Tipu Sultan

Tippu Sultan
Ruler of Mysore
Reign	1782–1799
Predecessor	Hyder Ali
Father	Hyder Ali
Mother	Fakhr-un-nissa

Sultan Fateh Ali Tippu (Urdu: سلطان فتح علی خان ٹیپو) November 1750, Devanahalli – 4 May 1799, Srirangapattana), also known as the Tiger of Mysore, was the de facto ruler of the Indian Kingdom of Mysore from 1782 (the time of his father's death) until his own demise in 1799. He was the first son of Hyder Ali by his second wife, Fatima or Fakhr-un-nissa. His full name is Sultan Fateh Ali Khan Shahab or Tipu Saheb Tippu Sultan, in addition to his role as ruler, was a scholar, soldier, and poet. He was a devout Muslim but the majority of his subjects were Hindus. At the request of the French, he built a church, the first in Mysore. In alliance with the French in their struggle with the British both Tippu Sultan and Hyder Ali did not hesitate to use their French trained army against the Marathas, Sira, Malabar, Coorg and Bednur. He was proficient in many languages. He helped his father Hyder Ali defeat the British in the Second Mysore War, and negotiated the Treaty of Mangalore with them. However, he was defeated in the Third Anglo-Mysore War and in the Fourth Anglo-Mysore War by the combined forces of the British East India Company, the Nizam of Hyderabad and to a lesser extent, Travancore. Tippu Sultan died defending his capital Srirangapattana, on 4 May, 1799.

Sir Walter Scott, commenting on the abdication of Napoleon Bonaparte in 1814, wrote:

"Although I never supposed that he [=Napoleon] possessed, allowing for some difference of education, the liberality of conduct and political views which were sometimes exhibited by old Haidar Ally, yet I did think he [=Napoleon] might have shown the same resolved and dogged spirit of resolution which induced Tippoo Saib to die manfully upon the breach of his capital city with his sabre clenched in his hand."

Early life

Memorial at the birth place

Tipu Sultan's summer palace at Srirangapatna, Karnataka

Tippu Sultan was born at Devanahalli, in present-day Bangalore District, some 33 km east of Bangalore city. The exact date of his birth is not known; various sources claim various dates between 1749 and 1753. According to one widely accepted dating, he was born on 10 November, 1750 (Friday, 10th Dhu al-Hijjah, 1163 AH). His father, Hyder Ali, was the de facto ruler of Mysore. His mother Fatima or Fakhr-un-nissa was a daughter of Shahal Tariq, governor of the fort of Cuddapah. He was also a strongly religious man, there is a conflict between Sunni-Shia practice of religion. He built a church, the first in Mysore, at the request of the French. He was a noted linguist, Islamic patriot.

His rule

During his rule, Tippu Sultan laid the foundation for a dam where the famous Krishna Raja Sagara Dam across the river Cauvery was later built. He also completed the project of Lal Bagh started by his father Hyder Ali, and built roads, public buildings, and ports along the Kerala shoreline. His trade extended to countries which included Sri Lanka, Afghanistan, France, Turkey, and Iran. Under his leadership, the Mysore army proved to be a school of military science to Indian princes. The serious blows that Tippu Sultan inflicted on the British in the First and Second Mysore Wars affected their reputation as an invincible power. Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam, the former President of India, in his Tippu Sultan Shaheed Memorial Lecture in Bangalore (30 November 1991), called Tippu Sultan the innovator of the world’s first war rocket. Two of these rockets, captured by the British at Srirangapatna, are displayed in the Royal Artillery Museum in London. Most of Tippu Sultan's campaigns resulted in successes. He managed to subdue all the petty kingdoms in the south. He defeated the Marathas and the Nizams and was also one of the few Indian rulers to have defeated British armies. He is said to have started a coinage system, banking system, a new calendar, and a new system of weights and measures. He was well versed in Urdu, Kannada, Persian, and Arabic. Tippu was supposed to become a Sufi, but his father Hyder Ali insisted him to become a capable soldier and a great leader.

Religious policy

Tipu Sultan was a secular ruler, in whose State there was perfect communal harmony. The very fact that during his entire regime, despite the numerous wars, there was not a single uprising of the people, shows the popularity of his rule. Such assessment of his character that he was intolerant was more a requirement as a necessary framework for colonial rule. The Indian people had never known any religious war, and Tipu would not think of any distinction of his subjects on the basis of caste, creed or class. He was quite conscious of the fact that when the overwhelming majority of his subjects were Hindus, he could hardly afford to be anything other than secular, humane and liberal. He would well remember the statement of his father, Haider Ali, Who had snubbed a Muslim saint for complaining that some Hindus had committed excess on his followers, and that as the head of a Muslim Government, he should redress his grievances, by saying "Who told you that this was a Mussalman Government? Tipu knew well that he could not administer the state on principles unacceptable to his subjects.

