Karnataka - Bangalore   

Volumes on Mysore Diwans' papers to be reprinted

A COLLECTOR'S ITEM:Usha Suresh, Director of Archives, with the rare volumes on correspondences of Mysore Diwans, in Bangalore on Thursday.

BANGALORE:The Department of Karnataka State Archives is all set to reprint its rare publications pertaining to the correspondences of the Diwans of the erstwhile Mysore Government, the late K. Sheshadri Iyer, P.N. Krishnamurthy, V.P. Madhava Rao, M. Visvesvaraya and Sir Mirza M. Ismail, under its Karnataka Letters series (five volumes).

The department had brought out the volumes first in the early 90s with an objective to “cater to the needs of record users such as Government departments, administrators, historians, research scholars, general public and academic institutions.” '

The department then printed only 500 copies of all the volumes but withdrew the first volume, which covered the correspondence of the late Iyer who held the post of the Diwan for over 18 years, as it was not happy with the quality of production.

However, it has now set to reprint all the volumes with the support of the generous grants and latest printing technology, according to the Department's Director Usha Suresh. The contents of all the volumes deal with administrative papers and correspondence of Diwans.

Although they are varied in nature both in form and content they provide interesting insights into the administrative values and social echelon of the past.

The interesting subjects covered in the volumes are: minute details to be observed in ceremonials on the occasion of the State visits (the then ruling Princes of Mysore, Maharaja of Mysore and the British Resident); papers both confidential and public that deal with the appointment of the Chief Judge to the Chief Court of Mysore; reports on the general agricultural conditions; weakly reports on season, assessment of crops and impending famine situation; correspondence on the Installations of the Cauvery Power Transmission scheme; policies and funds on education; letters on establishing Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore; and confidential letters on the progress of Swadeshi Movement in Mysore (1906).

A deliberation on the Mysore Government lending the loans to Bikaner for the latter's railway development, dynamism shown by Sir M. Visvesvaraya and Mirza Ismail on the industrial and educational fronts of the then Mysore are the other important topics covered.

Besides these, the department is set to reprint the four volumes of correspondence pertaining to court musicians, actors and art, palaces and mansions of the Royal family, game and tiger preserves of the Maharaja of Mysore and Dasara under the “ Selections from the Records of the Mysore Palace.” A new volume in the series Royal Corps will be released shortly.

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