‘To call Tipu Sultan a freedom fighter and liberator of India is stretching it a bit much’: Vikram Sampath

Historian Vikram Sampath (Courtesy: X | @vikramsampath)

Tipu Sultan has been an enigma. He is adored by some, who regard him as a freedom fighter. His saga of courage and audacity against the British has inspired many. But there are equally a large number of people who see him as an Islamist fanatic. For them, Tipu Sultan unleashed jihad against the Hindu populace, especially in the Malabar region of Kerala. Amid all this, historian Vikram Sampath, with his latest book on the ‘Tiger of Mysore’ attempts to decode the Tipu Sultan riddle. The following is an email interview with him-

Q. Vikram, you have written a brilliant biography of Tipu Sultan. What inspired you to write this book?

VS: Quite ironically, I owe my literary career and journey in historiography to Tipu Sultan. I was a boy of 12-13 when after being deeply disturbed by the unfair and bad portrayal of the Mysore royal family in the popular TV serial those days, The Sword of Tipu Sultan, I had embarked on a self-initiated journey of research on the history of Mysore. This lasted for almost a decade and led to my first book Splendours of Royal Mysore that was published in 2008. In that, Haidar Ali and his son Tipu Sultan, who were usurpers of the Mysore throne, were merely a segment in the 600-year long history of the Wodeyars of Mysore. But this era always intrigued me as a lot of unmaking of India happened during this extremely chaotic 18th Century. Mysore under the father and son was also the last bastion of real resistance against the British, for whom it took more than 30 years to subjugate the province, and after four bitterly contested Anglo-Mysore Wars. I always wanted to zoom into this period, with of course special emphasis on Mysore’s role in this theatre of chaos. The book therefore has been in my mind for more than 12-13 years now.

Q. In the Prologue you write how your mother once forbade you to write anything about Tipu Sultan. Can you please tell us that story?

VS: Though the idea of this book had been brewing for long, I desisted from going ahead with it because of a vow I had made to my mother then. Following the release of that book when I was barely 26-27 years old, I made several public appearances, gave talks and wrote articles for newspapers. In one such public event when I was merely quoting letters of Tipu Sultan to his military commanders to convert people in Malabar and Coorg and destroy their places of worship, a fracas ensued. The talk was called off midway and someone in the audience even thrust a threat letter to my harried father. Following an article of mine, protesters even gathered outside the newspaper office in the heart of Bangalore where I live and burnt my effigy. Seeing all this, my mother made me promise to her that I would never talk about Tipu in public. I kept my word to her, till she was alive. We sadly lost her in 2018. Now that she is no more, I thought this long-germinated idea needs to find its culmination. Also, since 2015 Tipu Sultan has become a political football between the Congress and the BJP in my state ever since the Congress government started the Tipu Jayanthi to commemorate his birth anniversary, causing angst to several communities. The BJP did its share of myth-making as a counter. In all of this, I felt that it was truly a historian’s burden, nay responsibility to set the record straight, bring the facts on the table and present the unvarnished truth of Tipu Sultan, as he was, with warts and all. I didn’t expect it to be such a bulky book, but I think the amount of material was so expansive and copious that it was tough to contain it into a smaller version!

Q. Tipu Sultan is quite an intriguing personality. Some see him as a freedom fighter, while others regard him as an Islamist fanatic. You, as a historian, where do you position him?

VS: That he was a brave soldier who fought valiantly and has a visceral hatred for the British is without doubt. That it took the British three decades and more to subjugate Mysore speaks volumes of the bravery and resistance that both Haidar and Tipu offered. But to call him the first freedom fighter and liberator of India etc. is stretching it a bit much. He was fighting to save his honour, his life and kingdom, just as all other contemporaries. And in fighting the British, he was enlisting French support. We know that the French were no less imperialist and had as much colonial ambitions as the British. So, if Tipu had won, Mysore or India might have well become a French colony. Also, he appealed to the religious sentiments of the ummah or Muslim brotherhood to invade India and create a pan-Islamic Caliphate or Sultanate of the country. These are evidenced from his own letters to the Afghan ruler Zaman Shah or the Shah of Persia, the Ottoman Caliph and others.

