BUSINESSES from paper and paint to sugar, soap and steel sprang up, served by new roads and railways, and staffed by bustling polytechnics. In 1905 Bangalore became the first city in India to boast streetlights, and her specialist eye hospital was among the first anywhere in the world; the Indian Institute of Science was established in 1909 on land granted by the Maharaja, and Mysore University followed in 1916.
In 1918, Krishnaraja commissioned the pioneering Miller report into social discrimination. On its recommendation, aid was granted for schools admitting ‘untouchables’ and girls, scholarships were endowed, and government preferments rewarded sincerity and compassion rather than mere grades. Women were enfranchised in 1923.*
Nor were the arts forgotten. Krishnaraja, a gifted musician who played eight instruments from the saxophone to the sitar, nurtured Mysore’s distinctive style of Indian music, and his nephew Jayachamarajendra might have been a concert pianist had he not succeeded Krishnaraja in 1940, guiding Mysore through Indian independence in 1947.
Women over thirty years of age could vote for Parliamentary elections in Britain in 1918, but they could not vote on the same terms as men (eligible from twenty-one) until 1928. Madras was slightly ahead of Mysore, including women in 1921.