In all the communal commotion surrounding Tipu Sultan and Hyder Ali, the RSS-BJP cleverly tries to bury the powerful, anti-colonial legacy of their 40-year rule. Contrasted with the RSS’s role as the Crown’s ‘most obedient servant’, the ongoing maligning of Tipu’s reign is reflective of a state-sponsored project of erasing the anti-British role played by him.
Tipu Sultan, popularly called the ‘Tiger of Mysore’ for his battle prowess, was born on 1st December, 1751 in Devanahalli. His father Hyder Ali rose to become the ruler of Mysore kingdom around 1761 from being a commander in the Mysore army. Hyder Ali and Tipu Sultan built a strong Mysore kingdom in a short time effectively weakening the hold of feudalism over the people, building early industries, and establishing a civil bureaucracy. The Mysore kingdom under them thus became one of the first to break centuries of feudal fetters and develop early industrial and mercantile interests. It is in this backdrop that one must see the series of anti-colonial wars they fought against the British with an aim to oust the looters from the Indian subcontinent.
The Battle of Plassey in 1757 ended the rule of the last independent Nawab of Bengal, Siraj-ud-Dawlah. The British East India Company (EIC) emerged as the victor, assisted by the betrayal of Mir Jafar. Thus the EIC, which arrived as a mere merchant, established itself as a major military and political power over a large part of the subcontinent that was to continue for at least another century till it was overtaken by the British government. Among all the European plunderers like the Dutch, the Portuguese, and the French, the Battle of Plassey decisively turned the EIC into the principal colonial force. It was Hyder Ali, who identified the long-term danger posed by British colonial expansionism while he was in the process of developing the Mysore kingdom as a mercantile force-in-itself. He realised that the contradiction with the British far surpassed the petty feudal squabbles rife among Mysore and the neighbouring Peshwas and Nizams. Tipu’s military-strategic training was continued on the same lines. However, they were alone in this despite repeated attempts to forge an anti-British alliance in the Deccan.
In the process of annexing the South, the British provoked the Mysore kingdom into the first Anglo-Mysore war (1767-69) without having done an objective reading of the might of the Mysore Army. Hyder Ali was a master military strategist who learned and applied European tactics of warfare into his own army that set him miles ahead. It was a very well-maintained army with a strong cavalry that gave it swiftness and agility. They dealt a heavy blow to the British side defeating them decisively in this anti-colonial war.
The second Anglo-Mysore war (1780-84) saw the Mysore army up against a combined force of the British, the Nizam of Hyderabad, the Peshwas, the Rajas of Travancore and Cochin, and a host of Palegaras (a predatory class of feudal lords who were ousted from their strongholds by Hyder Ali and Tipu Sultan). Despite this, the Mysore army emerged victorious. In the middle of this war, Hyder Ali died of cancer in 1782, leaving the kingdom to Tipu. In his last letter he urged Tipu to carry forward the task of ousting the British not just from the Mysore kingdom, but also the Indian subcontinent.
In the third Anglo-Mysore war (1790-92), Tipu was defeated by the joint British and the Peshwa forces. A major chunk of the Mysore kingdom and 33,000,000 rupees as reparations had to be handed over through the Treaty of Seringapatam. At that time Tipu again approached the Peshwa commander Haripant Phadke advising him to recognise the British as the true enemy, albeit to no avail. True to its colonial character, by 1818, the British ended the rule of the Peshwas through the Battle of Kirkee.
Despite such heavy losses, the Mysore kingdom swiftly recuperated to a great extent and arming itself stronger than before. By the time of the fourth Anglo-Mysore war (1798-1799), the British realised that they were outmaneuvered by Tipu’s army in terms of forces, weaponry, and other supplies. In this situation, the British found their saviour in the form of Mir Sadiq and Poorniah, who were the Prime Minister and Dewan of Tipu Sultan respectively. Armed with this treacherous liaison, the British easily breached the capital of the Mysore kingdom, the fortified Srirangapatnam. Despite being surrounded by the enemy on all sides, Tipu fought till his last breath. The traitor Mir Sadiq was beheaded by a soldier from Tipu’s army.
Thus ended the most formidable resistance to British colonial expansion in India. The British continued their unbridled exploitation of the masses basing on a strengthened feudal zamindari system till a series of Adivasi and peasant revolts broke out in response. Today when India’s past is being buried under an Islamophobic narrative, it is important to recognise the anti-feudal and anti-colonial character of Tipu Sultan and uphold it.