About his fanaticism and religious bigotry too there can be little doubt. These are again evidenced from his own letters, the register of his dreams, his horrifying manifesto where he pledges to annihilate all infidels and so on. Being a highly educated man, he wrote copiously and from his own writings when we see a religious zealot, I don’t know if there is any scope for further ambiguity there. His horrific crimes against the Christians of Mangalore and Canara, the Mandyam Iyengars in Mysore, the Kodavas in Coorg and the Nairs in Malabar still resonate an inter-generational trauma and a genetic wound for several of these communities. Oral history and documentation too have captured this horrific memory that these communities hold even now. These cannot be brushed away as mere collateral damage in wars or politically inspired crimes. That the intent was specific targeting of communities based on their identity and the choice of important festivals of these communities (Naraka Chaturdashi for the Iyengars and Ash Wednesday for the Christians) to begin the atrocities speaks a lot about the intent.

Q. There are many historians who show records of Tipu Sultan also making endowments to Hindu temples. How can the person who you say was a hardcore fanatic do that?

VS: In the book I have deduced with evidence that several of these grants were possibly carryovers of his father’s reign. Haidar Ali despite being a cruel despot and a usurper, did not have much care for faith. He was steeped in realpolitik and pragmatism and knew that any overt Islamization of a Hindu majority kingdom, whose Hindu king he had dispossessed, would not be taken well. To perpetuate his hold and rule, he was fairly accommodative. But Tipu would have none of it. He Islamized Mysore by calling it Sarkar-e-Khudadad or God-given government, replaced Kannada and Marathi in the court with Persian and renamed cities and towns with Islamic names. But both father and son wrote reverential letters to the Shankaracharya in Sringeri and I have quoted those extensively. In the 3rd Anglo-Mysore War when the irregulars in the invading Maratha army, known as pindaries, vandalized the mutt in Sringeri, the Peshwa was deeply apologetic and wanted to recompense for it by rebuilding the mutt. At that time, it could also possibly be realpolitik where Tipu forbade the Shankaracharya from taking the Peshwa’s help and that instead he would undertake this. Also, in a life filled with so much uncertainty, war, skirmishes, Tipu was deeply superstitious and came increasingly under the spell of astrologers and soothsayers. Many of the grants and aid also come as part of the rituals and remedies that several of these astrologers suggested to him for his longevity and victory.

Q. Please tell us about the dreams of Tipu Sultan. He had written quite vividly about that.

VS: During the search of Tipu’s inner apartments after the fall of the fort, William Kirkpatrick discovered a curious manuscript in his escritoire, written ostensibly in the Sultan’s own handwriting, as a register of his dreams. Tipu seems to have had this penchant to jot down his dreams in Persian, as and when he saw them vividly enough to recall them. They cover his entire reign (1782-1799) almost and date from 1785 to 1798. The majority of these dreams deal with wars and battles, with him defeating the infidels (on several occasions addressed as Nazarenes) and cutting them down to size. Some point to his reverence for the Prophet, and other Islamic saints and Sufis who keep appearing to shower their benedictions on him. In some, clearly, he records them immediately after he has woken up, as the entry ends with phrases like ‘at this point, I woke up and wrote this down’ and so on. Tipu himself has also interpreted these dreams in some cases, naturally in a manner that was favourable to him in the battle or a difficult situation that he was currently facing at that time. Psychologically speaking, it is by analysing one’s dreams that one gets to know the common themes and worries that preoccupy one’s mind. Clearly, in Tipu’s dreams, the battle scenes, the infidels, cows, his principal enemies and his wish to see them emasculated or them becoming feminine (implying powerless) seem to have occupied his subconscious mind all the time.

Q. In fact, in the book, Tipu Sultan comes across as inferior as a ruler as well as a general to his father Hyder Ali. Can you please elaborate on that?

VS: Yes, Haidar was a man who typifies what a meteoric rise was all about--- a truly rags to riches story where in just 12 years he manages to overthrow the very benefactor who had saved his life and usurp his throne. He does this through sheer Machiavellian moves, cold strategy and self-interest. Tipu did not have to work hard like his father to get power—it was handed down on a platter. But his hubris, arrogance, megalomania and a bloated self-image ensured he squandered it all away in such a short span. Mark Wilks talks of how from his earliest youth Tipu was considered of inferior order by his father. His cruel and deceitful nature was loathed by Haidar. Tipu used to hunt the bulls which the Hindus considered sacred and whose sacrifice his father had banned in Mysore. For this and another occasion when he tried to convert an English prisoner, Haidar had even put him in solitary confinement and forbade his courtiers too to even speak with his son. On several occasions he would predict that this worthless successor would lose the empire that he had built so painstakingly. During the Chinkurli Battle against the Marathas in 1771, when Tipu did not conform to his instructions Haidar got livid and in a drunken rage, seized a long cane from one of his attendants and in full public view flogged Tipu mercilessly. Tipu was aghast at this ill treatment, dashed his turban and sword to the ground and declared in the name of Allah and the Prophet that his father could fight this battle alone and he would not follow him. An agreement too found in Tipu’s room dated roughly 1770 and with his signature, had 8 articles. He promised not to do anything without the pleasure and permission of his father; not commit theft or fraud for which he could be strangled; if guilty of prevarication or misrepresentations or deceit then he could be strangled; won’t receive gifts or take anything from anyone forcibly else nose cut off; From petty crimes to serious offences, it was obvious that the father thought so low of his moral character in order to force him to sign such a contract.

