In 1948, as Europe struggled to get back on its feet after World War II, German composer Richard Strauss wrote his final piece, Four Last Songs, with the hope that Wagnerian soprano Kirsten Flagstad would perform it. He died the following year, his wish unfulfilled, never to know that in an independent India emerging from Partition, a young Maharaja from Mysore, now Mysuru, would be instrumental in realising his dream.
A patron of Carnatic and Western music, scholarly writer, avid tennis player, humanitarian and statesman — few have left a legacy as enduring and vast as the 25th and last Maharaja of Mysore, Jayachamarajendra Wadiyar. Through his victories in artistic, political and philanthropic work, the Maharaja, lived up to the prefix attached to his name—‘Jaya’—added on his birth date 18 July 1919 to commemorate the success of Allied Forces in World War I.
From his coronation in September 1940 till his death in September 1974, the Maharaja’s life was characterised by change. He ascended the throne at 21 after the death of his paternal uncle, Krishnaraja Wadiyar IV, who had adopted him as his son.
By the time the last Maharaja of Mysore was 31, he had seen most of WWII and the new order following the Cold War. He lifted a battered Mysore out of a war economy and ramifications of the Great Famine between 1876-78—which claimed 20 per cent of its population as per former Dewan C.V. Rungacharlu in 1881.
On 9 August 1947, he became the first Maharaja to sign the Instrument of Accession, which facilitated the merging of Mysore with the Indian Union. With this, he went from being Mysore’s Maharaja to its rajpramukh (constitutional head or governor) until he became the Governor of Madras in 1964.
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‘Maverick Maharaja’
While riding waves of political change, Jayachamarajendra Wadiyar also built a formidable cultural legacy as a musician, writer and academic.
In 2006, a compilation of his compositions comprising 94 kritis in 94 different ragas from the Carnatic music tradition was made available. It was put together by S. Krishnamurthy, grandson of Mysore Vasudevachar, who was guru to Wadiyar.
“What is masterful about his less than 100 compositions is that two-thirds are in rare, extant and new ragas. But the element of innovation runs high in them,” neurobiologist and vocalist Deepti Navratna, who wrote a book on Wadiyar titled Maverick Maharaja, told The Hindu. He is also credited with co-founding the Sangeet Natak Akademi, India’s leading performing arts body.
Jayachamarajendra Wadiyar’s musical interests crossed the boundaries of Mysore
and even India, as he was a renowned patron of Western music as well. His
mother, Kempu Cheluvarajammanni, trained him in Western classical piano, and it
is said that if not for his duties as a king, he would have gone on to become a
conductor. Wadiyar acquired a licentiateship in piano performance from the
Guildhall School of Music and Drama and was granted an honorary Fellowship of
Trinity College London in 1945.
The Maharaja made it possible for Richard Strauss’s Four Last Songs to be performed by the very soprano Strauss wished for. While on a trip to Switzerland seeking to be a student of composer Sergei Rachmaninoff, he financed a large series of recordings for little-known German composer Nikolai Medtner. Even though the two did not meet, the Maharaja contributed to the Medtner Society foundation in 1949, because of which Medtner dedicated his third piano concerto to him. He also offered a yearly grant of £10,000 for the revival of the Concert Society and the London Philharmonic Orchestra (of which he was the first president in 1948).
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A literary trailblazer, true educationist
A brilliant man in all respects, Wadiyar also exhibited a flair for academics. For
instance, he received five gold medals upon graduation from Maharaja’s College, University of Mysore in 1938. He went on to receive a doctorate of law from Banaras Hindu University (1945), a doctorate in literature from Annamalai University (1955) and the University of Queensland Australia (1963).
Passionate about wildlife conservation, Wadiyar was the first chairman of the Indian Wild Life Board. “I think one reason why JCW was selected was because unlike a number of other royals he was not trigger happy or trophy crazy,” said Congress MP Jairam Ramesh at Wadiyar’s birth centenary celebrations in 2020. He was also the chancellor of Karnataka, Madras, and Annamalai universities.
The writer’s translations and notes reveal his vast learning and deep devotion. The writer is not merely a theoretical student but a practising disciple, a sadhaka”; wrote India’s second president, S Radhakrishnan, in an introduction to Wadiyar’s book, Dattatreya: The Way And The Goal.
A true reformer and educationist, Wadiyar set up multiple institutions during his
time, including Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) and the National Tuberculosis Institute in Bengaluru, among others. Moreover, it is said that during his reign, the number of primary and middle schools increased, adult education classes were held, government grants increased, and fields like medicine, health, industry, and agriculture saw improvements.
Even before Jayachamarajendra Wadiyar signed the Instrument of Accession with India in 1947, Mysore had a history of democratic administration—it was the first state to set up a Representative Assembly (1881) with an Upper House (1907) and a elected majority (1913). Under the last Maharaja of Mysore, this government became responsible to the people.
“The torch of constitutional progress which has been handed down to me as a family heritage, it is my ambition, as I am sure it is yours, to ensure that its light does not grow dim, but will burn ever brighter with the passage of time,” said Wadiyar, in his 1941 speech to the joint session of the two houses of state legislature while inaugurating the reformed Constitution of 1940.
After Indira Gandhi’s government abolished privy purses in 1971, the royal family’s finances started to dwindle, coupled with the Maharaja’s deteriorating health. On 23 September 1974, soon after his daughter Gayatri Devi’s death, the last Maharaja of Mysore passed away at 55 in the Bangalore Palace. He was succeeded by his son, Srikantadatta Narasimharaja Wadiyar.
Looking back at Jayachamarajendra Wadiyar’s life, the famed Kannada poet Kuvempu’s lines about him hold true: “Every monarch in history has become king ascending thrones, while he became the greatest king descending one.”
(Edited by Zoya Bhatti)