Tipu Sultan was born on November 20, 1750 and died on May 4, 1799 fighting with the Colonial forces
New Delhi:
Twitter users on Wednesday paid rich tributes to Tipu Sultan on his birth anniversary, with many posting the quotes of the King of the erstwhile Kingdom of Mysore as also pictures of his prized possessions with hashtags #Tipusultan, #SherEHindTipuSultan, #TipuJayanti and #TigerOfMysore.
As many as 3,143 tweets were posted by Twitterati on Tipu Sultan.
Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi leader Prakash Ambedkar wrote: “Tipu Sultan, the king of Mysore, will always be known for his valour and his continuous resistance against the British rule”.
“A tribute to the first freedom fighter of India on his birth anniversary”, the grandson of Dr BR Ambedkar wrote.
Another Twitter user wrote: “Tipu Sultan was the only Indian ruler who understood the dangers the British posed to India, and fought four wars to oust them from India – in that sense he could be called the first freedom fighter in the subcontinent”.
One user posted a quote attributed to Tipu Sultan: “One day’s life of a lion is preferable to hundred years of a jackal”.
Many Twitter users also hailed his liking for advanced technology.
“Tipu Sultan was fascinated by science & technology, got gun-makers, engineers, clockmakers & other experts from France to Mysore, then set up a manufacturing of bronze cannons, ammunition & muskets to ‘Make in Mysore’. Basically the first who worked for MakeinIndia”, (sic) wrote one user.
Make in India is a type of Swadeshi movement covering 25 sectors of the Indian economy. It was launched by the Government of India on 25 September 2014 to encourage companies to manufacture their products in India and enthuse with dedicated investments into manufacturing.
Tipu Sultan was born on November 20, 1750 and died on May 4, 1799 fighting with the Colonial forces.
source: http://www.ummid.com / Ummid.com / Home> India / by Ummid.com with inputs from IANS / November 20th, 2019
Karnataka’s BJP govt has cancelled Tipu Jayanti, celebrating a ruler once hailed for his bravery and genius, but seen by the right wing as a bigot. We must reexamine Tipu Sultan.
The BJP government in Karnataka has done away with Tipu Sultan celebrations. But, as it is vital to remember Tipu Sultan, in this first-part series, I lead you into the life of Tipu Sultan, the ruler of Mysore.
The recent efforts of the Hindu right to project him as a Muslim bigot show that their political stakes in him have changed.
Any opinion on the rule of Tipu Sultan in Mysore will in fact be incomplete without mention of the political situation prevailing in and around Mysore towards the end of the 18th century. Mysore, which had emerged from the ruins of the Vijayanagar empire, was moulded into a small but dynamic Hindu state primarily during the rule of Chikka Devaraja Wodeyar in the early decades of the 18th century.
The Wodiyar kings, who had been ruling Mysore for over 300 years, were only nominal rulers by then — the actual power was wielded by their prime ministers or ‘dalavai’.
Tipu’s father, Haider Ali, began his career in Mysore around 1749, as a soldier under one of these powerful ministers.
He used his tact and bravery to stave off Maratha raids into Mysore, fought against the British and expanded Mysore’s territory down south to the coast of wealthy Calicut. He thus eased himself into the title of the ‘sarvadhikari’ or ‘regent of the kingdom’ in 1760.
After Haider’s death in 1782, Tipu took over his father’s position, keeping the Wodeyar king as a proxy but publicly continuing to put on a show of respect. Tipu’s appropriation of this position would not have been possible without the assistance of some of Haider’s closest friends and advisors as well as the acquiescence of the local populace, who had by then come to see a stronger and more prosperous Mysore under Haider and the young Tipu.
From Madras, the British were cautiously observing the rise of Mysore — and resented Haider’s and Tipu’s push into Malabar.
Tipu Sultan took over Mysore in 1782: He remains its most iconic ruler. (Still from The Sword of Tipu Sultan: Via Author)
A 17-year-old Tipu had given the British a fright by galloping with his army into the East India Company’s garden house near the beach in Madras.
He rattled them so much that the governor there fled offshore in a small boat. A series of four Anglo-Mysore Wars started in 1767. These propelled the hitherto unknown Kingdom of Mysore into the powder rooms of Europe and America.
The first war saw Mysore dictating terms to England at the gates of Madras; the second war was Tipu’s brightest moment. At the battle of Pollilur (1780), the sun-and-tiger-stripes banner of Tipu’s Mysore oversaw the worst disaster that ever befell an English army in India — out of 3,000 men in the British army, only about 400 survived.
With these two victories, the mood in England began to change — and a vicious propaganda and diplomatic campaign against Mysore began.
