Tipu Sultan

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Tipu Sultan bigraphy, stories - Ruler of the Kingdom of Mysore

Tipu Sultan : biography

20 November 1750 – 4 May 1799

Tipu Sultan (20 November 1750  – 4 May 1799), also known as the Tiger of Mysore, was the ruler of the Kingdom of Mysore from 1782 to 1799, and a scholar, soldier and poet. Tipu was the eldest son of Sultan Hyder Ali of Mysore and his wife Fatima Fakhr-un-Nisa, a daughter of Mir Muin-ud-Din, governor of Kadapa. Tipu promoted a more widespread use of Hindustani language in southern India. Tipu introduced a number of administrative innovations, including the introduction of a new coinage, new Mauludi lunisolar calendar and new land revenue system, and initiated the growth of Mysore silk industry. Tipu expanded the iron-cased Mysorean rockets which he deployed in his resistance against military advances of the British.

During Tipu’s childhood, his father rose to take power in Mysore, and upon his father’s death in 1782, Tipu succeeded to a large kingdom bordered by the Krishna River in the north, the Eastern Ghats in the east and the Arabian Sea in the west. Tipu was a devout Muslim while the majority of his subjects were Hindus. At the request of the French, he built a church, the first in Mysore. Tipu was fluent in Kannada, Hindustani, Persian, Arabic, English and French. In alliance with the French in their struggle with the British, and in Mysore’s struggles with other surrounding powers, both Tipu and his father used their French trained army against the Marathas, Sira and rulers of Malabar, Coorg, Bednore, Carnatic and Travancore. He won important victories against the British in the Second Anglo-Mysore War, and negotiated the 1784 Treaty of Mangalore with them after his father Hyder Ali died due to cancer in 1782 December in the midst of the second Mysore war.

Tipu engaged in expansionist attacks against his neighbours. His treatment of his conquered non-Muslim subjects and British prisoners of war is controversial. He remained an implacable enemy of the British East India Company, bringing them into renewed conflict with an attack on British-allied Travancore in 1789. In the Third Anglo-Mysore War, Tipu was forced into a humiliating treaty, losing a number of previously conquered territories, including Malabar and Mangalore. He sent embassies to foreign states, including the Ottoman Empire, Afghanistan and France, in an attempt to rally opposition to the British. In the Fourth Anglo-Mysore War, the combined forces of the British East India Company and the Nizam of Hyderabad defeated Tipu and he was killed on 4 May 1799, while defending his fort of Srirangapatna.

Legacy

Tipu Sultan’s prestigious legacy was aggrandized soon after his death by the Salar Jung the Vizier of the Nizam of Hyderabad in the year 1839. He is revered as a hero and a freedom fighter in India and Pakistan. Pakistan Navy ships of PNS Tippu Sultan are also named after him.

Family

  1. Shahzada Hyder Ali Sultan (1771 – 30 July 1815)
  2. Shahzada Abdul Khaliq Sultan (1782 – 12 September 1806)
  3. Shahzada Muhi-ud-din Sultan (1782 – 30 September 1811)
  4. Shahzada Mu’izz-ud-din Sultan (1783 – 30 March 1818)
  5. Shahzada Mi’raj-ud-din Sultan (1784? – ?)
  6. Shahzada Mu’in-ud-din Sultan (1784? – ?)
  7. Shahzada Muhammad Yasin Sultan (1784 – 15 March 1849)
  8. Shahzada Muhammad Subhan Sultan (1785 – 27 September 1845)
  9. Shahzada Muhammad Shukrullah Sultan (1785 – 25 September 1837)
  10. Shahzada Sarwar-ud-din Sultan (1790 – 20 October 1833)
  11. Shahzada Muhammad Nizam-ud-din Sultan (1791 – 20 October 1791)
  12. Shahzada Muhammad Jamal-ud-din Sultan (1795 – 13 November 1842)
  13. Shahzada Munir-ud-din Sultan (1795 – 1 December 1837)
  14. His Highness Shahzada Sir Ghulam Muhammad Sultan Sahib, KCSI (March 1795 – 11 August 1872)
  15. Shahzada Ghulam Ahmad Sultan (1796 – 11 April 1824)
  16. Shahzada …………. Sultan (1797–1797)

Tipu Sultan’s family was sent to Calcutta by the British. A descendent of one of Tipu Sultan’s uncles Noor Inayat Khan was a British Special Operations Executive agent during the Second World War, murdered in the German Dachau concentration camp in 1944.