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| Lord Mayo' full-size statue, Ajmir, India, alamay.com |
Richard South well Bourke, 6th Earl of Mayo, February 1822 - 8 February 1872) commonly known as Lord Mayo in India was a popular British administrator and a Conservative Party politician representing Dublin, Ireland. He held the highest post in India as the Viceroy and Governor general of India from 1869 to 1872 (4th in succession; the office was created in 1773 as the Presidency of Ft. William, Calcutta). During his short tenure in India, he did something good for the natives by introducing certain reforms in the areas of irrigation, railways, forests and other useful public works. India being a vast country, he very much understood the value of agricultural produce to meet the needs of a huge population. Like-wise he focused his attention on forest lands and its preservation and mode of travel for the people from one place to another and the transportation of raw materials from hinterlands to the markets and for exports. He was the first to introduce Census in India in 1872. This was done to keep track of population growth and matching improvements in other fields. Little do we know that it was lord Mayo who promoted local boards to tackle local problems of the people instead of approaching district or state administration for a solution.
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| Mayo college, Ajmir with a statue of Mayo. doonedu.com |
Lord Mayo founded one of the oldest schools in India called Mayo college (informally) in 1875. It is a school that occupies a vast land of 350 acres in the prime area of Ajmir city, Rajasthan. The English medium school was meant for sons of opulent Indian rulers and nobles.
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| Location map. Ajmir, India. truerajasthan.com |
In February, 1872, Lord Mayo was on a visit to the penal settlement - Cellular jail at Port. Blair on the Andaman Inlands. His unexpected visit was to get on the spot information on the conditions of the inmates, their treatment by the prison warders, etc. The prison was notorious for treating prisoners mostly freedom fighters and patriots in the worst manners. Unfortunately, Lord Mayo, was assassinated near the camp in the late evening. The assassin, hiding behind thick plants and bushes pounced on him and killed him with a knife. This happened in a flash. A native of North West frontier (now Pakistan), he was a life-term convict at the prison there. He never made any attempt to escape and quietly surrendered to the guards there. Lord Mayo with careful planning consolidated the administration of the British in the frontier areas. and the British had a row with the local tribes. There is a memorial plague for Lord mayo at St. Paul cathedral, Kolkata.
Lord Mayo's state of Jaipur:
It was in the year 2007 a full size statue of Viceroy lord Mayo was found in Jaipur. Apparently, it had been lying buried for several decades - may be six long years. Earlier the statue had adorned the premises of Mayo Hospital, currently known as the Mahilya Chikatsalya, Jaipur. It is a huge 9 foot tall statue made of cast-iron statue, weighing roughly 3 tons,. The ruler Maharaja Ram Singh ji of Jaipur, had the statue made in memory of Lord Mayo after his unfortunate death in the Andaman Islands. The statue was made by sculptors J. Forsyth and R. Monti and the company that took the responsibility was R. Masefield & Co based in London. (the company's inscription is on the statue). It is obvious that it was shipped to Jaipur from London.
Why was the huge statue removed and later buried underground on the premises of the Albert Hall Museum of Jaipur? The only possible answer is: At the time of India's independence after a pretty long struggle, the wily British under the last Gov. general Lord Mountbatten, with approval from the British government, London divided India into two nations - the Dominion of India is today the Republic of India, and the Dominion of Pakistan the Islamic Republic of Pakistan (later East Pakistan became the People's Republic of Bangladesh which is growing by leaps and bounds) Whereas Pakistan is a breeding land for hard-core terrorists who threaten people world over.).
The British never administered the partition of India effectively. It was done in a hurry burry. In July 1947, about five weeks before the British were scheduled to depart the Indian shores for good, Sir Cyril Radcliffe, a British lawyer, was commissioned to draw the borders that would divide British India into two countries – Muslim-majority Pakistan and Hindu-majority India. Surprisingly, Radcliffe’s knowledge of India was very poor. Nor did he know the geography of the land their cultures. It was his first-ever trip to India. The lines had to be drawn on the basis of the population of Muslims and Hindus, besides, “other factors.” Heading the boundary committee, it was a daunting job to come up with a reasonable boundary line between two new nations. A learned lawyer did the serious job of partition in haste. He did not foresee the impact of his messed up job on both sides of the countries.
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| partition of India, map drawn in haste. Cyril Radcliffe en.wikipedia.org |
To cap it all the official announcement of Cyril John Radcliffe (first Viscount Radcliffe) Line came up on August 17, 1947, ''a few days after the independence of India and Pakistan''. This resulted in a chaotic situation along the boundary line. The newly hurriedly drawn-up borders caused one of the biggest human migrations in modern history, with roughly 14 million people displaced. More than one million people were killed. Sentiments and emotion were running high across India.
As for the impressive statue of Mayo, the officials in the princely state were afraid that vandals might lay their hands on the statue and destroy it. So in order to safeguard it from hooligans and vandals the statue was buried in the premises of the Albert Hall Museum of Jaipur at the time of the independence of India.
The statue was saw the light for the first time in 2007 - thanks to the efforts of the Jaipur Mayo Alumni Chapter. On 29 May 2007 from the premises of the Albert Hall Museum the statue was sent to Mayo College, in Ajmer, India, where it is installed now. The full life-size statue of Lord Mayo sculpted in white marble has been in the front of the college main building since inception and a marble sculpted bust of him in its school museum.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mayo_College
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partition_of_India
