History: Major Defeats of Tipu Sultan in Hands of Maratha Empire

If you use Twitter, you can choose to follow a very good account called Indian History Pictures whose handle is: https://twitter.com/IndiaHistorypic

Recently, it posted two tweets which show the timeline of major defeats of Tipu Sultan, majorly in the hands of the great Marathas:

While most of us consider Tipu Sultan as a brave warrior, to consider him invincible and a greater force than other Indian kingdoms of the time is not true. Maratha warriors at that time ruled over most parts of India and defeated Tipu many times; as indicated in above image. 

- Rahul Tiwary

[History] Tipu Sultan and His Failed International Alliances

Our mind looks for simplicity in this complex world and sometimes it gets it in the form of simple rules. "Enemy of an enemy is a friend" is one such phrase which need not be always true. Should a mouse think that since snake is a cat's enemy, it could be its friend? Since we know that Tipu Sultan fought and died fighting the British, who were our enemy, so Tipu must be our friend. Does not look like; and here is why.

In those days, so many European predators (btw, all are held examples of great 'culture' today) were looking for preys in unexploited and rich lands like India. Apart from the British, the French were in India, so were the Dutch, the Portuguese, the Spanish, and even the Denmark-Norwegians. Today, we think of only "the British" as our colonizers but the fact remains that when it all started, no one knew which one or ones of these would win over other rivals and establish strong and everlasting colony over dead bodies of our ancestors. From European pack of wolves, Tipu Sultan chose a wrong ally in the French and wrong enemy in the British and that is what made all the difference in our history. But even though he relied in Hindu astrology, he could know it for sure at that time.

Tipu Sultan was an ally of France in its fight against the British. The French trained Tipu's army in India which went on wars against other Indian kingdoms like Marathas, Malabar and Travancore. The French Revolution broke out during that period and hence France could not further its military expeditions. Tipu also tried to woo Napoleon Bonaparte to create a grand international alliance to defeat the British.

Apart from the French, Tipu also sent letters to Zaman Shah Durrani of Afghanistan to help him defeat the British and the Marathas. But Afghans had received an attack from the Persians at that time and could not help. In 1787, Tipu Sultan sent an embassy to the Ottoman Turkey's capital Istanbul, requesting an alliance and asking for troops and military experts. The Ottomans were already in crisis and could not help apart from sending gifts to Tipu. Tipu kept writing to them until he died in 1799. Tipu made several contacts with Mohammad Ali Khan, ruler of the Zand Dynasty in Persia. Tipu Sultan also maintained correspondence with Hamad bin Said, the ruler of the Sultanate of Oman. If Tipu was calling on these foreign states, it was on the basis of his common cause of establishing an "Islamic state" in India.

Tipu Sultan wanted it all - and all only for himself. He wanted to establish an Islamic State of India. His forced religious conversions in Kerala and other South Indian places is legendary and brought him the title of "Aurangzeb of South India" by many. It was only because he did not get all the international alliances he desperately sought for; and because the Marathas and the British were already great forces by then; that he could not fulfill his dreams. But I am sure about one thing - if he got his way we would be much worse off today.

You may also like to read more on Tipu Sultan:

Tipu Sultan’s Religious Intolerance And Forced Conversions

How Tipu Sultan Treated The Royal Family of Wodeyars in Mysore

[History] Tipu Sultan’s Religious Intolerance And Forced Conversions

All kings have to fight wars in defense and sometimes have to make attacks on others due to valid reasons. Sometimes they even have to kill people to “send a message” or to “make an example”. As a novelist said, “all is fair in war”. But what makes Tipu Sultan gain a monster like reputation is not his mass murders but his religious fanaticism and acts which can very well be compared with what today’s IS is doing in Iraq and Syria:

- Malabar: Captivity of Hindu Nairs: In his repeated attacks on Malabar, Tipu devastated the warrior Nairs with his atrocities and religious intolerance. During Hyder Ali's rule, the Hindu Nairs who strongly adhered to martial tradition were prohibited from carrying arms and privileges were given to anybody who converted to Islam. But Tipu approved of forced conversions. Nairs, men women and children, were captivated and forcefully converted; their men were forcefully circumcised. The captivity of Nairs ended when Nair troops from Travancore, with the help of the East India Company defeated Tipu in the Third Anglo-Mysore War. It is estimated that out of the 30,000 Nairs put to captivity only a few hundred returned to Malabar alive.

