Page 81 - All About History - Issue 52-17

The Tiger of Mysore
Mysore’s relationship with the
French began in Haider Ali’s reign
John Zoffany’s painting of
Tipu Sultan inside the Daria
Daulat Bagh in 1780
independent territories. Haider and Tipu rose from
nondescript social origins to head a powerful state
through the exercise of extraordinary military,
political and administrative acumen. If Haider
only undermined the ‘legitimate‘ authority of the
Mysore Wodeyar or King, Tipu finally reduced
him to a non-entity. Rather than depend on the
creation of an aristocracy, local or foreign, in
imitation not only of the Mughals but also of the
lesser powers of the Deccan who scorned their
lowly origins of the Mysore rulers, Tipu developed
the framework of a bureaucratic state. State
functionaries performed the task of governance
in a more decentralised way, from Patels and
Shanbogues to Amils and Asophs, from village
level leaders to district level heads.
Tipu was certainly an absolutist ruler. He strove
to change and alter not just the economy and
administration, but also the habits and culture
of those who came under his rule in Mysore and
beyond. The folk ballads of Mysore, or ‘lavanies’,
remember the man for his many prohibitions that
intended to produce a more ‘civilised’ people.
Tobacco and liquor were prohibited in Mysore, and
attempts made to ban prostitution and trafficking.
and employed European workmen in his factories Tipu sought to bring temples, mosques,
and establishments. In addition to his ports and chattrams (feeding houses) and dargahs (tombs of
currency mints, and his efforts to introduce a saints) under a new bureaucratic regime to reduce
banking corporation that included some welfarist corruption and mismanagement, but also to garner
measures, he recognised the importance of resources for his war economy. Shocked by the
diplomatic and commercial contacts with Turkey polyandry that was practiced in Coorg, and the
and France, to which he sent embassies. bare-breastedness of the people of Malabar, both
For Tipu, the state was “the chief merchant regions over which he won control, he ordered
of his dominions.” 30 factories were established that these practices be stopped and the women
in Mysore, and 17 elsewhere. He instituted a be covered. And in addition to introducing new
state monopoly of precious commodities, such weights and measures, Tipu Sultan inaugurated his
as sandalwood, pepper, cardamom, elephants rule in 1784 with a completely new calendar.
and timber. Once the sultan had fallen, the
British thought it fit to continue most of these Pious Muslim, Jihadi
monopolies. Tipu, a man before his time, realised
that without enormous economic reorganisation, or tyrant?
he could neither run his war machine, nor ensure Tipu, himself named after Sufi saint Tipu Mastan
the tranquillity and prosperity of his people. And Auliya, to whom his parents prayed for a son and
despite his indifferently successful experiments,
this is what Edward Moor wrote in his A Narrative This map shows the territory
lost by Tipu Sultan (purple)
of the Operations of Captain Little’s Detachment: to the British (red) after the
“When a person travelling through a strange Third Anglo-Mysore War
country finds it well cultivated, populous with
industrious inhabitants, cities newly founded,
commerce extending, towns increasing and
everything flourishing so as to indicate happiness,
he will naturally conclude it to be under a form of
government congenial to the minds of the people.
This is a picture of Tippoo’s country, and this our
conclusion respecting its government.”
An absolute ruler
In the 18th century, the Mughal Empire was
already in terminal decline, and the rise of
successor states showed that those with
energy, will and ambition could carve out new,
81