By 1879, the Raj had had enough. The Governor of Madras, the Duke of Buckingham and Chandos, demanded an inspection. Vijayan allowed it on one condition: the inspector must pass the college’s entrance exam.
The college's primary objective was to provide scholarships to meritorious students who could not afford to pursue higher education due to financial constraints. The Rex Vijayan Scholarship program was designed to support students from low-income families, enabling them to pursue their academic dreams. rex vijayan scholarship college 1870s
Rex Vijayan (1827-1885) is a ghost in the archives. No photographs exist. Only a single oil portrait, now lost, showed a gaunt man with one blind eye, wearing a Savile Row suit and a sacred thread over it. By the 1860s, he controlled the overland rice trade from Burma to Madras. But after his only daughter was denied admission to a Madras presidency school because of her “low caste complexion,” Vijayan did something extraordinary. By 1879, the Raj had had enough
3:00 PM: English Literature. We read from Shakespeare’s ‘The Tempest.’ But Mr. Vijayan (who visits unannounced) crosses out ‘Caliban’ and writes ‘The British Resident.’ No one laughs. No one ever laughs. The college's primary objective was to provide scholarships