How well do you know Indian History ! – can you identify (the missing name in the following) 1st Marquess ______ of Kedleston – post related to a cartoon published by Mahakavi Subramaniya Bharathiyar on 27th Mar 1909 (pictured from the book – collection of MA Narasimhan, Triplicane) !!
In School History book, we read about ‘Minto-Morley’ reforms passed in 1909, when the UK Parliament passed the Indian Councils Act 1909. Named after Viceroy Lord Minto and Morley, the act introduced elections to legislative councils and admitted Indians to councils of the Secretary of State for India, the viceroy, and to the executive councils of Bombay Presidency and Madras Presidency. The act introduced limited constitutional changes in response to growing nationalist demands, and that way was a landmark event.
When we go to hotels - breakfast generally start with Idli & Vada. Vadai is savoury fried snacks native to India. Vadas can be described variously as fritters, cutlets, or dumplings – and for sure, we grew reading and listening ‘Crow stealing Vada from old lady and Fox cheating it’ – here is the English version.
One bright morning as the Fox was following his sharp nose through the wood in search of a bite to eat, he saw a Crow on the limb of a tree overhead. What caught his attention was that the lucky Crow held a bit of cheese in her beak.
The sly Master Fox thought - . "Here is a dainty bite for my breakfast." Up he trotted to the foot of the tree in which the Crow was sitting, and looking up admiringly, he cried, "Good-morning, beautiful creature!"
The Crow, her head cocked on one side, watched the Fox suspiciously. But she kept her beak tightly closed on the cheese and did not return his greeting.
"What a charming creature she is!" said the Fox. "How her feathers shine! What a beautiful form and what splendid wings! Such a wonderful Bird should have a very lovely voice, since everything else about her is so perfect. Could she sing just one song, I know I should hail her Queen of Birds."
Listening to these flattering words, the Crow forgot all her suspicion, and also her breakfast. She wanted very much to be called Queen of Birds. So she opened her beak wide to utter her loudest caw, and down fell the cheese straight into the Fox's open mouth.
"Thank you," said Master Fox sweetly, as he walked off. "Though it is cracked, you have a voice sure enough. But where are your wits?"
Moral
: The flatterer lives at the expense of
those who will listen to him. Move away,
see this cartoon of Mahakavi.
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In 1909, John Morley, the Secretary of State for India, and Lord Curzon, the former Viceroy, represented opposing viewpoints on India's administration following the 1905 partition of Bengal. Morley, alongside Viceroy Lord Minto, introduced reforms aimed at addressing the unrest that Curzon's policies had created.
George Nathaniel Curzon, 1st Marquess Curzon of Kedleston, known as Lord Curzon was Conservative politician, explorer and writer who served as Viceroy of India from 1899 to 1905 and Foreign Secretary from 1919 to 1924.
In January 1899 Curzon was appointed as Viceroy of India. He was created a baron in the peerage of Ireland as Baron Curzon of Kedleston, in the County of Derby. Reaching India shortly after the suppression of the frontier risings of 1897–98, he paid special attention to the independent tribes of the north-west frontier, inaugurated a new province called the North West Frontier Province, and pursued a policy of forceful control mingled with conciliation. In response to what he called "a number of murderous attacks upon Englishmen and Europeans", Curzon advocated at the Quetta Durbar extremely draconian punishments which he believed would stop what he viewed as such especially abominable crimes.
During his regime there was a major famine coincided in which reportedly 4.5 million people died. In Late Victorian Holocausts, the historian Mike Davis criticised Curzon for cutting back rations and raising relief eligibility. In 1908, Curzon was elected an Irish representative peer, and thus relinquished any idea of returning to the House of Commons. In 1909–1910 he took an active part in opposing the Liberal government's proposal to abolish the legislative veto of the House of Lords, as also Minto-Morley reforms.
John Morley, 1st Viscount Morley of Blackburn, OM, PC, FRS, FBA was a British Liberal statesman, writer and newspaper editor. Initially a journalist in the North of England and then editor of the newly Liberal-leaning Pall Mall Gazette, he was elected a Member of Parliament (MP) for the Liberal Party in 1883. He was Chief Secretary for Ireland in 1886 and Secretary of State for India between 1905 and 1910 and again in 1911; and Lord President of the Council between 1910 and 1914.
Morley is best known for his writings and for his "reputation as the last of the great nineteenth-century Liberals".He opposed imperialism and the Second Boer War. He supported Home Rule for Ireland. His opposition to British entry into the First World War as an ally of Russia led him to leave the government in August 1914.
There were frequent clashes between Morley and Curzon as Curzon was seen as preventing the liberalization and granting of some benefits to India by the Council of Morley. As a Liberal, Morley favored a strategy of limited concession and assimilation. He sought to co-opt moderate nationalists and appease certain communities, like Muslims, with reforms. However, he was fundamentally opposed to full self-government for India. Curzon, as a Conservative, represented a more autocratic and repressive style of imperial rule. His policies deepened the political and communal divides, which, paradoxically, strengthened the nationalist movement he sought to contain. The unrest caused by his actions became the very problem Morley and Minto later attempted to address with the 1909 reforms.
The cartoon of Mahakavi
depicts Curzon as the wily fox trying to stall away the benefits that Morley
was trying to offer !!
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Indian History was soaked with blood of martyrs; treachery and cruelty of rulers; mild political opposition and more – however, we read that freedom was obtained without bloodshed and Gandhi & Nehru forced Britishers to free India.
Regards – S Sampathkumar
21.10.2025
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