Q. You in fact accuse Tipu Sultan of making administrative appointments based on religion. Many people were placed on important administrative positions just because they were Muslims, including in revenue services. It hampered administration badly. Please elaborate.

VS: After his shameful defeat in the 3rd Anglo-Mysore War in 1791 where he lost half his kingdom, had to pay a huge war indemnity and also mortgage his two sons as hostages, Tipu became increasingly suspicious of Hindus, especially Brahmins, who he thought had betrayed him. Renowned scholar, M.H. Gopal actually writes that after 1792, Tipu placed faithful Muslims in several important offices like the asofdaries and amildaries. Of the diwans or provincial revenue heads in 1792 only one was a Hindu. Of 65 asofs and deputy asofs in 1797–98 not one was a non-Muslim and almost all the principal mustaddis even were Muslim, whole of the 26 Mysore civil and military officers captured by the British in 1792 and demanded back by Tipu, six only were Hindus and even they were petty clerks. The communalization of offices in the government had begun before 1792 but was intensified after the third Anglo–Mysore War . This led to a fall of revenue and maladministration as even illiterate people or those who could scarcely read and write were put on important posts, only because of their faith. Thus, by the time of his tragic death in 1799 there were hardly any confidantes left who were willing to stand by him or defend the fort of Srirangapatna.

Q. There are many historians who say that Tipu Sultan was villainised by the British. How do you respond to that?

VS: The British certainly gloated over their hard-won success in Srirangapatna and the fall of Tipu and his fort in 1799 was immortalized back in London through paintings, plays, prose, poetry and in novels. But come to think of it, in none of the independent wars that he fought with the British without his father’s leadership, Tipu ever won. The first two Anglo-Mysore wars which Haidar led and Tipu undoubtedly participated with great vigour, scripted unprecedented successes. Yet, the British did not villainize Haidar. The British Commissioner of Mysore later, Bowring states that despite the terror he inspired, Haidar’s name was always mentioned in Mysore with respect, if not with admiration. While the cruelties are forgotten, his prowess and success have an abiding place in the memory of his people. British chroniclers like Wilks are full of praise for Haidar for not committing a single political mistake during his wars against the British and his extremely satisfied and disciplined troops. So, it’s quite ironic that the man who beat them black and blue, the British eulogized and the man whom they killed in war they demonized! While exaggeration was surely there in all accounts, there can certainly be no smoke without fire.

Q. The Wodeyars of Mysore have been projected as villains in the entire Tipu Sultan saga. You question this narrative. Please tell us more on that.

VS: Not as much as villains but weak rulers. That had an element of truth as the polity was weak enough for Haidar to snatch the kingdom from them. But those who call the Wodeyars as stooges of the British with whom the Wodeyar family and its imprisoned queen Maharani Lakshmi Ammanni negotiated with to restore the throne to them after Tipu’s fall, is being too harsh. As mentioned earlier, had Tipu won it would have been a French-ruled Mysore; with the Wodeyars, the British gained ground. Some of the later Wodeyars of the 19th and 20th centuries like Chamarajendra X, Nalwadi Krishnaraja and Jayachamaraja Wodeyar’s contributions to the building of a modern, progressive and prosperous Karnataka can simply not be denied.

Q. Savarkar, Tipu Sultan... what next for you now?
VS: I don’t know which topic will come looking for me now! But for now, I am also busy with a new institution that I have created---the Foundation for Indian Historical and Cultural Research (FIHCR) to foster new scholarship in Indian historiography based on robust research and adherence to facts. We’ve instituted a Fellowship in Sir Jadunath Sarkar’s name and chosen 9 Fellows who will produce a manuscript in a year; collaborated with universities like Nalanda to produce a book-series; trying to make history interesting, exciting and accessible to children and young adults; and also implement digital humanities to archive, preserve, translate and document our intangible heritage. So, indeed my plate is overflowing for now and I am not complaining—just immensely grateful to the Universe for facilitating me to do what I am so passionate about!