"Ladies and gentlemen, I drink to the corpse of India". So did Richard Wellesley (Lord Mornington), Governor-General of India (1798-1805) raise a toast on receiving the news of Tipu Sultan's death. That he regarded his fallen adversary as the "life" of India was borne out by the fact that when Tipu fell fighting within the confines of Srirangapatnam Fort on 4 May 1799, the spirit of native resistance to colonial domination finally died. And the sub-continent was destined to remain enslaved for nearly another 150 years.
The infrastructure of Tipu's political power was assiduously built by his father, Hyder Ali, who first burst upon the stage at the age of 27. With military genius and skilful diplomacy, he saved the quast-independent state of Mysore, much in the same manner as Oliver Cromwell (1599-1658) did England and modern historians came to see him as the "Napoleon of India" instead of Hyder Ali the "usurper".
During his 17 years of rule, Tipu hardly ever enjoyed any respite from aggressive and plotting neighbours. And he had to contend with the treachery of his Diwan, Mir Sadiq, who did to him what Mir Jafar had done to Sirajud Daula in Bengal nearly half a century earlier. The British were bent on either encaging the "Tiger of Mysore" or shooting him dead. Tipu preferred a soldier's death.
Of his life and work, little is unknown though much of this is a mixture of aspersion, vilification and adulation. Imperialist chroniclers darkened the vision of later annalists and the bias became so deeply embedded that on Tipu's death centenary in 1899 the then Maharani Regent of Mysore Durbar insisted the occasion be observed not in memory of Tipu's martyrdom but for the restoration of the Hindu dynasty ...
Hemmed in as he was by enemies, Tipu had to maintain a well-oiled war machine. But war apart, he set up commercial departments and factories, introduced novel methods of agriculture, ended the feudal system and brought about reforms in coinage and currency. Dubbed an intolerant bigot by contemporary British writers such as William Kirkpatrick and Mark Wilks, who were among the dramatics personae of the Anglo-Mysore Wars, the slandering continued with later historians such as Colonel' Roberts and G. Sardesai. Mohibul Hasan Khan was the first modern historian who attempted to blow away the obwebs.
There is evidence that the great Math at Sringeri was the recipient of Tipu's patronage. Others receiving gifts and grants were the Gopur Temple of Conjeevaram and the Nanjandeswana Temple of Nanjangud. The magnificent temple of Sri Ranganath, Sri Narasimha and Sri Gandeswara, situated near Tipu's palace at Srirangapatnam, bear eloquent testimony to his liberalism ...
... Tipu Sultan was the only leader in Indian history who never allied with the English against a native ruler, Hindu or Muslim, though he had sufficient reason to settle scores with them. His example sets at naught the widely held opinion that India's struggle for political emancipation started with the Mutiny of 1857. (Source: The Statesman, 30 May, 1999)