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Attitude towards Hindus

As a Muslim ruler in a largely Hindu domain, Tippu Sultan faced problems in establishing the legitimacy of his rule, and in reconciling his desire to be seen as a devout Islamic ruler with the need to be pragmatic to avoid antagonising the majority of his subjects. His religious legacy has become a source of considerable controversy in the subcontinent. Some groups proclaim him a great warrior for the faith or Ghazi, while a large number of groups revile him as a bigot who massacred Hindus.

Tippu Sultan has been criticized as being anti-Hindu, although some historians claim that he had an egalitarian attitude towards Hindus and was harsh towards them only when politically expedient. In the first part of his reign in particular he appears to have been notably more aggressive and religiously doctrinaire than his father, Hyder Ali. Some historians claim that Tippu Sultan was a religious persecutor of Hindus. In 1780 CE he declared himself to be the Padishah or Emperor of Mysore, and struck coinage in his own name without reference to the reigning Mughal Emperor Shah Alam II. H. D. Sharma writes that in his correspondence with other Islamic rulers such as Shah Zaman of Afghanistan, Tippu Sultan used this title and declared that he intended to establish an Islamic empire in the entire country, along the lines of the Mughal Empire which was at its nadir during the period in question. His alliance with the French was supposedly aimed at achieving this goal by driving his main rivals, the British, out of the subcontinent.

C. K. Kareem also notes that Tippu Sultan issued an edict for the destruction of Hindu temples in Kerala. He is alleged to have ordered massacres and forced conversions of Brahmins and the warrior community called Nairs in Kerala Mandyam Iyengars, particularly of the Bharadwaja gotra, do not celebrate Naraka Chaturdashi during Deepawali due to the lore that Tippu Sultan massacred between 500 to 800 relatives of the Tirumaliengar in Melkote, in retaliation for his having entered into an agreement with the British in 1790, on behalf of the dowager queen Rani Lakshammanni of Mysore. It is believed that Tipu ordered Shamaiya Iyengar to be blinded. However, Tipu himself forgave Shamaiya when Shamaiya's son bravely defended against the British during the last Anglo-Mysore War, dying due to a gunshot in the chest. Noted historian Hayavadana C. Rao, writing for the Raja of Mysore, wrote about Tippu in his encyclopaedic work The History of Mysore. He asserted that Tippu's "religious fanaticism and the excesses committed in the name of religion, both in Mysore and in the provinces, stand condemned for all time. His bigotry, indeed, was so great that it precluded all ideas of toleration". He further asserts that the acts of Tippu that were constructive towards Hindus were largely political and ostentatious rather than an indication of genuine tolerance.

Following are living examples of Tippu Sultan's religious excesses on the Hindu population across south India: 1) Currently existing Tulu minorities in Kerala and Maharashtra. Through generations, the reason for their migration was documented in community books. 2) Muslim-majority district of Malappuram in the path of Tippu's infamous and genocidal "padayottam", an attempt to exterminate Hindu religion across south India (as claimed by Tippu himself in his communication with Islamic kings).

Even while it is evident that Tippu Sultan led extremely violent anti-Hindu campaigns, some historians have said that the extent of force was not exclusively motivated by religion, and it did not amount to an anti-Kafir policy. Brittlebank, Hasan, Chetty, Habib and Saletare, amongst others, argue that stories of Tippu Sultan's religious persecution of Hindus and Christians are largely derived from the work of early British authors such as Kirkpatrick and Wilks, whom they do not consider to be entirely reliable. A. S. Chetty argues that Wilks’ account in particular cannot be trusted, Irfan Habib and Mohibbul Hasan argues that these early British authors had a strong vested interest in presenting Tippu Sultan as a tyrant from whom the British had "liberated" Mysore. This assessment is echoed by Brittlebank in her recent work where she writes that Wilks and Kirkpatrick must be used with particular care as both authors had taken part in the wars against Tippu Sultan and were closely connected to the administrations of Lord Cornwallis and Richard Wellesley, 1st Marquess Wellesley.

Mohibbul Hasan, Prof. Sheikh Ali, and other historians cast great doubt on the scale of the deportations and forced conversions in Coorg in particular, and Hasan says that the British versions of what happened were intended to malign Tippu Sultan, and to be used as propaganda against him. He argues that little reliance can be placed in Muslim accounts such as Kirmani’s Nishan-e Haidari; in their anxiety to represent the Sultan as a champion of Islam, they had a tendency to exaggerate and distort the facts: Kirmani claims that 70,000 Coorgis were converted, when forty years later the entire population of Coorg was still less than that number. According to Ramchandra Rao "Punganuri" the true number of converts was about 500. The portrayal of Tippu Sultan as a religious bigot is disputed, and some sources suggest that he in fact often embraced religious pluralism.

