of his Silver Jubilee of his reign.

About Krishna Raja Wadiyar IV
First stated by Annie Cahn Feng quoted Paul Burton views and the second is by Paul Burton, a western philosopher seeking oriental wisdom who was the guest of the Maharaja who wrote while dedicating his book “The Quest of the Overself” to the Maharaja.
 * Throughout the length and breadth of India there is no name more honoured. Within his State there is no name more loved.
 * Quoted here
 * You have rescued philosophy from those who would make it a mere refuge from disappointment, and converted it into a dynamic inspiration to higher action for service.
 * ...the reclusive and solitary mystic. The Maharaja, open to science and modern technology, had founded the great iron and steel industry of Bhadravathi, one of the most important in the British Empire. His strong example was both a source of inspiration for the English author and a reassuring confirmation of the latter’s belief that philosophy and the active life are not incompatible.

From Modern Mysore

 * I have had such close opportunities of watching and for whom I entertain so sincere a regard as the young Maharaja of Mysore. Indeed, I think I may add that I should not have come all the way from Simla at this season of the year had I not felt the keenest personal interest both in this State and in its future Ruler. About the latter I shall have a word to say presently. But first let me explain how it is that the fortunes of the Mysore State occupy such a place in the concern and regard of the Government of India.... The young Maharaja whom I am about to instal has recently attained his eighteenth birthday. He has passed through a minority of nearly eight years. They have not been idle or vapid years spent in enjoyment or dissipated in idleness. They have been years of careful preparation for the duties that lie before him and of laborious training for his exalted state. It is no light thing to assume the charge of 5,000,000 of people and it is no perfunctory training that is required for such a task.
 * Viceroy Lord Curzon in his investiture speech installing him as the Maharaja of Mysore stated in a Durbar held on 8 August 1902.
 * His Highness could be trusted to 'go four annas better' than could be reasonably expected, an assurance that was to be most amply fulfilled in the succeeding years.
 * Mr. S. M. Fraser, who was the Tutor and Governor of the Maharaja during his minority expressed to Sir Evan Machonochie, Private Secretary to the Maharaja. 'Anna', the currency prevalent then was equivalent to one sixteenth of an Indian Rupee.
 * Happily, His Highness is to-day ruling wisely a contented people and it is sufficient to say that I found in him a kind and considerate Chief and a loyal friend. On young shoulders he carried a head of extraordinary maturity which was, however, no bar to a boyish and whole-hearted enjoyment of manly sports as well as of the simple pleasures of life.
 * Sir Evan Machonochie in his book “Life in the Indian Civil Service.
 * His Highness with the shining examples of his two illustrious parents before him had shown the same earnest devotion to duty and given the same unfailing support to his ministers as had been received at the hands of His Highness* father and his mother.
 * Said by the Dewan.
 * That no one who had followed the events of the Great War could help realising that while it had resulted in overthrowing the three great monarchies of Europe, its effect on the British Empire had been to strengthen the bonds between king and people and to leave the British Throne more deeply seated in the affections of every class of His Imperial Majesty's subjects.
 * Lord Irwin on the occasion of the State Banquet held on the 29th July on his taking over as Viceroy.
 * For many years we have watched and admired the maintenance of those high standards of administration; we have not forgotten the noble services you have rendered to the British Government when the need for service was the greatest, and we are not blind to what Your Highness has done to set an example of the fashion in which the government of a great State should be conducted Mysore has perhaps a longer tradition of progressive government than any other State in India, and the Government of India can feel assured that any relief which they may feel it in their power to give will inure to the benefit of the people of your State.
 * He is essentially a man of simple taste, though not in the bald sense sometimes associated with that term. There is a simplicity without taste. But His Highness' simplicity includes the love of beauty and includes a very simple and strong desire that his people shall share in the beauty of culture and of nature that he loves. In fulfilment of this desire, he has bounteously inspired and helped every movement for beautifying the environment of his people....In the modern ruler a new tolerance and neutrality is called for and the broad-mindedness of His Highness has passed into a proverb. A religious devotee himself, he makes no distinctions on religious grounds. He follows his own faith and respects the sincere faith of others. But it is probably in the department of public affairs, in legislation and administration that His Highness has, taken his place as one of the most sagacious statesmen of our time.
 * Abobe two quotes by Sir Mirza Ismail, the Dewan of Mysore on llth April 1927 during a large and enthusiastic public meeting held in the Lal Bagh at Bangalore on the occasion of the Silver Jubilee of his reign.
 * The record of progress of your State since my last visit eleven years ago is certainly remarkable. Those years have not been happy ones in the histories of the nations and they have closed in an economic crisis of the first magnitude. It was impossible that Mysore should escape altogether the worldwide depression. That she should have been able, despite it, to continue to develop her industries and provide for the welfare of her people in the way she has done must compel the admiration of all observers. Of the varied and interesting programme that you have prepared for me, there is no item that I look forward to with greater anticipation than my visit to the Krishnarajasagara.
 * Federation is a word that is on everybody's lips to-day. That it will come I am confident, that it will come and I look to see Mysore play a leading part in the destinies of the new India a part she is well qualified to play by her traditions and her long and distinguished history, no less than by her capacity for administration and by the fact that she has as her Ruler one of the most enlightened and broad-minded Princes in India
 * Above two quotes during the visit of Lord Willingdon, the Governor-General, with Lady Willingdon to the Mysore State in December 1933.
 * No London season passes without the presence of number of Indian Princes, some of them regular visitors but a welcome precedent is set to-day by the arrival of the Maharaja of Mysore. In any circumstances a first visit to these shores from the head of so great and progressive a State would be an outstanding event ; and its interest is enhanced by the high personal esteem in which His Highness is held among all who have come to know him. The 'MODEL STATE' as it is called, approximates more nearly than any other to the British Provinces in its conception of good government; nor is any Indian ruler held in more universal esteem than Sir Krishnaraja Wodeyar, who succeeded when a boy of eleven, more than forty years ago. He combines with the strictest Hindu orthodoxy a delight in athletic sport and intellectual interests which will have full scope in a country of which he has heard and read so much but now sees for the first time. Interpretations of his visit as directly concerned with the special problems of Mysore in relation to Federation and in particular that of the subsidy have no foundation at all. After severe family bereavement and in indifferent health, His Highness comes to take a much-needed holiday.
 * In an editorial in The Times of London published on 16th July the visit of the Maharaja in its issue of the 16th July 1936.