Tipu Sultan (20 November 1750 – 4 May 1799), also known as the Tiger of Mysore, was a ruler of the Kingdom of Mysore and a scholar, soldier and poet. Tipu was the eldest son of Sultan Hyder Ali of Mysore and his wife Fatima Fakhr-un-Nisa. Tipu introduced a number of administrative innovations, including the introduction of a new coinage, new Mauludi lunisolar calendar[2] and new land revenue system, and initiated the growth of Mysore silk industry.[3] Tipu expanded the iron-cased Mysorean rockets which he deployed in his resistance against military advances of the British.[4] During Tipus childhood, his father rose to take power in Mysore, and upon his fathers death in 1782, Tipu succeeded to a large kingdom bordered by the Krishna River in the north, the Eastern Ghats in the east and the Arabian Sea in the west.[5] Tipu was a devout Muslim although the majority of his subjects were Hindus, and few were also Christian. At the request of the French, Tipu built a church, the first in Mysore. Tipu was fluent in Kannada, Hindustani, Persian, Arabic, English and French.[6] In alliance with the French in their struggle with the British, and in Mysores struggles with other surrounding powers, both Tipu and his father used their French trained army against the Marathas, Sira and rulers of Malabar, Coorg, Bednore, Carnatic and Travancore. He won important victories against the British in the Second Anglo-Mysore War, and negotiated the 1784 Treaty of Mangalore with them after his father Hyder Ali died from cancer in December 1782 during the second Mysore war. Tipu engaged in expansionist attacks against his neighbours. His treatment of his conquered non-Muslim subjects and British prisoners of war is controversial. He remained an implacable enemy of the British East India Company, bringing them into renewed conflict with an attack on British-allied Travancore in 1789. In the Third Anglo-Mysore War, Tipu was forced into a humiliating treaty, losing a number of previously conquered territories, including Malabar and Mangalore. He sent embassies to foreign states, including the Ottoman Empire, Afghanistan and France, in an attempt to rally opposition to the British. In the Fourth Anglo-Mysore War, the combined forces of the British East India Company and the Nizam of Hyderabad defeated Tipu and he was killed on 4 May 1799, while defending his fort of Srirangapatna. “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 Hyder Ali, yet I did think he might have shown the same resolved and dogged spirit of resolution which induced Tipu Sahib to die manfully upon the breach of his capital city with his sabre clenched in his hand.” —Sir Walter Scott, commenting on the abdication of Napoleon Bonaparte in 1814
Posted on: Wed, 20 Nov 2013 09:19:08 +0000