Tippu Sultan's treasurer was Krishna Rao, Shamaiya Iyengar was his Minister of Post and Police, his brother Ranga Iyengar was also an officer, and Purnaiya held the very important post of "Mir Asaf". Moolchand and Sujan Rai were his chief agents at the Mughal court, and his chief "Peshkar", Suba Rao, was also a Hindu. There is such evidence as grant deeds, and correspondence between his court and temples, and his having donated jewellery and deeded land grants to several temples, which some claim he was compelled to do in order to make alliances with Hindu rulers. Between 1782 and 1799 Tippu Sultan issued 34 sanads (deeds) of endowment to temples in his domain, while also presenting many of them with gifts of silver and gold plate. The Srikanteswara Temple in Nanjangud still possesses a jewelled cup presented by the Sultan.

In 1791 some Maratha horsemen under Raghunath Rao Patwardhan raided the temple and monastery of Sringeri Shankaracharya, killing and wounding many, and plundering the monastery of all its valuable possessions. The incumbent Shankaracharya petitioned Tippu Sultan for help. A bunch of about 30 letters written in Kannada, which were exchanged between Tippu Sultan's court and the Sringeri Shankaracharya were discovered in 1916 by the Director of Archaeology in Mysore. Tippu Sultan expressed his indignation and grief at the news of the raid, and wrote:

People who have sinned against such a holy place are sure to suffer the consequences of their misdeeds at no distant date in this Kali age in accordance with the verse: "Hasadbhih kriyate karma ruladbhir-anubhuyate" (People do [evil] deeds smilingly but suffer the consequences crying)."

He immediately ordered the Asaf of Bednur to supply the Swami with 200 rahatis (fanams) in cash and other gifts and articles. Tippu Sultan's interest in the Sringeri temple continued for many years, and he was still writing to the Swami in the 1790s CE. In light of this and other events, B.A. Saletare has described Tippu Sultan as a defender of the Hindu dharma, who also patronized other temples including one at Melkote, for which he issued a Kannada decree that the Shrivaishnava invocatory verses there should be recited in the traditional form. The temple at Melkote still has gold and silver vessels with inscriptions indicating that they were presented by the Sultan. Tippu Sultan also presented four silver cups to the Lakshmikanta Temple at Kalale. Tippu Sultan does seem to have repossessed unauthorised grants of land made to Brahmins and temples, but those which had proper sanads were not. It was a normal practice for any ruler, Muslim or Hindu, on his accession or on the conquest of new territory.

The Srikanteswara temple at Nanjungud was presented with a jewelled cup and some precious stones. To another temple, Nanjundeswara, in the same town of Nanjungud, he gave a greenish linga; to Ranganatha temple at Srirangapatana he gifted seven silver cups and a silver camphor burner. This temple was hardly a stone's throw from his palace from where he would listen with equal respect to the ringing of temple bells and the muezzin's call from the mosque.

Attitude towards Christians

The Jamalabad fort route. Mangalorean Catholics had traveled through this route on their way to Seringapatam

Tippu was widely reputed to be anti-Christian. The captivity of Mangalorean Catholics at Seringapatam, which began on 24 February 1784 and ended on 4 May 1799, remains the most disconsolate memory in their history.

The Bakur Manuscript reports him as having said: "All Musalmans should unite together, and considering the annihilation of infidels as a sacred duty, labor to the utmost of their power, to accomplish that subject." Soon after the Treaty of Mangalore in 1784, Tippu gained control of Canara. He issued orders to seize the Christians in Canara, confiscate their estates, and deport them to Seringapatam, the capital of his empire, through the Jamalabad fort route. However, there were no priests among the captives. Together with Fr Miranda, all the 21 arrested priests were issued orders of expulsion to Goa, fined Rs 2 lakhs, and threatened death by hanging if they ever returned.

Tippu ordered the destruction of 27 Catholic churches, all beautifully carved with statues depicting various saints. Among them included the Church of Nossa Senhora de Rosario Milagres at Mangalore, Fr Miranda's Seminary at Monte Mariano, Church of Jesu Marie Jose at Omzoor, Chapel at Bolar, Church of Merces at Ullal, Imaculata Conceiciao at Mulki, San Jose at Perar, Nossa Senhora dos Remedios at Kirem, Sao Lawrence at Karkal, Rosario at Barkur, Immaculata Conceciao at Baidnur. All were razed to the ground, with the exception of the The Church of Holy Cross at Hospet,owing to the friendly offices of the Chauta Raja of Moodbidri.

