Few figures have been as distorted or as misunderstood in Indian History as Tipu Sultan. He has been painted as a bigot, a religious intolerant who persecuted Hindus and Christians and as a cruel and vengeful ruler. He did have shades of all these. But more importantly, he was also the ruler who fought the longest and most sustained battle against British Imperialism. Perhaps had other Indian rulers supported him in his three decade long struggle, instead of joining arms against him, the cancer of British rule in India would have been curbed and India would have been spared the depredations that followed.
Tipu Sultan, born Fateh Ali Sahab Tipu, was also known as the Tiger of Mysore; a name he acquired after killing a tiger with his dagger while on a hunting expedition. The Tiger became his leitmotif and formed the emblem on his banners, arms and weapons. His own sword had an exquisite silver tiger on its hilt. Tigers roamed his palace grounds and by some accounts, those unlucky to offend him were thrown to them. He even had French engineers build a mechanical figure ‘Tipu’s Tiger’ which showed a life-sized wooden tiger mauling a British soldier. An intricate mechanism inside made the two figures move realistically and even emitted wailing sounds and roars. This figure, symbolised his implacable hatred for the British.
Mysore’s long struggle with the British began when Hyder Ali, the Commander –in-Chief, took over the throne of Mysore from the Wodeyar rulers and appointed himself as Sultan. His rule was fraught with battles between the Marathas, the Nizam of Hyderabad and the British, the dominant powers of Southern Indian. In addition, the French and Dutch were also vying for influence in India. The period of the 18th Century saw the powers jostling with each other and subtle manoeuvrings by the British successfully pitched one Indian ruler against the other. In fact, more often than not, Tipu Sultan had to fight on two or more fronts – against the British on one hand and the Marathas or the Nizam on the other.
The First Anglo-Mysore War (1767 – 69) was the first of the four wars fought over 30 years right till Tipu’s death in 1792. Here, Hyder Ali’s Mysorean forces successfully kept a large British force at bay and even audaciously attacked Madras, the Headquarters of the British East India Company, forcing them to sue for peace.
Yet the gains of the First war were short-lived. An uneasy state of no-war-no-peace existed between Mysore, the Nizam of Hyderabad, Marathas and the British. Added to that was the rivalry between the British and the French whose on-going war in Europe was spilling over in India. The French were allied to Mysore, and provided them with the bulk of their artillery, military hardware and expertise. In 1779, the British seized the French port of Mahe. Mahe was of strategic importance to Hyder Ali since he received all his imports through it. He marched towards Mahe, captured the British settlements in the Carnatic and laid siege to the fort of Arcot. A large British column sent to relieve the siege was intercepted by Tipu Sultan, volleyed mercilessly with rockets, and virtually decimated in the Battle of Polilur. It was the most crushing defeat suffered by a British army in India and followed by a series of major skirmishes at Tanjore, Chitture, Bednore and Mangalore in which the Mysorean army came out trumps.
Then in the summer of 1782, Hyder Ali passed away due to cancer, forcing Tipu Sultan to rush back to Mysore where he was coronated King. The battles continued, but after four years the British realised that they could not defeat Tipu. Tipu too realised that he could not defeat a force that held dominance over the seas and both sides entered negotiations in March 1784 in which they agreed to a status quo. Yet even before the ink was drying, the British were already making plans to repudiate the treaty and remove Tipu Sultan whom they considered as the greatest hurdle to their expansionism in India.
After an uneasy peace for five years, things came to a head again in 1789 when the British acquired the Circar of Guntur a long swath of land along the East Coast that got them close to Tipu’s territory. The British also formed alliances with the Marathas, the Nizam of Hyderabad and the Raja of Travancore in a mutual defence pact where each was obliged to come to the aid of the others in case of an attack.
Tipu had been isolated by the Indian rulers of Southern India, but in a way, he had himself to blame. He had alienated his subjects and his neighbors by his high-handedness, destruction of churches and temples, forced conversions and circumcisions of entire communities. He was an able administrator who had helped develop the economy of his state and introduced far-reaching reforms, but resentment against him was growing. In1789, a rebellion broke out in his Southern territories adjoining Travancore. He marched against it and when the rebels sought refuge in Travancore, entered the state as well. This gave the British the excuse they needed to launch war against him.
