Complete Biography of TIPU SULTAN 

There was a sultan in India who, till he was alive, the British felt that they could not conquer India.

But a British officer saw his body outside the Mysore fort and said that now India is ours.

It was the last major obstacle for the British in the subcontinent.  

I am Ali Raza  and u are reading about the 

 Sher Mysore  TIPU SULTAN

this is the India of seventeen hundred and sixty.

Sarangapatam is a city in South India, some twenty-two hundred kilometers away from Delhi.

A strange activity is going on in a room built on a minaret in this city.

A ten-year-old boy is diligently cutting window bars with a sander.

And sitting next to him is his five-year-old brother, looking at him with fear in his eyes.  The

older boy cut the window bars, then tied a rope to the window and hung it down.

He carried his brother on his back and descended through the rope.

In no time there was an uproar in the whole of Seringapatam

that Tipu and Karim, the two imprisoned sons of the rebel general Hyder Ali, had escaped.

Yes, it was the young brave Fateh Ali Tipu who cut the bars.

And now this little Sultan was hiding from his enemies with his brother.  The

reason was that Tipu's father Hyder Ali, who was the army chief of the Raja of Mysore, had been

declared a rebel due to the conspiracies of his opponents.

Now he was on the run from the city.  His sons were imprisoned

but they also escaped.  During this time came the festival of Holi.

Hyder Ali's sympathizers painted Tipu and his brother in Holi colours.

Tipu also wore a tiger mask on his face -

then the two brothers left the city without being seen by anyone and went to meet their father.

Within a year of this highly cinematic escape, Tipu's father Hyder Ali had become the ruler of Mysore and Tipu the crown prince.

But Hyder Ali's twenty-one-year reign was spent in war with his enemies.

And when Tipu ascended the throne after Hyder Ali's death in 1782, the same problems were transferred to him.

Musivar's rule was not a bed of flowers but a hedge of thorns.

It was certain that Tipu, however capable a ruler he was, could not prevent the destruction of his empire.

What was the reason for this?

This was due to the extremely difficult geography of Mysore state.  Many parts of what are now the Indian states of Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Kerala were

included in the Mysore state.

It was a great state to look at -

but the problem with it was that three of its most dangerous enemies sat right on its borders.

Some eastern regions and the south were ruled by the East India Company, the British,

whose military headquarters in southern India was Madras, now known as Chennai.

Adjacent to the British territory in the east was Hyderabad Deccan State which is now part of Andhra Pradesh.

While to the north were the Marathas whose kingdom extended from the borders of Mysore to Delhi and to the west was the sea.  That

is, Tipu could not get any help from any side nor could he retreat.

And there was another big problem with this dangerous geography.

And that Mysore was one of the richest states of India.  The

production of spices and the textile industry flourished here.  The

income of the citizens of Mysore was five times that of the rest of India.

So, in such a situation, why the resin of the opponents of Mysore does not drip.

Enemies spread out on all three sides of it had the sole aim of capturing Mysore,

so there was no question of peace or agreement with them.

Thus the state of Mysore stood in a weak defensive position in a dangerous geography and difficult situation.

But Tipu was not one to give up.

He was ready for both peace and war.

He also made peace agreements with his enemies earlier.

But all these agreements failed and Tipu Sultan finally had to fight.

Many times in these wars, he bit the teeth of his enemies in such a way that people started calling him the Lion of Mysore.  The

first battle of the series was the one he inherited from his father.

That is, the war with the British in which the East India Company attacked Mysore.

This was the same war during which Tipu Sultan's father Hyder Ali also died.  Had there

been someone else in Tipu's place, the death of his father and the war with the enemy would have paralyzed his nerves and this state would have ended at that time.

But as soon as Tipu ascended the throne, he crushed one English army after another.

He then forced the English army besieged in the Bangalore fort to surrender.

In the history of the subcontinent, the British had never suffered such a humiliating defeat before or since.

In such a situation, the wounded British army requested for peace.

Had Tipu continued this war, he could have captured Madras, the British headquarters in South India.

