When a former Cochin Diwan became a celebrity in Canada

In the 1920s, an Indian was seen as an exotic and rare sight in Canada, with a tiny community numbering a little over 1,200 and spread across the breadth of the country. So, when it was announced that an Indian civil servant would open the prestigious Canadian National Exhibition in Toronto in 1926, the national press rushed to find out more about this special guest named T. Vijayaraghavacharya.

While serving as the Diwan of Cochin from 1919 to 1922, Vijayaraghavacharya focused on industrialization of the princely state as well as improving educational standards, including female literacy. In 1926 he was in Wembley, serving as the commissioner for India at the British Empire Exhibition, an event that aimed to promote trade within the colonies.

Two weeks ahead of the Canadian National Exhibition, Henry Somerville, a reporter for the Toronto Star, caught up with Vijayaraghavacharya for an interview.

“His first name is Tirvalyangudi,” Somerville wrote. “At any rate, that is the best the cables have been able to do with it. So now the public knows that it is Sir Tirvalyangudi Vijayaraghavacharya who is to open the exhibition.”

Somerville described the Indian civil servant as a “short man, but sturdily built,” adding that “his skin enhances the flashing gleam of his eyes, which are alive with intelligence.” The journalist said Vijayaraghavacharya was “quick in all his movements” and that “everything about him bespeaks alertness and vitality.”

Somerville’s admiration extended to how well Vijayaraghavacharya spoke English and did so despite not being educated in England.

The Indian civil servant was totally excited about opening the exhibition in Toronto. “The invitation to an Indian to open the Canadian National Exhibition has been of interest in India as a gesture of goodwill towards India on the part of Canada,” Vijayaraghavacharya told the journalist. “It is calculated to increase the cordiality between the two countries. I do not know of any two parts of the empire to which this is more important than Canada and India.”

In the interview with Somerville, Vijayaraghavacharya spoke of his desire to boost trade and commercial cooperation between the two distant countries and of his strong belief in women’s education.

“My daughter has taken her degree in Madras University,” he said. “This would not be considered remarkable in an English family, but it is not so usual for Hindu women to go to universities. My daughter is a great believer in higher education for women and she holds advanced views generally on women’s rights.”

Interestingly enough, Vijayaraghavacharya told Somerville that the “Swarajist policy of non-cooperation is being abandoned in favour of co-operation with the government. The civil servant also seemed to be a supporter of both the Empire and of greater economic integration of the colonies. He would later tell a journalist from the Free Press Evening Bulletin, a Winnipeg-newspaper that Mahatma Gandhi was a “great moral and religious leader” rather than a politician.

The paper mentioned that Vijayaraghavacharya had to “pay double rates for his name every time he sends a wire or cable.”

For the exhibition in Canada, the civil servant travelled by ship across the Atlantic Ocean to Halifax, Nova Scotia, before taking a train to Toronto. “Wearing a picturesque turban, Sir T. Vijayaraghavacharya, Diwan of Cochin, India, arrived in Toronto from Eastern Canada,” the Canadian Press Despatch wrote rather mistakenly, since he stopped working for the princely state a few years earlier.

The “pink turban in silk and gold lace” was the only Indian part of his attire, as Vijayaraghavacharya was more than comfortable in a suit and tie.

At the Union Station in Toronto, the civil servant was received by one T.P. Chandi, another turbaned graduate of Madras University. Several Canadian newspapers were fascinated by the former diwan’s long name.

The Windsor Star had a particularly humorous take. “Christening a guy like the Diwan Bahadur Sir T. Vijayaraghavacharya resembles a cricket game,” the paper said. “A couple of innings, then tea, then a couple more innings. And unless the minister steps on the gas, the 6’o clock whistle blows before he gets through.”

The Globe and Mail also had its fair share of fun with the name, claiming that “not even Poland could produce a name more impressive” than that of the Indian civil servant.

Vijayaraghavacharya also seemed to have a sense of humour. He told a Canadian audience of a simpler way to pronounce his name: “You merely develop a bad cold in the head and sneeze it!”

After the exhibition, the Indian civil servant travelled across Canada, being treated like a celebrity in places like Hamilton and Winnipeg. He spoke candidly about his views of Indian and Western societies, often shocking audiences.

“Here and in Western Europe, you love first and marry afterward,” he said. “In India you marry first and then love. I watched what I will call your western system of marriage and I cannot say that I think it a real success. In India the man knows that he cannot get out of marriage for there is no divorce so he makes up his mind to be happy and is so as a rule.”

Vijayaraghavacharya would also serve as Diwan of Udaipur from 1939 till India attained independence eight years later. Although a small part of his eventful life, the Canada trip gave people in the country a rare glimpse into the mind of the Indian intellectual elite of that time.