The British were aided by the Marathas who advanced from the North and the Nizam of Hyderabad who attacked Mysore from the East. The combined threat forced Tipu to withdraw to his capital at Seringapatnam – or to use its correct name Srirangapatnam. From here, he launched a series of attacks directed at British supply lines and communications. He embarked on a scorched earth policy, destroying the country side to deny any provisions to the British. That act was tactically correct, but it further alienated the population against him. What made it worse was that his only allies – the French- were wrapped in the French Revolution sweeping their country and in no position to help him.
For two years Tipu waged war single-handedly. Then in the summer of 1791, a large Maratha army of around 30,000, an additional British force with 25,000 cavalry and a large ponderous force of the Nizam of Hyderabad converged towards him. By January 1792, he was besieged in his capital. He rained down rockets upon his besiegers but they could only stave the inevitable. Tipu’s rockets had ranges of over two kilometres and which were mounted on metal rods for greater destructive power. They were designed to explode overhead or plough through the enemy ranks in a curving, haphazard trajectory that scythed all in the path. His rockets were his prime weapon and later even adopted by the British. But they were of no avail.
Slowly the noose around Srirangapatnam tightened and eventually in March 1792, Tipu was forced to sign the Treaty of Seringapatnam. In this he handed over half of his territories, paid over 3 Crores as war damages and even handed over two of his sons to Lord Cornwallis as a guarantee that he would keep his part of the Treaty. It was humiliating end to the Third Anglo-Mysore War, but the worst was still to come.
The loss of half his kingdom and almost all his revenues hurt the Mysore state deeply. What made it worse was that Tipu Sultan was completely isolated, and he turned to the French. He reached out to Napoleon who promised to help and even raised a force to be deployed in India. Yet once again, the French were defeated in Europe and no troops could be spared for their colonies in India.
Tipu’s overtures to the French alarmed the British and in end 1798, they launched the Fourth Anglo-Mysore War. Aided by the Marathas and the Nizam of Hyderabad, three large British armies – one of them commanded by Arthur Wellesley, the future Duke of Wellington – advanced towards Srirangapatnam once again. Tipu’s small force of around 30,00 was outnumbered by almost 2:1, and though they fought a series of delaying battles, they could not prevent the British reaching the outskirts of the city on 05 April 1799. They crossed the Cauvery River – then only around four feet deep – and laid siege to the capital.
The British had brought over key officials of Tipu’s court. The Chief Minister Mir Sadiq, had been in correspondence with them and was passing key information about the state of affairs and the weaknesses of the fort. Tipu refused to see the emissaries sent asking him to surrender, perhaps hoping to gain time. On 02 May 1799, the British armies launched the assault on the North Western walls which they knew were the weaker walls. Their advance was halted by a stream of rockets, but by nightfall they had made a breach in the outer walls. Tipu had laid mines between the outer and inner walls to be detonated when the assaulting force came in the area. These mines went off pre-maturely, perhaps hit by a stray rocket and further aided the breech. By night 3 May, the breach had been widened sufficiently for an all-out assault.
Mir Sadiq had been in touch with the British officers and advised them to attack at noon the following day – a time when he withdrew all the troops from the walls, on the pretext of distributing their pay. With the ramparts depleted, British forces poured in under a heavy covering fire and in just 16 minutes clambered up the walls. They then wheeled right and left and spread out across the city.
Tipu Sultan was last seen in the defence of his city, firing his hunting rifles at the advancing force. By some accounts, he was finely dressed and kept firing his rifles which his servants loaded and passed to him. He was severely wounded and finally shot by a British officer whom he himself killed in a final, desperate sword lunge. He fell along with hundreds of his soldiers, but it was a futile, though gallant, defence. By nightfall the city was in British hands. Tipu’s body was found beneath a heap of bodies near one of the gates with multiple wounds on his person. In a final mark of respect, the body was washed and then permitted to be ceremoniously buried by his remaining followers next to his father’s tomb. A stone plaque still marks the spot where he fell.
The last moments of Tipu Sultan
The British did not occupy the city, but handed it over to the Wodeyar Dynasty, who had ruled Mysore before Hyder Ali took over the state. It was a puppet government, whose every action had to be approved by a British ‘Adviser.’ With Tipu’s death, the last opposition to British exploitation in South India disappeared. The field was now open to them.
And what of the Tipu’s Tiger and his famed sword. Like much else it was looted and taken to London where it was placed in the Victoria and Albert Museum, till it was purchased by the Indian government and returned to India. Tipu Sultan too received belated recognition when the Government of Karnataka celebrated his birthday as ‘Tipu Jayanti.’ The Tiger of Srirangapatnam was finally getting the honour of his countrymen that he deserved.