On August 2, 1930, while addressing the Amildars’Conference, Dewan Sir Mirza Ismail expresses his views on what was expected from a government servant. “However admirable rules and regulations may be, and however perfect the system of administration, it is, in the last analysis, the human element that counts. If that element is faulty, no system, whatever its merit as a system, can make up for the deficiency.”
Sir Mirza refers to an edict issued by the Honan Provincial Government which specifies greater care to be taken in the selection of Government servants. “It is not necessary that every member of the Provincial Government Staff should be a clever person. It is necessary that they should have good character, faithfulness and trustworthiness. Let it not be said of a Mysore officer that he is not sufficiently earnest and painstaking. It is not given to all to be clever; if the Almighty has not endowed us with great mental ability, it is not our fault. But, it is certainly in everyone’s power, to be perfectly straight, diligent, and industrious in the discharge of his duties.”
On the same occasion he also gives a few tips the revenue officials. “ … Do not hesitate to correct your superior, if you think he is wrong, and encourage your subordinates to do the same to you. We are apt to acquire a taste for flattery. It is rather ignoble taste even in our home or in club, it is devastating if it affects one’s public life.”
We get the depth of Sir Mirza’s highest regard for the people of the province he served in his speech at the Karnataka Sahitya Parishat, Bengaluru, on February 27, 1938. “… The Kannadigas have many achievements to their credit. Neither in arts nor in literature, neither in architecture and sculpture, nor in political progress and constitutional development, has the Kannada country lagged behind the rest of India…”
Sir Mirza, time and again asked the Maharaja Krishnaraja Wadiyar IV that the time had come for him to give room for someone else to the coveted post of Dewan. Six months before the death of the King when they were driving towards the Palace, Sir Mirza raised the issue again. Then, his friend, with displeasure said that, Sir Mirza should take him ‘over there’-- pointing in the direction of the cremation ground — then do whatever he liked. Then, the Maharaja added that there was, so far as he was concerned, no question of having another Dewan so long as the King and Sir Mirza were alive.
In August, 1928, there was a big disturbance, which is among the unpleasant accounts in the history of Bengaluru. Sir Mirza was criticised by the public and the press. The Daily Mail of London took keen interest in the affair and published sensational account, much to the embarrassment of the Dewan and the King. But the Maharaja was concerned about Sir Mirza. He wrote to him. ‘I pray that your health may not break down under the strain’.
As an answer to a rumour set afloat by vested interests that Sir Mirza was to retire shortly, the King announced in 1935 his decision of extending his term of office by five years. The announcement was well received and a grand entertainment was given to him at Lalbagh on February 19, 1935 by the citizens of Bengaluru. Sitting beside the Dewan was the British Resident, who remarked, that in no other Indian state would such a popular demonstration for the Dewan have been permitted by the ruler.
Mr. Jinnah came all the way to Bengaluru with his sister in May, 1941. To recuperate from an illness, they stayed for a fortnight as state guests at Nandi Hills. On Mr. Jinnah’s return from Nandi, Sir Mirza met him at Kumara Krupa, the State Guest House in Bengaluru, and had a talk on the issues of Pakistan. At the end of the discussion, Mr. Jinnah proposed that Sir Mirza should join politics, for which the Dewan’s reply was that having been a bureaucrat all his life, he was ill-fitted for the role of a politician.
Sir Mirza’s wife, Lady Mirza, Zeebundeh Begum Shirazi’s contribution to our land is equally significant. She was a pioneer of womens’ movement in Mysore state and founder of State Women Conference in 1926.
After the death of the King in 1940, Sir Mirza resigned in 1941. Views and opinions expressed by the newspapers and journals across the country and many other countries on his retirement, indicate that no administration of Mysore Province had attracted more attention or won greater admiration than that of Sir Mirza Ismail during 1926-1941. Later, he went to serve Jaipur till 1946. After another year of service, as Dewan at Hyderabad, he returned to stay at his house on Ali Asker Road for the rest of his life.
He breathed his last on January 5, 1959, in the same city which he loved from the core of his heart and made it beautiful. His soul rests in the cemetery of his community on Hosur Road. At the entrance of the cemetery is a stone slab erected as a memorial. A befitting memorial for this ‘son of the city’ in Bengaluru is much needed.