- Coorg: Captivity of Kodava Hindus / Coorgis at Seringapatam: Tipu seized men, women and children and carried them captive to Seringapatam. Actual number varies from 70000 to 80000 in historical accounts. Prisoners were forcefully converted to Islam and styled Ahmadis. The young men were all forcibly circumcised and incorporated into the Ahmedy Corps - to be trained to make a regiment of army.

- Mangalore: After Tipu's Mangalore campaign, over 60,000 Syrian Christians were taken captive, coerced to convert and brutalized. Young women were forcibly made wives of the Muslims. According to a historical account from a survivor of the captivity, if a person who had escaped from Seringapatam was found, the punishment under the orders of Tipu was the cutting off of the ears, nose, the feet and one hand.

- Calicut (Kozhikode): In 1788, Tipu ordered his governor in Calicut Sher Khan to begin the process of converting Hindus to Islam, and in July of that year, 200 Brahmins were forcibly converted.

On the handle of the sword presented by Tipu to Marquess Wellesley was the following inscription: Oh Lord, make him victorious, who promoteth the faith of Muhammad. Confound him, who refuseth the faith of Muhammad; and withhold us from those who are so inclined from the true faith.

Tipu’s own letters demonstrate this zeal. For instance:

- Tipu wrote to Burduz Zamaun Khan on 19 January 1790: “Don’t you know I have achieved a great victory recently in Malabar and over four lakh Hindus were converted to Islam?”

- Tipu wrote to Syed Abdul Dulai on 18 January 1790: “With the grace of Prophet Muhammad and Allah, almost all Hindus in Calicut are now converted to Islam. Only a few are still not converted on the borders of Cochin State. I am determined to convert them also very soon. I consider this as Jehad to achieve that object.”

Tipu is still hated in many parts of Kerala, Coorg and Mangalore, where many remember his bigotry.

You may also like to read more on Tipu Sultan:

How Tipu Sultan Treated The Royal Family of Wodeyars in Mysore

Tipu Sultan and His Failed International Alliances

[History] How Tipu Sultan Treated The Royal Family of Wodeyars in Mysore

A few years back I visited Mysore. As anyone would, I loved the Mysore Palace – It is indeed the most beautiful one I have ever seen - and also saw the museum. Got to know about the royal Wodeyar family for the first time. Now I just happened to find an article about how Tipu Sultan dealt with them. It is disturbing:

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Tipu, a bundle of contradictions, is an enigma and a modern historian’s biggest puzzle. His ascent to power was accidental. Tipu's father Haidar Ali was bought as a slave by the Maharaja of Mysore. But in a series of fascinating events where the Machiavellian Haidar ran with the hare and hunted with the hounds, he ended up overthrowing his own benefactor and usurping the throne of Mysore from the Wodeyars in 1761. Haidar was shrewd enough not to dispense with the Wodeyars who had been ruling Hindu-majority Mysore since 1399.

So the Maharaja became a titular puppet—orders would go in his name, trophies of war were submitted to his feet, yet everyone knew where the real power rested. Tipu, though, had no reason for such diplomacy and dispensed with this appendage. He assumed complete sovereignty over Mysore, which became Sultanat-e-Khudadad, or the Kingdom of God (Khuda), and he, its Sultan. The members of the erstwhile royal family, led by the matriarch Rani Lakshmi Ammanni, who was carrying on low-intensity conspiracies against the usurpers, were put under house arrest. Tipu’s insecurities are evident in his actions, as also his writings, assiduously jotted down in his own hand in a diary. The names of places were Islamized, new coins minted, Persian replaced Kannada as the court language, old palaces, forts and bridges were destroyed and reconstructed in the same place—all in an obvious attempt to obliterate every trace of Wodeyar rule and stamp his own.

When Tipu was unable to capture the pradhans of Rani Lakshmi Ammanni, who were carrying on negotiations on her behalf with the British, he ordered the public hanging of around 700 members of the Pradhan community, the Mandyam Iyengars—men, women and children—in broad daylight, and that too on Diwali. So much so that to this day some Mandyam Iyengars observe Diwali as a day of mourning.

You may also like to read more on Tipu Sultan:

Tipu Sultan’s Religious Intolerance And Forced Conversions

Tipu Sultan and His Failed International Alliances