Advice of Tipu Sultan - 1
Translation and Commentary of Ghazal by Dr Sir Muhammad Iqbal
By Dr Basheer Ahmed Khan
Garden Grove, CA
Haider Ali, father of Tipu Sultan, was a loyal soldier in the cavalry of Maharaja of Mysore who used to undertake serious missions on behalf of Maharaja. That gave him a good understanding of the strength and weaknesses of the Raj. He was also alive to the situation in the country where British, French and Portuguese were vying with one another to colonize India.
While the Portuguese had established their colony in Goa on the West Coast of India, the French were established in Pondicherry on the East Coast way down in the south. East India Company had flown its flag in Calcutta for the King of England and had taken control of all the Royals, Nawabs and Maharajas of India and was eying on Karnataka to complete its colonization. As this was going on the Maharajas of Mysore from Wadiyar family were engaged in fine arts and philosophy in the luxury of their lives leaving the statecraft to the bureaucrats who were hobnobbing with the East India Company.
Finding the Wadiyar family unable to prevent the state of Karnataka from slipping into the hands of the greatest colonial power, Haidar Ali with other likeminded officials established his own sultanate in Sri Rangapatnam to keep Karnataka safe. To keep his Sultanate safe from the surprise attacks of the British, and the remnants of Wadiyar’s supporters, he shifted the capital from Mysore to Sri Rangapatnam which is about 10 miles East of Mysore. He chose this place because it was a strategically located Island between the two tributaries of River Cauvery before it united at Sangama. He built a fort to fortify the city and ensure its safety.
Tipu Sultan was the second of the two sons of Haidar Ali and was born in 1752. Haidar Ali groomed the elder son to be a warrior like him. By giving religious education under the guidance of Sufi saints he groomed the younger son Tipu Sultan to be a religious guide and a conscience-bearer for his elder brother. Unfortunately, the elder son died of some disease and Tipu had to assume both responsibilities. Scrolls engraved in white marble on the gates of KRS dam speak aloud about the Sufi nature of Tipu Sultan. This dam was planned by Tipu Sultan but completed later by the doyen of civil engineering, Sir M Visvesvaraya the PM of Maharaja of Mysore, Sri Krishna Raj Wadiyar.
Haidar Ali and Tipu Sultan were brave honest men. Their bravery, nay, chivalry is evident from the historic battles they fought on several fronts. Their honesty, simplicity, and integrity are evident from the fact that they ruled over a great and resourceful land from a throne which was a huge wooden chair with no gold or diamonds adorning it. Nor was there any modicum of a roof over it to give it a semblance of a throne so that it was easy for them to carry it to the battle front from where he ruled most of the time.
Bravery and honesty alone are not enough to succeed for a ruler, intelligence is also important. When bravery and honesty of David collaborated with the intelligence of Solomon the mission of liberation of Hebrew was achieved. Once the intelligence of Solomon lost the company of David the Hebrew became the subjects of Romans who were the offshoot of Egyptian Pharaohs. It is an unfortunate fact of history that evil intelligent people have always been successful in enlisting the support of honest brave men to loot the masses while the real intelligent people are busy managing and multiplying this loot.
Haidar Ali loathed the Portuguese as they were brutal both in warfare and business and had gained the reputation of crusaders more than colonizers. He did not like the British East India Company that had usurped a lot of Indian land under the guise of business. His natural choice was the French. He had established contacts with Napoleon to strengthen ties between France and his Sultanate to fight the British. He got some valuable assistance in the form of men and material from France. He sent his sun Tipu to conquer the area in the East to link his Sultanate with the French Colony of Pondicherry to consolidate these ties. He also sent an expedition to the north to save his sultanate from the onslaught of the British who had influence on the Nizamate of Hyderabad and the Marathas. As Tipu was engaged in these expeditions he was shell shocked to get the news of the death of his father, Haidar Ali. Fearing loss of control of his capital, Tipu Sultan returned to Srirangapatnam after abandoning his mission.
In the interim period between the death of Haidar Ali and Tipu’s return to Sri Rangapatnam some disloyal cabinet members had established contacts with the British to save themselves and their people in anticipation of the demise of the Sultanate. Notable amongst them was his Muslim general Mir Sadiq and his Prime Minister Purnayya. The British forces had also reached the fort and were a constant threat that was becoming more ominous with internal treachery. When Tipu Sultan learned that Mir Sadiq had opened the gates of the Fort to let the British Army in, he decided to fight the British rather than surrender. Thus, he lived his life according to his own saying that “a day of life as a lion is better than a hundred years of life of a jackal”. He was martyred fighting the British near the fort in 1799. Thus, he lived a brief and eventful life of 47 years. There is a stone erected at this place where he fell to indicate that his body was found there. Even though the British were controlling most of India, it was not until the death of Tipu Sultan that they were sure of consolidating their imperial control. With Tipu’s death, the Viceroy declared: “Now India is ours.”
When I was in 6th grade we were taken on a field trip to Sri Rangapatnam which is about ten miles from the city of Mysore where the Mausoleum of Tipu Sultan is located. It was a memorable trip which triggered my interest in nature, travel and history as a young curious boy. I have written about it in my article “Travel Ban and GPS in Pakistan Link dated Feb 3, 2017. When our headmaster Mr Ghulam Mustafa asked the mausoleum tour guide, who was an old man from amongst the descendants of relatives of Tipu Sultan, about the visit of Allama Iqbal, he told us about the visit. His description was so graphic, detailed and dramatic that I still remember it vividly.
He informed that Allama Iqbal prayed the Asar Salath in the mosque on the west side of the mausoleum and came to join the Fatheha on the graves of Tipu Sultan, his father Haidar Ali and his mother who lie side by side in the mausoleum. Then Allama toured the graveyard surrounding the mausoleum to learn about the other relatives of Tipu Sultan buried there. Allama Iqbal then sat close to the mesh screen engraved in black marble and set in the wall on the south side of the mausoleum. He sat silent for a while, then he started to cry silently with tears flowing down his cheeks, and there were some sobs also which he could not control. The old guide was also in tears as he recalled the visit.
He further said: Allama opened his little bag and took out his scribbling pad and wrote something on it and left along with his companions who had accompanied him. It is this poem that I am translating now with a great sense of humility and responsibility.
Visit of Allama Iqbal to the grave of Tipu Sultan was to reflect upon the history of this great man and this great place which he already knew well and to write about the lesson of his life and legacy to console himself and benefit others who aspire to be leaders. It is said that visit to graves of such people with a consciousness of their life and their mission enthuses the visitor with thoughts and resolves which are not possible to get by reading their biographies in the comfort of ones sitting room or library. That is why people undergo a great deal of hardships to visit such places.
With all this historical background of Mysore and Tipu Sultan when Dr Sir Muhammad Iqbal visited the grave of Tipu Sultan the following lessons from Tipu Sultan’s life resonated in him to write a poem titled “Sultan Tipu Ki Wasiyat”. It can be read in Zarbay Kaleem collection of his Kulliyat.
This is not a verbatim translation because most of the idiom and statements in this ghazal have a historical context which has all been explained in the life of Dr. Iqbal and the life of Tipu Sultan and in the commentary on the ghazal in the third part of this article. (Continued next week)
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