According to Thomas Munro, a Scottish soldier and the first collector of Canara, around 60,000 of them, nearly 92 percent of the entire Mangalorean Catholic community, were captured, only 7,000 escaped. Francis Buchanan gives the numbers as 70,000 captured, from a population of 80,000, with 10,000 escaping. They were forced to climb nearly 4,000 feet (1,200 m) through the jungles of the Western Ghat mountain ranges. It was 210 miles (340 km) from Mangalore to Seringapatam, and the journey took six weeks. According to British Government records, 20,000  of them died on the march to Seringapatam. According to James Scurry, a British officer, who was held captive along with Mangalorean Catholics, 30,000 of them were forcibly converted to Islam. The young women and girls were forcibly made wives of the Muslims living there. The young men who offered resistance were disfigured by cutting their noses, upper lips, and ears. According to Mr. Silva of Gangolim, a survivor of the captivity, if a person who had escaped from Seringapatam was found, the punishment under the orders of Tippu was the cutting off of the ears, nose, the feet and one hand.

The Archbishop of Goa wrote in 1800, "It is notoriously known in all Asia and all other parts of the globe of the oppression and sufferings experienced by the Christians in the Dominion of the King of Kanara, during the usurpation of that country by Tipu Sultan from an implacable hatred he had against them who professed Christianity."

Tippu Sultan's invasion of the Malabar had an adverse impact on the the Syrian Malabar Nasrani community of the Malabar coast. Many churches in the Malabar and Cochin were damaged. The old Syrian Nasrani seminary at Angamaly which had been the center of Catholic religious education for several centuries was razed to the ground by Tippu’s soldiers. A lot of centuries old religious manuscripts were lost forever. The church was later relocated to Kottayam where it still exists to this date. The Mor Sabor church at Akaparambu and the Martha Mariam Church attached to the seminary were destroyed as well. Tippu’s army set fire to the church at Palayoor and attacked the Ollur Church in 1790. Furthernmore, the Arthat church and the Ambazhakkad seminary was also destroyed. Over the course of this invasion, many Syrian Malabar Nasrani were killed or forcibly converted to Islam. Most of the coconut, arecanut, pepper and cashew plantations held by the Syrian Malabar farmers were also indiscriminately destroyed by the invading army. As a result, when Tippu's army invaded Guruvayur and adjacent areas, the Syrian Christian community fled Calicut and small towns like Arthat to to new centres like Kunnamkulam, Chalakudi, Ennakadu, Cheppadu, Kannankode, Mavelikkara, etc. where there were already Christians. They were given refuge by Sakthan Tamburan, the ruler of Cochin and Karthika Thirunal, the ruler of Travancore, who gave them lands, plantations and encouraged their businesses. Colonel Macqulay, the British resident of Travancore also helped them.

His persecution of Christians also extended to captured British soldiers. For instance, there were a significant amount of forced conversions of British captives between 1780 and 1784. Following their disastrous defeat at the battle of Pollilur, 7,000 British men along with an unknown number of women were held captive by Tipu in the fortress of Seringapatnam. Of these, over 300 were circumcised and given Muslim names and clothes and several British regimental drummer boys were made to wear ghagra cholis and entertain the court as nautch girls or dancing girls. After the 10 year long captivity ended, James Scurry, one of those prisoners, recounted that he had forgotten how to sit in a chair and use a knife and fork. His English was broken and stilted, having lost all his vernacular idiom. His skin had darkened to the swarthy complexion of negroes, and moreover, he had developed an aversion to wearing European clothes. During the surrender of the Mangalore fort which was delievered in an armistice by the British and their subsequent withdrawal, all the Mestizos and remaining non-British foreigners were killed, together with 5,600 Mangalorean Catholics. Those condemned by Tipu Sultan for treachery were hanged instantly, the gibbets being weighed down by the number of bodies they carried. The Netravati River was so putrid with the stench of dying bodies, that the local residents were forced to leave their riverside homes.

Tippu's right hand

Sirdar Yar Muhammad, the right hand of Sultan Tippu, also known as Ghazi-e Mysore (Fighter of Mysore), was born in the 18th century in a Muslim Rajput family to Shah Muhammad, a Sufi saint. It is said that Tippu had become a disciple of Shah Muhammad. Yar joined the Army of Mysore and soon became one of the favorite generals of Tippu Sultan. Seeing his patriotic and dauntless behavior, Tippu Sultan made him his commander-in-chief. He fought dauntlessly in the Battle of Seringapatam (1799), but after Tippu's death, and later the fall of Mysore, he ran away to the Kullu hills and then to Punjab. Thus, he managed to evade capture by the English. After the fall of Mysore, he was declared one of the most wanted Mysorean officers. East India Company tried its best to capture him, dead or alive, but couldn’t succeed. He carried bounty on his head. Several of Yar's family members and relatives were killed by the conquerors, however, he, along with his wife, his saintly father Shah Muhammad, and son Ilahi Bakhsh, escaped. He spent the rest of his life as a fugitive. General Yar Muhammad died in the first half of the 19th century. His descendants still live in Punjab, Pakistan, today.

Syed Abdul Ghaffar

Syed Abdul Ghaffar was Tippu's key general who won many battles for him. He fell fighting the battle of Plassey in the year 1789..