In such a case, English rule would have ended at least from South India.

But Tipu acted mercifully and reconciled.

In 1784, he signed an armistice agreement with the British.

With this victory, Tipu became the hero of the people of India, while there was mourning in Britain.

The British decided that if they were to retain control of India, Tipu had to be out of the way.

And for this they started to lay a web of conspiracies.

One of Tipu's weaknesses served him well in these conspiracies.

That weakness was that Tipu did not know the art of keeping courtiers happy.

After becoming the ruler, he introduced several new people into his court, which angered the old courtiers -

chief among them the finance minister, Mir Sadiq, and the first minister, Purnia.

These were the people who helped Tipu to take the throne.

But now they felt that Tipu Sultan was neglecting them.

Tipu also used to punish his colleagues due to his dogmatism.

An example of which is that when Tipu's most skilled and loyal general Muhammad Ali Kamidan sheltered one of Tipu's opponents -

Tipu did not act expediently.

He arrested Kamidan.  Kamidan committed suicide in prison.

This incident changed many of the Sultan's loyalists.

So a series of court conspiracies started in which there was a possibility of spoiling the English.

Now they started getting traitors from Tipu's court.

And the buyer of this treacherous factory was the new Governor General from East India.  The

new Governor-General of the East India Company in India was Lord Cornwallis.

This man was very cunning and knew the art of weakening the enemy in his home rather than defeating him on the battlefield.

He sent several spies to Tipu's state, one of whom was Syed Imam.

This man reached Tipu's capital, Serangapatam, where he convinced the disgruntled and greedy courtiers to support the East India Company.

But this plot was caught in time.

Tipu Sultan took strict notice of this.

Traitors and Syed Imam were sentenced to death.

But this did not stop the production of traitors from the traitorous factory.  Rather, their number began to increase.

Despite buying off Tipu's courtiers, Lord Cornwallis was afraid to face Tipu alone.

He also brought together the Nizam of Hyderabad and the Marathas.

To start the war, he pretended that Tipu had waged war against Raja Trancower, an ally of the British.

Although this war was waged not by Tipu but by the Raja himself

and the matter was settled after Tipu's retaliatory action.

But Cornwallis, justifying this war, broke the treaty of peace made at the time of the previous defeat

and marched on Mysore.

First he captured Bangalore, the main city of Mysore.

Tipu Sultan counter-attacked and surrounded him in Bangalore.

But when he was about to make a decisive attack,

traitors in Tipu's army passed the details of the attack to Lord Cornwallis.

Thanks to which he managed to escape.

Not only did he escape Tipu's attack, but he made a long detour and marched on Tipu Sultan's capital Serangapatam.

But fifteen kilometers from Seringapatam, his courage paid off.  The

reason was that his army was exhausted.

Tipu's raiding forces also cut the supply line of the British.  The

two allies of Cornwallis namely the Marathas and the Nizam who had promised to send troops to help the British in this war.

Both of them did not reach for help.

Thus Cornwallis failed in the siege of Serangapatam.

His soldiers were dying of hunger and disease.

Lord Cornwallis realized

that if he attacked Tipu's army under these circumstances, he would have to taste a humiliating defeat.

So he gave up the idea of ​​further fighting and fled towards Bangalore with his army.

This was the occasion where Tipu Sultan made the biggest mistake of his life.  The

mistake was that he allowed a fleeing and defeated British army to escape instead of destroying it.

First Mysore and then the entire subcontinent had to bear the consequences of this mistake in the form of slavery.

Cornwallis escaped and soon joined the Marathas and the Nizam.

Then these three allies, the British, the Marathas and the Nizam, again broke out at Seringapatam with great preparation.

He besieged Seringapatam.

Tipu now realized that he had committed an irreparable mistake by allowing Cornwallis to escape.

But there was no use in regretting now.

Because the siege was getting tougher with each passing day.

In such a situation, Tipu gave up and asked for peace.

Lord Cornwallis received from Tipu half the kingdom of Mysore and a war ransom of eight crore rupees in return for peace.

