Signs from Allah: History, Science and Faith in Islam
86. Resistance and Reform - Tippu Sultan of Mysore - 1
By Professor Nazeer Ahmed
Concord, CA
The year 1799 marks a watershed on the Islamic calendar. It was the year that Napoleon landed his troops in Egypt. It was also the year that the British stormed the Fort of Srirangapatam, and the curtain fell on Islamic rule in India. The first event, the landing of French troops in Ottoman Egypt, confirmed the superiority of European arms and organization over the Ottomans. The second, the fall of Mysore, completed the political implosion of India and the consolidation of the British Empire. British arms did not conquer India. It fell apart through its own internal divisions and was handed over to the British by individual traitors.
Tippu Sultan, the ruler of Mysore in South India was a contemporary of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, Voltaire, Louis XVI, George III and Napoleon Bonaparte. In more ways than one, the paths of these historical figures crossed those of Tippu. Indeed, as is evident from the letters written by Thomas Jefferson, John Adams and Benjamin Franklin during this period, the military successes of Tippu Sultan and his father Hyder Ali during the second Anglo-Mysore war (1780-82) were an inspiration to the Americans in their war of independence (1776-82). It is an irony of history that the triumph of George Washington and the independence of America had an impact on the military fortunes of Tippu Sultan in far-away Mysore. After the British General Cornwallis surrendered to George Washington at the Battle of Yorktown (1781), he returned to England and was hired by the East India Company. It was Cornwallis who organized a sustained and determined political and military offensive against Tippu Sultan that finally contained the Sultan’s explosive energies.
Tippu’s life spanned a period when new ideas and new institutions transformed the landscape of Europe and North America, while Asia recoiled from within. It was the age of the Industrial Revolution. Starting with the invention of the steam engine in 1758, Europe forged ahead in consolidating its technological superiority over the rest of the world. It was the age of the American Revolution (1776) and the eloquent assertion of the rights of man by Thomas Jefferson. It was also the age of the French Revolution (1789) and the abolition of oppressive feudalism in continental Europe. Tippu’s existential vision reached out to the ideas in these momentous changes. But he lived in an environment that had lost its social, political and spiritual vitality, and he was done-in by his own people, while America and Europe moved forward to the modern age.
Tippu, son of Hyder Ali, was born in 1750 at Devanahalli and was named after Tippu Mastan Awliya of Arcot, to whose tomb his mother had made a pilgrimage. Tippu’s forefather Shaykh Wali Muhammed, a Sufi Shaykh of the Chishtiya order from the Punjab, was ordered south by his teacher to serve the area of Gulbarga near the modern city of Bangalore, where the tomb of Shaykh Gaysu Daraz (d. 1410) is located. Shaykh Wali’s grandson Fath Muhammed served, for a while, as a commander in the armies of the Nawab of Arcot during the reign of Aurangzeb (d. 1707). Fath Muhammed migrated further inland, and found himself in the service of the Nawab of Sira, where he married the daughter of the Shaykh of Tanjore. While living in the village of Devanahalli, a son was born to the couple, and he was named Muhammed Ali. This lad, growing up in a soldier’s family, showed his mettle early in his career, and soon found himself as a platoon commander in the service of the Raja of Mysore.
The political landscape of India changed while Fath Muhammed was in the service of the Nawab of Sira. Between 1680 and 1690, Moghul armies under Emperor Aurangzeb swept through southern India and extended their sway almost to the tip of the peninsula. Following the death of Aurangzeb (1707), there emerged no successor capable of holding the vast empire together. The provincial governors, while paying lip service to the lordship of the Emperor, asserted their independence. In 1722, Nizam ul Mulk, Asif Jah I, was sent to Golkunda (modern Hyderabad) as the governor of the southern provinces. The Nizam skillfully manipulated his affairs so that the governorship of the area became hereditary, and his descendants came to be known as the Nizams of Hyderabad. His official title was the subedar (provincial governor) of Deccan. This province was rich and vast, comprising an area larger than England, and included all territories contiguous to the modern metropolitan cities of Hyderabad, Bangalore and Madras. It had an income of over 200 million rupees, which was roughly a fifth of the entire income of the Moghul Empire.
For administrative purposes, the suba (province) of Hyderabad was divided into two sub-districts, each one governed by a nawab (the literal meaning of the word in Farsi is a “deputy”. The English corrupted it to nabob.). The first sub-district was Sira, located 60 miles west of modern Bangalore. Sira was the administrative capital of Mysore and the coastal areas of Malabar, including the rich trading centers of Cochin and Mangalore. The other sub-district was Arcot, located 200 miles southeast of Hyderabad, which administered the coastal areas on the east coast included in modern Telangana and Madras.
Meanwhile, a strong power had emerged in western India. The Marathas, arising out of the hills around Poona, were welded into an effective fighting force by Shivaji. By 1720, they were in effective control of west central India and were elbowing their way east into the Nizam’s territories, pushing their way north towards the heartland of the Moghul territories. Like the Nizams of Hyderabad, the Marathas too evolved a hereditary line of succession called the Peshwas.
The political disintegration of the Moghul Empire was an opportunity for the European powers. The British East India Company, set up in 1600 in the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, had established its “factories” in three areas: Madras (1640), Bombay (1649) and Calcutta (1670). The French, following on the heels of the English, had their own Compagnie des Indes Orientales, and set up their “factory” at Pondicherry on the Bay of Bengal, about 100 miles south of Madras. The global rivalry between the French and the British, which had intense moments in West Africa and North America, spilled over into the Indian Ocean and India.
The first opportunity for European intervention in Indian affairs came from Hyderabad. Following the death of Asif Jah I, disagreements arose among his descendants, and open warfare erupted. In 1749, it pitted Nasir Jung, second son of the Nizam, against Muzaffar Jung, a grandson. At about the same time, a struggle arose for the Nawabship of Arcot (modern Tamil Nadu) between Muhammed Ali and Chanda Saheb. These fateful struggles dragged in the French, the British and the Mysoreans. The British sided with Nasir Jung and Muhammad Ali, while the French championed Muzaffar Jung and Chanda Saheb. Since Mysore was a part of the suba of Hyderabad, Nasir Jung requisitioned a contingent of 15,000 troops from Mysore. Hyder Ali was a part of this contingent. He distinguished himself in combat, and upon his return, was made a regional commander by the Raja of Mysore.
The contests in Hyderabad and Arcot ended in favor of the British. The French Governor Dupleix was outwitted by the British Governor Robert Clive, and returned to France a disheartened man. A few years later, the British gained a decisive advantage in India as a result of their victory over the Nawab of Bengal at the Battle of Plassey (1757). The Anglo-French wars, fought on and off for twenty years on the global stage, came to an end with the Treaty of Paris (1763) by which the French washed their hands of India and essentially gave up their struggle in North America.
(The author is Director, World Organization for Resource Development and Education, Washington, DC; Director, American Institute of Islamic History and Culture, CA; Member, State Knowledge Commission, Bangalore; and Chairman, Delixus Group)
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