Fundamental Principles of a State’s Well-being - Part 5

Administrative Intelligence of the Dewans

Before 1940, all those who administered the State in the position of the Dewan were loyal and competent in their own ways. As mentioned earlier, there are two levels of State governance – 1. Development (Progress) and 2. Day-to-day administration. Likewise, there are two different standards of people who run the State’s administration – 1. Statesmen and 2. Administrators.

When observed through this lens, of the Mysore Dewans, four were Statesmen: Rungacharlu, Seshadri Iyer, Visvesvaraya, and Mirza. In addition to these four, the other six viz. Thumboo Chetty, Krishnamurti, Madhava Rao, Ananda Rao, Banerjee, and Kantharaj Urs achieved eminence as Administrators.
The four statesmen were of four different frames of mind –

  1. Rungacharlu: Enlightened the citizens about administration, achieved economic progress, and provided good governance.
  2. Seshadri Iyer: Achieved economic progress and ensured good administration.
  3. Visvesvaraya: Achieved economic progress, imparted awareness to citizens, and provided good governance.
  4. Mirza Ismail: Achieved economic progress, provided good governance, and alleviated the grievances of citizens.

Highest Standard of General Administration

With respect to the day-to-day activities of general administration, all the ten Dewans mentioned above were efficient and law-abiding. None of them ever tolerated any immoral or illicit activity such as bribery or corruption. They investigated such matters with-out mercy and appropriately penalized the guilty. Since they were people with faith in the powers of the almighty, they were afraid to commit an act of pāpa. All of them were well versed with law and order and had learnt from vast experience. Although six of the ten Dewans must be classified as ‘administrators’ rather than being listed among the drivers of development, they were not against development; even they were supporters of progress. Maintaining the high standard of administration itself was their contribution towards development.
Just like how food and sleep are integral parts of our routine, general activities of day-to-day administration are integral parts of the government’s routine. For anything better and beyond to materialize, it is essential that the fundamental aspects of administration are operating smoothly. What does ‘general activities of administration running smoothly’ mean?
Irrespective of whether the matter concerns the complaints and appeals submitted by the citizens to the government or the actions that the government needs to undertake on its own accord, they have to be addressed keeping the following aspects in mind –

  1. Clear time limit,
  2. Open and transparent enquiry; open and transparent conduct,
  3. Implementation of law,
  4. Intent to help as much as the rules of law permit, and
  5. Unfailing obedience to truth.

These are verily the attributes of good administration. Everything that a citizen should get from the government according to law should be available to him at the right time without any lapses. This is the administrator’s responsibility. The government has to make facilities available to the citizens without hurting any ethical principles. In this aspect, Mysore had developed a standard of discipline because of the British commissioners. Our Dewans maintained that standard without letting it drop; they even took it higher. Although some people couldn’t take it further above, none of them let the standards fall.

Stress of a Renewed Excitement

Across a sixty-year span of history, expecting all the ministers to be achievers of superlative progress is simply impossible. That will not be useful either. If visionary statesmen who are capable of initiating remarkable progress, like Gladstone, Bismarck, Visvesvaraya, and Gandhi, keep germinating day after day, don’t we need a continuous flow of citizens who match up to them? Progress means a new purpose and a fresh sense of excitement. Both the renewed purpose and novel excitement exert unprecedented pressure on the people; they constantly expect new effort. To get accustomed to that kind of pressure and to get ready to engage in such toil, people require time. The regular administrators make this time available for people.

Mutual Benefit

Thus, in the history of Mysore, the great visionaries and administrators worked in tandem and were complementary to each other.
The fact that the government and the citizens should operate in harmony with each other is a noteworthy element. The government should be well aware of the people’s character and nature; it has to consider the preparedness of the citizens before planning its mode of operation. The citizens, on the other hand, should be understanding of the intent behind the attempts towards development and co-operate [with the government]. There should be a sense of mutual cooperation and benefit to both the parties. Only then will a government function effectively. And only then will there be real development. This is the principle that can be derived from the sixty-year experience of the Mysore State.

Competitive Politics

In the last twenty years in India, this cooperation between the citizens and the government has never been visible. The system of governance we have accepted now was built on the basis of competition between two or three factions of the citizens. Presence of two or three parties among the citizens all the time; never-ending competition among them on a daily basis; one group keeps finding faults with the other and the other keeps drawing attention to its opposition’s debauchery; a fresh rumour with every sunrise; internal conspiracies on a day-to-day basis; constant blaming of each other and mutual accusations; bitter fights on a daily basis – this is how bipartisan politics works.
In the past, the parties in England were dependent on principles that were applicable to a society consisting of all kinds of people. Now, a third party has germinated in addition to the two older parties; this is the party of labourers or of those who endorse socialism. Both the Conservative Party and the Liberal Party of the past included people from all strata of the society: the wealthy, the commoners, industrialists, labourers, daily wage earners – people from all these different sections of society were members of both the political parties that were existent previously. This newly-formed Labour (Socialist) Party is made up solely of labourers; it was born to oppose the business class. Hostility itself was its foundation. In this manner, the politics in England has been deteriorating. And we have emulated that.

This is the fifth part of the ten-part English translation of the epilogue of D V Gundappa’s Jnapakachitrashaale – Vol. 4 – Mysurina Dewanaru. Edited by Hari Ravikumar and Raghavendra G S.






Karthik Muralidharan is an entrepreneur, educator, and a motivational speaker. An MBA in Human Resource Management, Karthik currently runs businesses in Leadership Education, Training, and Wealth Management. He is deeply interested in prosody, philosophy, and literature.



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