Tipu Sultan: Ruler of Mysore

A military leader in 18th century South India, Tipu Sultan (ruled from 1782-99) was the ruler of Mysore for a seventeen-year-period until his death in 1799. He succeeded to the throne when his father Hyder Ali died on December 7, 1782 during the course of Second Anglo-Mysore War (1780-84). The Second Anglo-Mysore War came to an end by the Treaty of Mangalore (March 1784) on the basis of mutual restitution of conquests. 

Tipu Sultan was born in 1750 in Devanahalli (near Bangalore in Karnataka). 

Unlike his father who was a de facto ruler, Tipu assumed royal title of Sultan by dethroning the Hindu raja of Mysore in 1786.

The increasing power of Mysore made the Marathas and the Nizam enter into a coalition in 1786 against Tipu Sultan who became successful in defeating them by crossing the flooded Tungabhadra in rafts and basket boats in a brilliant military feat. The defeat brought the Marathas and the Nizam closer to the English who were eyeing opportunity to avenge the past defeat. The alliance among the English, the Marathas and the Nizam led to the Third Anglo-Mysore War (1790-92) in which Tipu Sultan was defeated. The Third Anglo-Mysore War came to an end by the Treaty of  Srirangapatnam. Under the terms of the treaty Tipu had to surrender of nearly half of Mysorean territory to the victorious allies. 

Tipu was killed in 1799 in the Fourth Anglo-Mysore War. The immediate cause of the war was, according to the English, Tipu’s intrigues with the Marathas and the Nizams. He also tried to enlist the support of Zaman Shah of Afghanistan and the French in the Isle of France (Mauritius) by sending embassies to Arabia and the Directory at Versailles for an alliance against the British in India. The fourth Anglo-Mysore War took place during the governor generalship of Lord Wellesley who jettisoned the non-intervention policy and annexed most of the territories of the Mysore state to the East India Company under the subsidiary Alliance system. A boy of the earlier Mysore Hindu royal family was placed on the throne. 

Tipu Sultan is revered by a section of the people as a patriot and a hero as he stood against the British. That even cost him his life. But there is another angle to view the truth. Tipu Sultan was in cahoots with the French. There is every possibility that had he succeeded in driving the British away with French help, Mysore would have fallen to the French instead. And there was no concept of nationalism in the age in which Tipu lived.

Key Takeaway

Tipu Sultan had planted the 'Tree of Liberty' at Srirangapatnam.