Thus, thanks to their treachery and war mistakes, Tipu Sultan's power was dealt such a blow

that he could never recover after that.  The

defeat at the hands of Lord Cornwallis had two immediate effects on Tipu and his empire.  For

one, Tipu Sultan became obsessed with revenge against the British.

Tipu decided that he would sleep on the floor and not on a bed until he defeated the British, and he did.

He also produced a toy watch with a tiger strangling a British soldier.

And this watch is still preserved in the museum of London.

Tipu used to look at this watch and think of ways to take revenge on the enemy.

Another effect of the war was on Tipu's loyalists, who realized that there was no future for Tipu and his empire.

Therefore, they began to distance themselves from the Sultan.

This may come as a surprise to many -

but the fact is that the rise and fall of independent states was a common occurrence in India during this period.

Therefore, the only condition for loyalty to a state was that it was powerful

and people saw their future secure there.

But when the state became weak, its loyalists changed parties and joined a powerful group or state.

This was the bitter truth of India at that time which eventually made the entire region a slave of the British.  It is

also important to mention here that Tipu had twelve sons and five daughters.

But even one of his sons did not have the capacity to be the best successor to Tipu in these adverse circumstances.

Therefore, the rulership of a state that was advancing towards old age, had lost half its territory, was

surrounded by powerful enemies and had no hope of a strong successor, it could only have been a miracle that it survived for long.

But Tipu was hoping for a miracle.

And he had this hope from Britain's worst enemy, France, who had been an ally of Tipu in the past.

Tipu also sent his ambassador to the French general Napoleon Bonaparte and requested help.

Napoleon also wrote a reply letter to Tipu but this letter was intercepted by British spies on the way.  There were

rumors in Britain and India that Napoleon was going to India to help Tipu.

When Napoleon went to invade Egypt in 1798, Britain assumed that Napoleon was going to India.

Then, even after Napoleon occupied Egypt, the British thought the same -

that he might try to reach India by land.

But when the British navy defeated the French, the company government in India breathed a sigh of relief.

But since in those days news took months to reach across the seas,

rumors circulated for a long time in Britain and India

that Napoleon would come now or then to help Tipu.

Tipu was now surrounded by enemies on all sides and the possibility of help from France was gone.

This was the time when his enemies had to decide when, where and how they would hunt down the Mysore lion.

Meanwhile, the East India Company recalled Lord Cornwallis and made Lord Wellesley the Governor General.

This person was a friend of the then British Prime Minister.

Both friends wanted complete control of India and in their eyes Tipu Sultan was the biggest obstacle.  There was a

constant fear on the minds of the British that if France came to the aid of Tipu,

then India would escape from them.

And this fear was not unfounded.

Because just 18 years before the final war against Tipu, France had made a similar intervention in America, another British colony.

He helped George Washington, the hero of the American War of Independence -

which led to the defeat of Britain and the independence of the United States.

Britain could no longer afford a new George Washington in the form of Tipu in India by allowing France to intervene again.

So Lord Wellesley arrived in India with a mind of war against Tipu -

and as soon as he arrived he started preparations for war.

Fresh troops from Britain also started arriving to help him.

But Lord Wellesley did not need any major military action against Tipu.  The

traitors whom Lord Cornwallis had prepared were now with Wellesley.

Wellesley had agreed with Tipu's traitors that he would not allow the Mysore army to face the British anywhere.  The

commanders of most of the Mysore forts also assured that they would surrender as soon as the attack began.  That

is, the outcome of this war was already fixed.

So, confident of victory, Wellesley rushed to the battlefield with his allies.

To break the peace treaty, he announced that Tipu was conspiring with the French against the Company government.

That is why war is necessary.

In February 1799, the English army and its allies attacked Mysore from four sides.

Tipu sent troops to fight the invading British, but the commanders wasted every opportunity to attack the enemy.

Seeing this behavior of their commanders, the soldiers of Mysore used to question why the attack was not being done when the enemy was under siege,

but they were silenced by replying that it was the strategy of the Sultan.

