Person · modernising maharaja · India
Krishnarāja Wadiyar IV
Also known as Krishnaraja Wadiyar IV, Krishna Raja Wadiyar IV, Nalvadi Krishnaraja Wadeyar
Mysore maharaja from 1902 to 1940 whose reign made Mysore the most progressive princely state in British India — the first to introduce universal primary education, build hydroelectric power (Shivanasamudra, 1902), establish a legislative council with elected members (1907) and run its own airline. He endowed the land and the first substantial grant for the Indian Institute of Science at Bangalore, which Jamsetji Tata had been trying to site since 1898; the Institute opened in 1909 on the tract the Mysore government deeded for it. Gandhi called him a Rajarshi.
- Date
- 1884–1940
- Function
- Authority & administration
- Patron dynasty
- Wadiyar
- Tradition
- Mysore State records; the Mysore Gazetteer, ed. C. Hayavadana Rao (1927); IISc centenary history.
- Confidence
- Established / referenced
Worth knowing
He rebuilt the Mysore Palace in Indo-Saracenic style between 1897 and 1912 after the previous wooden palace burned, and personally patronised the Dasara procession as a reconstruction of the Vijayanagara ceremonial. The current Mysuru Dasara still processes along the route he fixed.
About the place
Placed at Mysuru, the capital he ruled from.
Connections (2)
- Founded byIndian Institute of Science, Bengaluru
Krishnaraja Wadiyar IV, Mysore's maharaja from 1902, offered the Mysore government's Bengaluru tract for the Indian Institute of Science in 1909 after Jamsetji Tata's trustees had spent a decade trying to find a British Indian site. The Mysore land grant was unconditional and was accompanied by an endowment that matched the Tata trust's own contribution. The Institute's foundation at Bangalore rather than at Calcutta, Bombay or Madras is the result of this princely-state willingness that the colonial administration lacked.
- Ruler ofMysuru
Krishnaraja Wadiyar IV ruled the princely state of Mysore from 1902 to 1940 from the Mysore Palace, which he commissioned to be rebuilt in Indo-Saracenic style between 1897 and 1912 after a fire. His reign made Mysore the most progressive princely state in British India — universal primary education, the Shivanasamudra hydroelectric scheme, an elected legislative council, state airline, and the land grant that founded the Indian Institute of Science at Bangalore in 1909. The Dasara ceremony Mysore performs annually is the one he fixed in its modern form.