By 1785, one in seven Englishmen in India was imprisoned by Tipu. By this time, the British had won in Plassey and Buxar; the whole of India except the Punjab and the Marathas had capitulated to them. Tipu’s Mysore stood as a bulwark against the British. What rankled the British even more was that here was a native ruler — or ‘despot’, as they branded all of them — who was different from the others.
He did not while away his time in pleasure orgies, nor leave the management of state to some palace coterie; and not once did he ask the British for help against his neighbours. He created an army which, in the words of his nemesis, Arthur Wellesley (later Duke of Wellington), was “the best fighting force in the whole of India”.
He took advantage of the enmities being played out in Europe, recruited the French as willing allies and drilled his army in modern European manoeuvres.
Giving It Back: Unlike several other princely states, Tipu Sultan took the British head-on in ferocious battles. (Picture: India Today)
Mysore was the first state to demonstrate the efficacy of rockets in war by modifying what was until then a mere firecracker into something that could carry a sword or wooden blade with it. Tipu even sent back French weapons with a letter stating they were substandard compared to the ones in his arsenal.
Working almost 18 hours a day, he kept meticulous records of revenue and personnel across his kingdom. He created a set of revenue regulations that rationalised land taxes — and even offered subsidies to farmers if they farmed more land. Landowners and temple trusts with excess landholding were asked to hand it over to landless or tenant farmers. He created a navy that sent ships with his diplomats to meet the Ottoman sultan in Constantinople and the French emperor in Paris. He built a powerful navy, consisting of 20 battleships of 72 cannons and 20 frigates of 62 cannons.
A separate board of admiralty was established in September 1786 and massive dockyards at Jamalabad, Wajidabad and Majidabad were constructed on the west coast to build 40 warships and a number of transport ships to strengthen the naval power. The 200-odd forts under Tipu’s reign were mostly named on Hindu script ions.
An elite group of Brahmin civil servants was nurtured during his early rule to make sure that revenue was properly collected. His forts were among the strongest in south India and his currency so beautifully minted that the Mughal emperor apparently felt slighted at receiving coins more beautiful than his own — he even minted coins with Hindu deities on them.
Deep in the midst of war, he wrote of receiving silkworms to create the silk factories of Mysore.
Sugar and paper factories were established for the first time under him. Sword blades and gunpowder were manufactured locally. He was also liberal with gifts to Hindu religious establishments in Mysore and Malabar after subduing it.
A Visionary Leader: Tipu Sultan was an extraordinary mix of courage, skill and heart. (Still from The Sword of Tipu Sultan: Via Author)
The third Anglo-Mysore war in 1792, with Cornwallis at the helm of the British army, did not go well for Tipu.
He was hard-pressed by the British-Maratha-Nizam allied powers to surrender half his kingdom, submit to a war indemnity of ₹3.3 crore — and deliver two of his sons as hostages to the British. Thanks to his financial prudence, he managed to pay the British their ransom and have his sons released a year earlier than the stipulated three years.
This period between 1792 and the fourth Mysore war in 1799 was one of great tribulation for Mysore — rebellions raged and finances were tight on account of the indemnity paid. However, it is to Tipu’s credit that not once during his rule, in the midst of almost incessant war, did his subjects suffer from famine or pestilence.
At the same time in British Bengal, millions of Indians perished in a famine…
(To be continued).
source: http://www.dailyo.in / DailyO / Home> Open To Opinion> Politics / by Sanjay Khan / August 03rd, 2019
Over 1000 war rockets of Tipu era have just been found in a fort in Karanataka. Tipu Sultan was the first warrior in history to have used rockets in his warfare against the British.
Recall Tipu Jayanthi celebrated by the Karnataka Government under Siddaramaiah and the violent opposition it evoked from the BJP and Hindutva forces who overlooked Tipu Sultan’s fierce fight against British rule and only focused on his Islamic identity. An Union Minister publicly refused to participate in the Tipu Jayanti celebrations.
The fanatical opposition to Tipu Sultan by BJP and its top leadership has been so intense that it did not even accept the speech of President of India Ramnath Kovind who while addressing the Karnataka Assembly appreciated Tipu Sultan, among others, and flagged his pioneering role in employing the first ever rocket in the history of warfare against the British.
In their blind opposition to Tipu Sultan just because he was a Muslim, the BJP leaders of Karnataka did not hesitate even to diminish the dignity of the President of India by refusing to acknowledge his speech and dismissing it as as a draft prepared by the then Karnataka Government. Even Prime Minister Narendra Modi while campaigning for BJP candidates in the Karnataka elections sarcastically said that the Congress Government was celebrating the Jayanti of “Sultans”.
Let us be mindful of the fact that a sketch of Tipu Sultan finds a prominent and place in the calligraphed copy of the Constitution where the sketch of Lord Ram, Akbar and other outstanding figures of Indian mythology and history occupy a hallowed place.
