Teepo sultan
Saranga Patam is a city in southern India, about 2200 km from Delhi.
A strange activity is going on in a room built on a minaret of this city.
A ten-year-old boy is diligently cutting window bars with the help of a sand.
And sitting next to him, his five-year-old brother is watching him with fear in his eyes.
The older boy cut the bars of the window, then tied a rope to the window and hung it down.
He put his brother on his back and went down by the rope.
Soon there was a commotion all over the tunnel
Tipu and Karim, the two captive sons of rebel General Haider Ali, have escaped.
Yes, it was Fateh Ali Tipu, the little brave man who cut the bars.
And now this little Sultan was hiding with his brother from the enemies.
The reason was that Tipu's father Haider Ali who was the commander of the Raja of Mysore.
He had been declared a rebel due to the conspiracies of his opponents.
Now he had fled the city. Her sons were imprisoned
But they also ran away. During this time the festival of Holi came.
Haider Ali's sympathizers painted Tipu and his brother in the colors of Holi.
Tipu also wore a lion mask on his face.
Then the two brothers left the city without anyone noticing and went to meet their father.
Within a year of this highly filmy escape, Tipu's father Haider Ali had become the ruler of Mysore and Tipu the Crown Prince.
But Haider Ali's 21-year rule passed in a battle with the enemies.
And when Tipu ascended the throne after Haider Ali's death in 1782, the same problems passed to him.
Messier's rule was not a flower bed but a sage of thorns.
It was certain that Tipu, no matter how capable a ruler, could have averted the destruction of his empire.
What was the reason for this?
This was due to the extremely difficult geography of the state of Mysore.
The provinces that are now called the Indian states of Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Kerala
Many of them were in the state of Mysore.
It looked like a big state.
But the problem with it was that its three most dangerous enemies were sitting on its borders.
In some eastern areas and in the south there was the East India Company, the British government.
Whose military base in southern India was Madras, now called Chennai.
To the east along with the British territory was the state of Hyderabad Deccan, which is now part of Andhra Pradesh.
To the north were the Marhats, whose empire stretched from the borders of Mysore to Delhi, and to the west was the sea.
In other words, Tipu could not get any help from either side and he could not back down.
And there was another big problem with this dangerous geography.
And that Mysore was one of the richest states in India.
The production of spices and the textile industry were flourishing here.
The income of the citizens of Mysore was five times higher than that of the rest of India.
So why didn't the resin of Mysore's opponents drip.
The only purpose of the enemies on all three sides was to capture Mysore.
Therefore, the question of peace or agreement did not arise from them.
Thus, the state of Mysore was in a weak position in dangerous geography and difficult conditions.
But Tipu was not one to give up.
He was ready for both peace and war.
He also made peace treaties with his enemies.
But all these agreements failed and Tipu Sultan had to fight in the end.
Many times in these wars he bit the teeth of his enemies so much that people started calling him Mysore Lion.
The first battle in this series was the one he inherited from his father.
That is, the war against the British in which the East India Company invaded Mysore.
This was the same war during which Tipu Sultan's father Haider Ali died.
If Tipu had been replaced by someone else, his father's death and the war against the enemy would have paralyzed his nerves and this state would have ended at once.
But as soon as Tipu ascended the throne, he crushed one English army after another.
He then forced the besieged British army in the fort of Bangalore to surrender.
Never before in the history of the subcontinent had the British suffered such a humiliating defeat.
In such a situation, the wounded English army asked for peace.
If Tipu had continued this war, he could have captured the British headquarters in southern India, Madras.
In that case, at least English domination from southern India would have ended.
But Tipu acted kindly and made peace.
In 1784, he made a truce with the British.
With this victory, Tipu became the hero of the people of India while mourning was left in Britain.
The British decided that Tipu would have to be removed if India was to be occupied.
And for that, they started plotting.
One of Tipu's weaknesses came in handy in these conspiracies.
The weakness was that Tipu did not know the art of keeping the courtiers happy.
After he became the ruler, he gave place to many new people in his court, which angered the old courtiers.
Among them were Finance Minister Mir Sadiq and Prime Minister Purnia.
These were the people who helped Tipu to ascend the throne.
But now they felt that Tipu Sultan was ignoring them.
Tipu also punished his colleagues for his principledness.
An example of this is when General Muhammad Ali Kamidan, Tipu's most expert and loyalist, sheltered an opponent of Tipu.
So Tipu did not act expediently.
He arrested Kamidan. Kamidan committed suicide in prison.
This incident changed many of the Sultan's loyalists.
Thus began a series of court conspiracies that led to the possibility of the British losing ground.
Now they were meeting traitors from Tipu's court.
And the buyer of this treacherous factory was the new Governor General from East India.
The new Governor General of the East India Company in India was Lord Cornwallis.
This man was very cunning and knew the art of weakening the enemy at home rather than defeating him on the battlefield.
He sent several spies to the state of Tipu, one of whom was named Syed Imam.
* This man reached Saranga Putam, the capital of Tipu, where he trained angry and greedy courtiers with the support of the East India Company.
But the conspiracy was caught in time.
Tipu Sultan took strong notice of this.
Traitors and Syed Imam were sentenced to death.
But this did not stop the production of traitors from the treacherous factory. On the contrary, their numbers began to increase.
Despite buying Tipu's courtiers, Lord Cornwallis was afraid to compete with Tipu alone.
It also brought together the Nizam of Hyderabad and the Marhats.
To start the war, he used the excuse that Tipu had started a war against Raja Trancover, an ally of the British.
Although this war was not started by Tipu but by the Raja himself
And after Tipu's retaliation, the matter was over.
