ABSTRACT

The state of Karnataka passed the Mysore Palace Act in 1998, which provided for the acquisition and transfer of the Mysore palace and the open space around it. The Act was created in order to undermine the demand from the royal family to return the Mysore palace property and to allow them to take care of its maintenance. The idiom in Indian political tradition, which consists of an organic element of persuasion, is dharma. This chapter examines the operation of space in Mysore city in general, and Mysore fort in particular, as a concrete example of the confederate relationship between Western ideas of improvement and the Indian concept of dharma. The objectives are first to assess how, and to what extent, these two notions worked together in the operation of space, and second to indicate the limits of this collaboration by demonstrating the nature of the problems faced by this special relationship during the transformation of the city.