It is not that President Kovind is the first President of our Republic who invoked Tipu Sultan’s glorious legacy. Earlier President K. R. Narayanan in his speech delivered at the banquet hosted by the President of the French Republic, Jacques Chirac, on April 17, 2000 in Paris referred to the correspondence exchanged between Tipu Sultan and Napoleon Bonaparte for the purpose of forming a grand alliance to defeat the British and throw them out of India.
In an appendix of the publication, The Sword of Tipu Sultan, authored by Bhagwan Gidwani, there is a text of letter written by Napoleon to Tipu Sultan bringing out the strategic affinity and understanding between India and France in the late 18th century.
Napoleon wrote in the letter to Tipu Sultan : “You have already been informed of my arrival on the borders of the Red Sea, with an innumerable and invincible Army, full of the desire of delivering you from the iron yoke of England.”
Before the letter could reach Tipu Sultan, the British intelligence succeeded in intercepting it. Then President Narayanan in his aforementioned banquet speech rsaid: “…Napoleon’s demarche perhaps underlined the strategic affinity that links India and France and the responsibility we hold in creating a more equal and democratic inter-national order in the multipolar world.”
It is all the more significant to note that the concept of ” creating a more equal and democratic inter-national order in the multipolar world ” was taken up by Narayanan by invoking Tipu Sultan along with Napoleon who is a national hero for the French. I recall that the leadership of France deeply appreciated this speech and thanked the then Indian President for contextualizing the strategic dialogue started between the two countries in the 21st Century by referring to the strategic understanding forged in the 17th Century.
Abdul Kalam in his writings published before he became President of India had outlined Tipu Sultans stellar contributions as the first warrior in history of warfare for having used rockets against the British who were completely on the defensive. The account given by President Kalam of the rockets used by Tipu Sultan in his war against Britishers makes a fascinating read and the younger generation should be educated about it. He also refers to the Royal Artillery Museum, London that has exhibited the rockets used by Tipu Sultan with the claim the he became the first warrior to do so.
It is rather fascinating to note that the French Revolution and its ideals deeply impacted Tipu Sultan and he celebrated the Revolution with great fervour. Possibly he was the first monarch in India who remained wedded to the enduring ideals of the Revolution- liberty, equality and fraternity- and planted a tree in Srirangapatnam to commemorate it. He enlisted himself as a member of the Jacobin Club which constituted one of the prominent political formations of the Revolution proclaiming egalitarianism and affirming a social order informed by liberty, equality and fraternity.
His strategic vision encompassed in its scope a modern navy which he founded in 1796 and set up two dockyards where ships could be used and equipped with necessary facilities for conducting warfare. It greatly supplemented his military capability based on his land based armoury and armed forces.
His critical understanding that a strong economy could sustain a strong military paved the way for him to take manifold measures to augment and expand trade and commerce and set up a chain of industries. His farsightedness in understanding the danger posed by the advancing British forces in the 18th century stood him out as an unparalleled leader with a firm grasp over military and strategic affairs. British historians have recorded his accomplishments with admiration. And recorded the fact that the conditions of the peasants of Mysore were far better than their status in the British provinces of that era.
Historians have recorded that Tipu Sultan liberally gave grants to numerous Hindu shrines and respected the faith of others. Such a legacy rooted in respecting all religions makes Tipu Sultan relevant for our contemporary period which is witnessing majoritarian tendencies.
He relentlessly fought against British occupation and aggression and eventually attained martyrdom. His heroism and bravery to fight against colonial subjugation constitutes an important portion of Indian history. It is important to celebrate that legacy and enrich it.
Jawaharlal Nehru in his Discovery Of India wrote “Haider Ali and Tipu Sultan .. inflicted a severe defeat on the British and came near to breaking the power of the East India Company.” Such a glorious phase of Tipu Sultan who almost broke the power of the East India Company and who remained wedded to ideals of French revolution inspires India of twenty first century. We need to immortalize it by affirming its enduring value which is far above party politics and ideological rivalry.
As the twenty first century India faces threat from Hindutva forces engaged in lynching people and polarizing them in the name of cow protection, love jihad and religion we need to reinvigorate the legacy based on liberty, equality and fraternity which remained at the heart of the French Revolution, guided Tipu Sultan and inspired our freedom fighters and the framers of our Constitution to shape the destiny of India based on progressive values.
(S.N.Sahu served as Officer on Special Duty to late President of India K.R.Narayanan and also as Director in Prime Minister’s Office under Manmohan Singh).
source: http://www.thecitizen.in / The Citizen / Home / by S.N. Sahu / July 30th, 2018
