The tiger of Mysore

Tipu Sultan: 1750-1799

Tipu Sultan, also known as ‘The tiger of Mysore’, was the first son of Haider Ali by his second wife, Fatima or Fakr-un-nissa. He ruled the kingdom of Mysore from the time of his fathers’ death in 1782 until his own demise in 1799. Tipu was a learned man and an able soldier. He was reputed to be good poet. He was also a strongly religious man. He was a noted linguist, patriot and a freedom fighter. He built a church, the first in Mysore, at the request of the French. He helped his father Haider Ali defeat the British in the second Mysore war, and negotiated the Treaty of Mangalore with them. He died defending his capita Srirangapatna, on May 4,1799.

His rule:
His army largely consisted of Hindus- Hindus like Poornia, Naniah, Kumarswamy and Krishna Rao(commander-in-chief of Tipus army) served under him and held high positions in the administration. In short, Tipu was an enlightened ruler, the sheet-anchor of whose state policy was the well-being of a his subjects irrespective of caste, creed or class. The serious blows that Tipu inflicted on the British in the First and second Mysore Wars affected their reputation as an invincible power. Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam, the President of India, once called Tipu the innovator of the words first war rocket.

Behind.’Tiger of Mysore’

He was called the ‘The tiger of Mysore’ as there is a native story behind this. Once Tipu was hunting in the forest with a French friend and suddenly he met a tiger face to face, but at that very instant his gun did not work and his dagger fell on the ground as tiger jumped on him. He then tried to reach the dagger, which was lying on the ground, and with the help of the dagger he killed the tiger, so henceforth he was called the ‘The tiger of Mysore’. His flag colour was the tiger replica. Tipu was also very fond of innovation. Aexender Beatson mentioned, for instance, that Tipu was passionately fond of new innovation. In his palace there was a great variety of curious swords, daggers, fusils, pistols and blunderbusses; some were of exquisite workmanship, mounted with gold, or silver, and beautifully inlaid and ornamented with tigers’ heads and stripes, or with Persian and Arabic verses.

Descendants

Tipu’s family were sent to Calcutta by the British. Noor Inayat Khan is said to be one of Tipu’s descendants, who died in France.