Description

File:Tippu sultaun.jpg

Tipu Sultan

Alexander Beatson, who published a volume on the Fourth Mysore War entitled View of the Origin and Conduct of the War with the late Tippoo Sultaun, described Tippu Sultan as follows: "His stature was about five feet eight inches; he had a short neck, square shoulders, and was rather corpulent: his limbs were small, particularly his feet and hands; he had large full eyes, small arched eyebrows, and an aquiline nose; his complexion was fair, and the general expression of his countenance, not void of dignity"..

He was called the Tiger of Mysore. It is said that Tippu Sultan was hunting in the forest with a French friend. He came face to face with a tiger. His gun did not work, and his dagger fell on the ground as the tiger jumped on him. He reached for the dagger, picked it up, and killed the tiger with it. That earned him the name "the Tiger of Mysore". He had the image of a tiger on his flag. Tippu Sultan was also very fond of innovations. Beatson mentioned that Tippu Sultan was "passionately fond of new inventions. In his palace was found a great variety of curious swords, daggers, fusils, pistols, and blunderbusses; some were of exquisite workmanship, mounted with gold, or silver, and beautifully inlaid and ornamented with tigers' heads and stripes, or with Persian and Arabic verses". Tipu's Tiger, an automaton representing a tiger attacking a European soldier, made for Tippu Sultan, is on display in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London. During Tippu Sultan's reign, a new calendar, new coinage, and seven new government departments, were introduced as well as innovations in the use of rocket artillery.

Early military career

Tippu Sultan was instructed in military tactics by French officers in the employment of his father, Hyder Ali (also spelled "Haidar Ali"). At age 15, he accompanied his father Haidar Ali against the British in the First Mysore War in 1766. He commanded a corps of cavalry in the invasion of Carnatic in 1767 at age 16. He also distinguished himself in the First Anglo-Maratha War of 1775–1779.

Second Mysore War

Main article: Second Anglo-Mysore War

Tippu Sultan led a large body of troops in the Second Mysore War, in February 1782, and defeated Braithwaite on the banks of the Kollidam. Although the British were defeated this time, Tippu Sultan realized that the British were a new kind of threat in India. Upon becoming the Sultan after his father's death later that year, he worked to check the advances of the British by making alliances with the Marathas and the Mughals.

Tippu Sultan defeated Colonel Braithwaite at Annagudi near Tanjore on 18 February 1782. The British army, consisting of 100 Europeans, 300 cavalry, 1400 sepoys and 10 field pieces, was the standard size of the colonial armies. Tippu Sultan seized all the guns and took the entire detachment prisoner. In December 1781 Tippu Sultan successfully seized Chittur from the British. Tippu Sultan had thus gained sufficient military experience by the time Haidar Ali died in December 1782.

The Second Mysore War came to an end with the Treaty of Mangalore. It was the last occasion when an Indian king dictated terms to the mighty British, and the treaty is a prestigious document in the history of India.

The Second Mysore War is also remembered for alleged excesses committed by Hyder Ali and Tippu Sultan in Tanjore. During the period of occupation which lasted six months, Hyder Ali and Tippu Sultan are believed to have impoverished the country. As late as 1784, the Dutch missionary Christian Friedrich Schwarz describes Tippu's alleged abduction of 12,000 children from the region. It is alleged that the invaders plundered the country and took away the cattle and grain. The invasion is believed to have had such an impact on the economy of the country that it did not recover until the start of the nineteenth century. The gross domestic product of the kingdom fell by over ninety percent between 1780 and 1781 and took over 15 years to again reach pre-1781 levels.

Battle of Pollilur

Mural of the Battle of Pollilur on the walls of Tippu's summer palace, painted to celebrate his triumph over the British.

The Battle of Pollilur took place in 1780 at Pollilur near the city of Kanchipuram. It was a part of the second Anglo-Mysore war. Tippu Sultan was dispatched by Haidar Ali with 10,000 men and 18 guns to intercept Colonel Baillie who was on his way to join Sir Hector Munro. Out of 360 Europeans, about 200 were captured alive, and the sepoys, who were about 3800 men, suffered very high casualties. Munro was moving south with a separate British force to join Baillie, but on hearing the news of the defeat he was forced to retreat to Madras, abandoning his artillery in a water tank at Kanchipuram.

Fourth Mysore War

Main article: Fourth Anglo-Mysore War

"The Last Effort and Fall of Tippoo Sultaun" by Henry Singleton c 1800.

After Horatio Nelson had defeated François-Paul Brueys D'Aigalliers at the Battle of the Nile in Egypt in 1798 CE, three armies, one from Bombay, and two British (one of which included Arthur Wellesley, the future first Duke of Wellington), marched into Mysore in 1799 and besieged the capital Srirangapatnam in the Fourth Mysore War.

