Tipu Sultan, the
Tiger of Mysore, or Tippoo Sahib as the British called him born as Sultan Fateh
Ali Sahab Tipu (20th Nov 1750-4th May 1799) England considered him a vicious
tyrant, while modern Indian nationalists have hailed him as a freedom fighter,
but both views are the products of wishful thinking. A small, plump man with a
round face and black moustache, who wore clothes glittering with jewels, Tipu
was vigorous, forceful, brave, warlike and cruel; a devout Muslim ruling a
mainly Hindu population. He had inherited the throne from his father Haidar
Ali, who had driven out the previous Hindu dynasty.
To this day, Tipu Sultan is paying the price of disturbing the status quo of Kerala’s caste hierarchy and for liberating Dalit women from its oppressive clutches.
“It is better to live for one day like a
tiger than drag out an existence like a sheep for a hundred years”
..........last words on the Battle of Srirangapatna
He had a special
reverence for tigers. He kept six in his fortress-city of Seringapatam (now
Sriringapatna), 200 miles west of Madras, where his throne was shaped and
striped like a tiger. His elite troops wore tiger badges, the hilt of his sword
was in the form of a snarling tiger, and his favourite toy was a mechanical
tiger straddling a British officer while the victim squealed in terror (it is
now in the Victoria & Albert Museum). Tipu was determined to build a rich
and powerful state and he was feared with reason by his subjects, his
neighbours and other Indian princes, who joined forces with the British against
him. He tried to build up an alliance to drive the British – ‘those oppressors
of the human race’ – out of India and intrigued with the French in Paris and
Mauritius. In dealings with them Tipu improbably donned a cap of liberty and expressed
his sympathy with French Revolutionary ideals.
Dr APJ Abdul Kalam, the
former President of India, in his Tipu Sultan Shaheed Memorial Lecture in
Bangalore (30 November 1991), called Tipu Sultan the innovator of the world's
first war rocket. Two of these rockets, captured by the British at
Srirangapatna, were displayed in the Royal Artillery Museum in
London. According to historian Dr Dulari Qureshi Tipu
Sultan was a fierce warrior king and was so quick in his movement that it
seemed to the enemy that he was fighting on many fronts at the same time. Tipu
managed to subdue all the petty kingdoms in the south.
Tipu Sultan's father had expanded
on Mysore's use of rocketry, making critical innovations in the rockets
themselves and the military logistics of their use.He deployed as many as 1,200
specialised troops in his army to operate rocket launchers. These men were
skilled in operating the weapons and were trained to launch their rockets at an
angle calculated from the diameter of the cylinder and the distance to the
target. The rockets had twin side sharpened blades mounted on them, and when
fired en masse, spun and wreaked significant damage against a large
army. Tipu greatly expanded the use of rockets after Hyder's death, deploying
as many as 5,000 rocketeers at a time.The rockets
deployed by Tipu during the Battle of Pollilur were much more
advanced than those the British East India Company had previously seen, chiefly
because of the use of iron tubes for holding the propellant; this enabled
higher thrust and longer range for the missiles (up to 2 km range)
During the climaxtic battle at Srirangapatna in 1799, British
shells struck a magazine containing rockets, causing it to explode and send a
towering cloud of black smoke with cascades of exploding white light rising up
from the battlements. After Tipu's defeat in the fourth war the British
captured a number of the Mysorean rockets. These became influential in British
rocket development, inspiring the Congreve rocket, which was soon put into use.
In the year 1801 several Mysorian rockets were send to
England in there Royal Arsenal Lab These
Congreve Rockets held the England to fight in Nepoleonic Wars till the Last
Battle of Nepolean in Battle of Waterloo 1812 which was won by British.
He had made ally with French and was
very interested in European technology, science and ethics where in former
times women of the lower castes were forbidden to cover the upper part of the
body in the presence of their superiors. It is related that the Queen of
Attangadi ordered the breasts of a woman who had offended against this usage to
be cut off.” Bowring adds Tipu passed an edict stopping this practise.
But
a look at other sources regarding this and also the practise of polyandry
reveals that these practises that seem a social evil today were widely
practised and enforced in Kerala then, particularly by Nairs. Any attempt to
disrupt the same by anyone must have come with huge consequences, as Mysorean
armies particularly the ones under Tipu may have realised during their rule
there.To this day, Tipu Sultan is paying the price of disturbing the status quo of Kerala’s caste hierarchy and for liberating Dalit women from its oppressive clutches.
THAT WHY TIPU SULTAN (MYSORE TIGER) IS HATED BY ORTHODOX HINDUS??????
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