But in reality the traitors had planned to tie the hands and feet of the lion of Mysore and throw it in front of the enemies.

But the lion of Mysore was still not going to give up.  At

one point, he himself went out with an army and rescued British General Harris.

Lord Wellesley in one of his reports has also admitted Tipu to be an expert general.

But Tipu's treacherous officers were helping the British here too.

He deliberately brought Tipu's army under the enemy's guns.

Tipu thus suffered heavy losses and retreated and took up a defensive position at Seringapatam.

In April 1799, just two months after the attack had begun, the British laid siege to Serangapatam.

In such a situation, the traitors told the enemy which part of the protective wall of the city was weak.  The

British targeted the same wall and a big crack was created there.  On the

night of May 3, 1799, Sultan's minister Mir Sadiq came out of the fortress and held a secret meeting with the British.  It was

determined that the British would storm the crack by noon the next day.

While Mir Sadiq must have already removed the army there.

Mir Sadiq went back and then the sun rose on the fourth of May.  The

astrologers told Sultan Tipu that today is a very inauspicious and inauspicious day for you.

You stay with the army and do charity.

But when the Sultan sat down to eat in the afternoon, he found out that his artillery commander Syed Ghaffar had been martyred.  On

hearing this, Tipu came out of the fort to inspect the position of the army.  When

the Sultan came out of the fort, the traitors locked the gates of the fort from inside so that Tipu could not return to the fort.  It is

said that the martyrdom of Syed Ghaffar also took place under a conspiracy.

So that on hearing this news, the Sultan came out of the fort in excitement.

Thus, this whole action was also a big drama.

However, whatever the reason, the Sultan had now come out of the fort.  On

the other hand, Mir Sadiq and Purnia had withdrawn the army from the crack in the wall under the pretext of paying them.  Now the field was empty.  The

English army started entering through this crack.

Sultan tried to enter the fort to regroup his army.

But alas, the fort guards prevented the owner from entering.

At this point the Sultan decided to fight the British one last time - the

Sultan was accompanied by a handful of soldiers.  He took a gun from a servant and started firing at the British.  A

handful of his comrades also fought to the death.  But soon these last loyalists began to fall one by one.

Sultan himself was shot and injured.

An employee said, Sir, tell the British who you are, they will respect you.

But then Tipu spoke the words that became immortal in history.

He said that a day's life of a lion is better than a hundred years of a jackal's life.  The

Mysore lion continued to fight until he fell down helpless.

The British did not know at the time that the man fighting outside the fort was Tipu Sultan -

when the Sultan fell, a greedy Englishman proceeded to remove the diamond belt from the Sultan's waist,

but the Sultan was still alive.

He blew off the leg of an English soldier with a sword blow.  The

British turned around and fired a shot which hit Sultan Tipu in the head.

Thus Sultan Tipu was martyred.

But by then the news had spread in the fort that Mir Sadiq and Purnia had tricked the army away from the crack.

When this news spread, the soldiers were enraged.  They shot and killed Mir Sadiq.

But by then it was too late.  The

English army had occupied the city and the body of the Sultan of Mysore was lying at the gate of the fort.

Tipu Shaheed was buried in Serangapatam by the British with full military honours.  At the

time of martyrdom, Tipu was twenty-two years old, so he was also given a salute of twenty-two guns.

Sixty-nine years after Tipu's martyrdom, the British flag was flying all over India.

Thus, the words of the British officer who saw Tipu Sultan's body and said that now India is ours came true.

Tipu's family was sent to Calcutta by the British.

Descendants of Tipu worked hard in this city for two hundred years.

In 2009, the Indian government finally got the idea to restore Tipu's property by restoring his royal status.

Today, both Hindus and Muslims visit Tipu Sultan's shrine.

Serangapatam is included in the Indian state of Karnataka.

And Tipu Sultan's birthday is officially celebrated in the state.

However, the BJP and hard-line Hindu organizations oppose it.  There have beenprotests against the celebration of Tipu's birthday.

However, the fact remains that Tipu Sultan is still considered a great hero of the subcontinent.