There were over 26,000 soldiers of the British East India Company comprising about 4000 Europeans and the rest Indians. A column was supplied by the Nizam of Hyderabad consisting of ten battalions and over 16,000 cavalry, and many soldiers were sent by the Marathas. Thus the soldiers in the British force numbered over 50,000 soldiers whereas Tippu Sultan had only about 30,000 soldiers. The British broke through the city walls, and Tippu Sultan died defending his capital on May 4. When the fallen Tippu was identified, Wellesley felt his pulse and confirmed that he was dead.

The mausoleum housing Tippu's tomb. Tippu's flag is in the foreground...

The tomb of Tippu Sultan at Srirangapatna. Tippu's tomb is in the foreground and on the sides are his parents'

Place on the banks on Cauvery River in Srirangapatnam where Tippu’s body was found. Presently it is a protected monument by Archeological Survey of India.

A close-up view of the battleground where Tippu’s body was found. The plaque was placed by the archaeological department.

An info board at Tippu’s death site narrating (in Kannada (top), English and Hindi (bottom) ) the last moments of Tippu.

Rocket artillery

A military tactic developed by Tippu Sultan and his father, Haidar Ali was the use of mass attacks with rocket brigades on infantry formations. Tippu Sultan wrote a military manual called Fathul Mujahidin in which 200 rocket men were assigned to each Mysorean "cushoon" (brigade). Mysore had 16 to 24 cushoons of infantry. The areas of town where rockets and fireworks were manufactured were known as Taramandal Pet ("Galaxy Market").

The rocket men were trained to launch their rockets at an angle calculated from the diameter of the cylinder and the distance of the target. In addition, wheeled rocket launchers capable of launching five to ten rockets almost simultaneously were used in war. Rockets could be of various sizes, but usually consisted of a tube of soft hammered iron about 8" long and 1½ - 3" diameter, closed at one end and strapped to a shaft of bamboo about 4ft. long. The iron tube acted as a combustion chamber and contained well packed black powder propellant. A rocket carrying about one pound of powder could travel almost 1,000 yards. In contrast, rockets in Europe, not being iron cased, could not take large chamber pressures and as a consequence, were not capable of reaching distances anywhere near as great.

Haidar Ali's father, the Naik or chief constable at Budikote, commanded 50 rocketmen for the Nawab of Arcot. There was a regular Rocket Corps in the Mysore Army, beginning with about 1200 men in Haidar Ali's time. At the Battle of Pollilur (1780), during the Second Anglo-Mysore War, Colonel William Braille's ammunition stores are thought to have been detonated by a hit from one of Haidar Ali's Mysore rockets, resulting in a humiliating British defeat.

In the Third Anglo-Mysore War of 1792, there is mention of two rocket units fielded by Tippu Sultan, 120 men and 131 men respectively. Lt. Col. Knox was attacked by rockets near Srirangapatna on the night of 6 February 1792, while advancing towards the Kaveri river from the north. The Rocket Corps ultimately reached a strength of about 5000 in Tipu Sultan's army. Mysore rockets were also used for ceremonial purposes. When the Jacobin Club of Mysore sent a delegation to Tippu Sultan, 500 rockets were launched as part of the gun salute.

During the Fourth Anglo-Mysore War, rockets were again used on several occasions. One of these involved Colonel Arthur Wellesley, later famous as the First Duke of Wellington. Arthur Wellesley was defeated by Tippu's Diwan, Purnaiya, at the Battle of Sultanpet Tope. Quoting Forrest,

"At this point (near the village of Sultanpet, Figure 5) there was a large tope, or grove, which gave shelter to Tipu's rocketmen and had obviously to be cleaned out before the siege could be pressed closer to Srirangapattana island. The commander chosen for this operation was Col. Wellesley, but advancing towards the tope after dark on the 5 April 1799, he was set upon with rockets and musket-fires, lost his way and, as Beatson politely puts it, had to "postpone the attack" until a more favourable opportunity should offer.

The following day, Wellesley launched a fresh attack with a larger force, and took the whole position without losing a single man. On 22 April 1799, twelve days before the main battle, rocketeers worked their way around to the rear of the British encampment, then 'threw a great number of rockets at the same instant' to signal the beginning of an assault by 6,000 Indian infantry and a corps of Frenchmen, all directed by Mir Golam Hussain and Mohomed Hulleen Mir Mirans. The rockets had a range of about 1,000 yards. Some burst in the air like shells. Others, called ground rockets, would rise again on striking the ground and bound along in a serpentine motion until their force was spent. According to one British observer, a young English officer named Bayly:

"So pestered were we with the rocket boys that there was no moving without danger from the destructive missiles ...". He continued:

The rockets and musketry from 20,000 of the enemy were incessant. No hail could be thicker. Every illumination of blue lights was accompanied by a shower of rockets, some of which entered the head of the column, passing through to the rear, causing death, wounds, and dreadful lacerations from the long bamboos of twenty or thirty feet, which are invariably attached to them.

