Mysore and Kashmir. From princely states to accession. From maharajahs to chief ministers. Both signed accession treaty only in October 1947. While the Kashmir story became complicated, Mysore story was not smooth either. The freedom story of Karnataka began with Mysore state. But its identity was established with the merger of Kannada-speaking areas from Nizam’s Hyderabad, Bombay and Madras presidencies. And it got its new name ‘Karnataka’ in 1972.
Freedom and rejoicing are what we want to imagine and attribute today, but there was as much uncertainty in Karnataka as there was in Kashmir on 15 August 1947. Both were princely states, both had maharajas who were accorded the supreme 21-gun salute by the British crown. Both, the Wodeyars and Dogras, as dynasties, had been installed (in the case of Wodeyars reinstalled) in the 19th century. While British gifted Jammu and Kashmir to Gulab Singh Dogra for a token sum of Rs. 75 lakhs, in March 1846, they restored Mysore to Chamarajendra Wodeyar in March 1881 after half-a-century.
With the arrival of Independence both signed the accession treaty with India only in October 1947, after a short resistance. While the Kashmir story became complicated and continues to be complicated, the Mysore story ended meekly after Congressmen put up a second freedom struggle for two months. It was called ‘Mysore Chalo.’ It went on till the first peoples’ government was inaugurated on 29 October 1947 with Sardar Patel’s confidant, K Chengalaraya Reddy, as chief minister. He had a nine-member cabinet and Mysore state was only thirteen districts, not the thirty we have today.
The ‘Mysore Chalo’ agitation, which was about marching into Mysore to occupy the seat of power, had its share of police action and firing. But interestingly, the bulk of the anger was not against Maharajah Jayachamarajendra Wodeyar, but against his prime minister, Dewan Arcot Ramaswamy Mudaliar, and his private secretary, Sri Tamboochetty, the two who had an iron grip over the princely state’s administration. The then Maharajah and his immediate ancestors were seen as benign, progressive, cultured figures, unlike Kashmir’s Hari Singh, who was marked as an oppressor.
In fact, V P Menon, Sardar Patel’s trusted arbitrator and India’s secretary of states, writes warmly about the Mysore king in his book Integration of the Indian States. He says, the only concession he asked was to keep the title ‘Maharajah’ and not be redesignated as ‘Rajpramukh’. This was partially conceded. The Sardar too had respect for the Mysore royalty: “[He] told me that the privy purse of the Maharajah was not settled and that the matter was worrying him. I did not ask him why, with all his other and more important preoccupations, he should be so anxious on this score,” Menon writes.
Anyway, on 15 August 1947 the tri-colour did not go up on the Mysore palace or on any other government buildings. But in an act of ‘subversion’ two government employees hoisted the national flag on Attara Kacheri (the High Court building). Amidst all the subversive acts of the two months, the most fascinating was the creation of ‘Inquilab,’ a handwritten, cyclostyled, underground paper by a Gandhian and a physicist, H Narasimhaiah. He quit his job at the National College to launch the paper with his colleague and chemistry professor, K Srinivasan.
Two popular slogans that ‘Inquilab’ recorded from the time was ‘Boycott Arcot’ and ‘Tamboochetty Chatta Katti’ (roughly translated, ‘Get Tamboochetty’s pyre ready’). The paper’s first edition was on 05 September 1947 and last was on 12 October 1947, when the Maharajah agreed to a peoples’ government. Later, H Narasimhaiah got a PhD in nuclear physics in the USA, and was vice-chancellor of Bangalore University in the 1970s. As a rationalist, in the 1980s, he also investigated the claims of paranormal experience, and publicly challenged Satya Sai Baba of Puttaparti. Wonder what freedom he would have enjoyed in today’s India?
The freedom story of Karnataka began in 1947 with the Mysore state. There were two more instalments before its identity and freedom were somewhat fully established. The second act was witnessed when Mysore went beyond the thirteen districts to accommodate Kannada-speaking areas from Nizam’s Hyderabad, as well as Bombay and Madras presidencies.
The final act was the renaming of the state as ‘Karnataka’ in 1972 under the chief ministership of a former Mysore aristocrat, D Devaraj Urs. On 25 July 1972, he inaugurated the long debate on the name change in what was still the Mysore Legislative Assembly by saying: “What is there in a name? A rose will smell as sweet as it is even if you call it by some other name. This is however my personal belief, but if the change of name will bring people peace, give them joy, enhance freedom, enable their emotional integration, I will happily surrender to their wishes.”
Taking cue from Urs, I think every August 15 we need to revisit our freedoms to check their enhancement or deterioration.
Turning history pages
Sugata Srinivasaraju
(Senior journalist and author)