During the conclusive British attack on Srirangapattana on May 2, 1799, a British shot struck a magazine of rockets within Tippu Sultan's fort, causing it to explode and send a towering cloud of black smoke with cascades of exploding white light rising up from the battlements. On the afternoon of 4 May when the final attack on the fort was led by Baird, he was again met by "furious musket and rocket fire", but this did not help much; in about an hour's time the fort was taken; perhaps within another hour Tippu had been shot (the precise time of his death is not known), and the war was effectively over.

After the fall of Srirangapattana, 600 launchers, 700 serviceable rockets and 9,000 empty rockets were found. Some of the rockets had pierced cylinders, to allow them to act like incendiaries, while some had iron points or steel blades bound to the bamboo. By attaching these blades to rockets they became very unstable towards the end of their flight causing the blades to spin around like flying scythes, cutting down all in their path.

These experiences eventually led to the Royal Woolwich Arsenal's beginning a military rocket R&D program in 1801, their first demonstration of solid-fuel rockets in 1805 and publication of A Concise Account of the Origin and Progress of the Rocket System in 1807 by William Congreve, son of the arsenal's commandant. Congreve rockets were soon systematically used by the British during the Napoleonic Wars and the War of 1812. These descendants of Mysore rockets find mention in the Star Spangled Banner.

Treatment of prisoners

A clause in the proposed treaty of alliance with the French stated, "I demanded that male and female prisoners as well English and Portuguese, who shall be taken by the republican troops or by mine, shall be treated with humanity, and with regard to their persons that they shall be transported at our joint expense out of India to some place for distant from the territories of the allies." In short, Tippu was an enlightened ruler, the sheet-anchor of whose state-policy was the well-being of all his subjects irrespective of caste, creed or class. He took his stand on the bedrock of humanity, regarding all his subjects as equal citizen to live in peace, harmony and concord. However, during the storming of Srirangapattana by the British in 1799, thirteen murdered British prisoners were discovered, killed by either having their necks broken or nails driven into their skulls.

Jacobin Club in Mysore

Tippu Sultan was a founder-member of the Jacobin Club. While accepting the membership, he said of France, "Behold my acknowledgement of the standard of your country, which is dear to me, and to which I am allied; it shall always be supported in my country, as it has been in the Republic, my sister!". He was named "Citizen Tippu Sultan".

In fiction

• In Jules Verne's Mysterious Island, Captain Nemo is described as a nephew of Tippu Sultan.
• Tippu Sultan's life and adventures were the central theme of a short-running South Indian television series "The Adventures of Tipu Sultan", and of a more popular national television series "The Sword of Tipu Sultan".
• Naseem Hijazi's novels Muazam Ali and Aur Talvar Ṭūṭ Gaye (And The Sword Broke) describe Tippu Sultan's wars.
• Wilkie Collins's novel The Moonstone contains an account of Tippu Sultan and the Fall of Srirangapattana in the prologue.
• In The Surprising Adventures of Baron Munchausen by Rudolf Erich Raspe, Munchausen vanquishes Tippoo near the end of the novel.
• Sharpe's Tiger is a novel in which Napoleonic soldier Richard Sharpe fights at the Battle of Srirangapattana, later killing Tippu Sultan.
• The Only King Who Died on the Battlefield: An Historical Novel Based on Truth (published in 2006), was written by a US-Pakistani resident and a young college student Mohammed Faisal Iftikhar. The novel claims that in recent history, Tippu Sultan is the only king who died on the battlefield.
• Tippu Sultan appears as a "Great Person" in the video game, Sid Meier's Civilization: Revolution.

Family and descendants

Tippu Sultan had four wives, by whom he had 16 sons and at least 8 daughters, including:

1. Shahzada Hyder Ali Sultan Sahib (1771-30 July 1815)

2. Shahzada Abdul Khaliq Sultan Sahib (1782-12 September 1806

3. Shahzada Muhi-ud-din Sultan Sahib (1782-30 September 1811)

4. Shahzada Mu‘izz-ud-din Sultan Sahib (1783-30 March 1818)

5. Shahzada Mi‘raj-ud-din Sultan Sahib (1784?-?)

6. Shahzada Mu‘in-ud-din Sultan Sahib (1784?-?)

7. Shahzada Muhammad Yasin Sultan Sahib (1784-15 March 1849)

8. Shahzada Muhammad Subhan Sultan Sahib (1785-27 September 1845)

9. Shahzada Muhammad Shukrullah Sultan Sahib (1785-25 September 1837)

10. Shahzada Sarwar-ud-din Sultan Sahib (1790-20 October 1833), desc

11. Shahzada Muhammad Nizam-ud-din Sultan Sahib (1791-20 October 1791)

12. Shahzada Muhammad Jamal-ud-din Sultan Sahib (1795-13 November 1842)

13. Shahzada Munir-ud-din Sultan Sahib (1795-1 December 1837)

14. His Highness Shahzada Sir Ghulam Muhammad Sultan Sahib, KCSI (March 1795-11 August 1872)

15. Shahzada Ghulam Ahmad Sultan Sahib (1796-11 April 1824)

16. Shahzada ............. Sultan Sahib (1797–1797)

Tippu Sultan's family was sent to Calcutta by the British. Noor Inayat Khan, who was a major in the British Indian army, is said to be one of Tippu Sultan's descendants who died in France under German occupation.

Sword of Tippu Sultan

Tippu Sultan had lost his sword in a war with the Nairs of Travancore, in which he was defeated. The Nair army under the leadership of Raja Kesavadas defeated the Mysore army near Aluva. The Maharaja, Dharma Raja, gifted the famous sword to the Nawab of Arcot, from where the sword went to London. The sword was on display at the Wallace Collection, No. 1 Manchester Square, London. At an auction in London in 2004, the industrialist-politician Vijay Mallya purchased the sword of Tippu Sultan and some other historical artifacts, and brought them back to India for public display after nearly two centuries.

Further reading

• Agha, Shamsu. Tipu Sultan", "Mirza Ghalib in London";, "Flight Delayed", Paperback, ISBN 0901974420
• Ali, B Sheik. Tippu Sultan, Nyasanal Buk Trast
• Amjad, Sayyid. ‘Ali Ashahri, Savanih Tipu Sultan, Himaliyah Buk Ha®us
• Banglori, Mahmud Khan Mahmud. Sahifah-yi Tipu Sultan, Himālayah Pablishing Hā’ūs,
• Bhagwan, Gidwami S. The Sword of Tipu Sultan: The Life and Legend of Tipu Sultan of India, Allied Publishers 1978
• Bowring, Lewin. Haidar Ali and Tipu Sultan and the Struggle with the Musalman Powers of the South, Asian Educational Services,India, ISBN 812061299X
• Brittlebank, Kate. Tipu Sultan's Search for Legitimacy: Islam and Kingship in a Hindu Domain, OUP India, ISBN 0195639774
• Buddle, Anne. Tigers Round the Throne, Zamana Gallery, ISBN 1869933028
• Campbell, Richard Hamilton. Tippoo Sultan: The fall of Srirangapattana and the restoration of the Hindu raj, Govt. Press
• Chinnian, P. Tipu Sultan the Great, Siva Publications
• Habib, Irfan. State and Diplomacy Under Tipu Sultan: Documents and Essays, Manohar Publishers and Distributors, ISBN 818522952X
• Hashimi, Sajjad. Tipu Sultan, Maktabah-yi Urdu Da®ijast
• Home, Robert. Select Views in Mysore: The Country of Tipu Sultan from Drawings Taken on the Spot by Mr. Home, Asian Educational Services,India, ISBN 8120615123
• Mohibbul Hasan. History of Tipu Sultan, Aakar Books, ISBN 8187879572
• Mohibbul Hasan. Tipu Sultan's Mission to Constantinople, Aakar Books, ISBN 8187879564
• Moienuddin, Mohammad. Sunset at Srirangapatam: After the death of Tipu Sultan, Orient Longman, ISBN 8125019197
• Pande, B. N. Aurangzeb and Tipu Sultan: Evaluation of their religious policies (IOS series), Institute of Objective Studies
• Siddiqi, Faiz Alam. Sultan Tipu Shahid, Buk Karnar,
• Strandberg, Samuel. Tipu Sultan: The Tiger of Mysore: or, to fight against the odds, AB Samuel Travel, ISBN 9163073331
• Taylor, George. Coins of Tipu Sultan, Asian Educational Services,India, ISBN 8120605039
• Wigington, Robin. Firearms of Tipu Sultan, 1783-99, J. Taylor Book Ventures, ISBN 1871224136
• Haidar Ali and Tipu Sultan and the Struggle with the Mohammadan Powers of the South, Cosmo (Publications,India), ISBN 8177554352
• Confronting Colonialism: Resistance and Modernization Under Haider Ali and Tipu Sultan (Anthem South Asian Studies), Anthem Press, ISBN 1843310244

External links

• Urdu History of Tipu Sultan
• The Fourth Mysore War
• Book on Tipu sultan-http://www.voi.org/books/tipu/
• Biography of Tipu sultan-www.Tipusultan.org
• Biography at nationalgalleries.org.uk
• Review of Tipu Sultan: Villain or Hero? - IndiaStar Review of Books
• Biography
• Dedicated to life and works of Tipu Sultan
• Tipu Sultan Portal
• Rule of Tipu Sultan
• Bangalore best
• Bharath Rakshak
• The Sword of Tippu Sultan
• The Tiger of Mysore - Dramatised account of the British campaign against Tipu Sultan by G. A. Henty, from Project Gutenberg