But Cornwallis justified the war by breaking the previous peace treaty.
And invaded Mysore.
First he captured the main city of Mysore, Bangalore.
Tipu Sultan counterattacked and besieged it in Bangalore.
But when he was about to make a decisive attack
So the traitors in Tipu's army passed the details of the attack to Lord Cornwallis.
Thanks to which he managed to escape.
Not only did he escape Tipu's attack, but he also made a long detour to Sarangapatam, the capital of Tipu Sultan.
But at a distance of fifteen kilometers from Saranga Patam, his courage paid off.
The reason was that his army was tired.
Tipu's raids also cut off the British supply line.
Both Cornwallis' allies, the Marhats and the Nizam, had promised to send troops to help the British in this war.
Neither of them reached out for help.
Thus Cornwallis failed to besiege Sarangapatam.
His soldiers were dying of hunger and disease.
Lord Cornwallis realized
Under these circumstances, if he attacked Tipu's army, he would have to taste a humiliating defeat.
So he gave up the idea of further fighting and fled to Bangalore with his army.
This was the occasion where Tipu Sultan made the biggest mistake of his life.
The mistake that can easily get your claim denied is to fail.
Mysore and then the entire subcontinent were enslaved as a result of this mistake.
Cornwallis escaped and soon left Marhats and Nizam.
Then the three allies, the British, the Marhats, and the Nizam, with great preparation, again broke through the tunnel.
They laid siege to Saranga Patam.
Tipu now realizes that he has made an irreparable mistake by allowing Cornwallis to escape.
But now there was no point in repenting.
Because the siege was getting tougher with each passing day.
In such a situation, Tipu gave up and asked for peace.
In return for the peace, Lord Cornwallis received from Tipu half of Mysore's kingdom and a ransom of Rs. 80 million.
Thus, due to the treachery and war mistakes of his relatives, the power of Tipu Sultan was hit hard
That he could never recover after that.
The defeat at the hands of Lord Cornwallis had two immediate effects on Tipu and his empire.
One is that Tipu Sultan became obsessed with taking revenge on the British.
Tipu decided that he would sleep on the floor, not on the bed, until he defeated the British, and he did.
He also made a toy watch in which a lion was choking a British soldier.
And this watch is still preserved in the Museum of London.
Tipu used to look at this watch and think of revenge tactics against the enemy.
The second effect of the war was on Tipu's loyalists, who realized that Tipu and his kingdom no longer had a future.
So they began to distance themselves from the Sultan.
This may come as a surprise to many.
But the fact is that in those days it was common for independent states to be established and broken in India.
Therefore, the only condition for loyalty to a state was that it be strong
And people there saw their future secure.
But when the state weakened, its loyalists changed parties and joined a powerful group or state.
This was the bitter truth of India at that time which eventually enslaved the whole region to the British.
It is also important to mention here that Tipu had twelve sons and five daughters.
But not one of his sons had the ability to be Tipu's best successor in these dire circumstances.
Therefore, the ruler of a state which is advancing towards old age has lost half of its territory.
Surrounded by powerful enemies and without the hope of a strong successor, his long-term survival could only be a miracle.
But Tipu was hoping for a miracle.
And he hoped for France's worst enemy, France, which had been Tipu's ally in the past.
Tipu also sent his ambassador to French General Napoleon Bonaparte and asked for help.
Napoleon also wrote a reply letter to Tipu, but this letter was intercepted by British spies on the way.
It was rumored in Britain and India that Napoleon was going to India to help Tipu.
When Napoleon set out to invade Egypt with an army in 1798, Britain thought that Napoleon was going to India.
Even when Napoleon occupied Egypt, the British had the same idea.
Maybe he will try to reach India by land.
But when the British navy defeated France, the company government in India breathed a sigh of relief.
But since at that time it took months for a piece of news to reach overseas,
Therefore, these rumors have been circulating in Britain and India for a long time
That Napoleon came to Tipu's aid now or then.
Tipu was now surrounded by enemies on all sides and the possibility of help from France was gone.
This was the time when his enemies had to decide when, where and how to hunt the Mysore lion.
Meanwhile, the East India Company recalled Lord Cornwallis and made Lord Wellesley Governor-General.
The man was a friend of the then British Prime Minister.
Both the friends wanted complete occupation of India and in their view Tipu Sultan was the biggest obstacle.
There was a constant fear in the minds of the British that if France reached out to help Tipu.
Then India will get out of their hands.
And that fear was not unfounded.
Because just 18 years before the last war against Tipu, France had intervened in the United States, another British colony.
He helped George Washington, the hero of the American War of Independence.
Due to which Britain was defeated and America became independent.
Britain could no longer afford a new George Washington in the form of Tipu in India by allowing France to intervene again.
So Lord Wellesley arrived in India with the intention of waging war against Tipu.
And as soon as he arrived, he started preparing for war.
Fresh troops from Britain also began to arrive to help him.
But Lord Wellesley did not need any major military action against Tipu.
The traitors whom Lord Cornwallis had prepared were now with Wellsley.
Wellesley had agreed with Tipu's traitors that he would not allow the Mysore army to compete with the British anywhere.
The commanders of most of the forts in Mysore also assured that they would surrender as soon as the attack began.
That is, the outcome of this war was already fixed.
So confident of victory, Wellsley jumped into the fray with his allies.
To break the peace treaty, he announced that Tipu was conspiring with the French government against the government.
That is why war is necessary.
In February 1799, the British army and its allies attacked Mysore from all sides.
Tipu sent troops to counter the invading British, but the commanders wasted every opportunity to attack the enemy.
Seeing this style of their commanders, Mysore soldiers used to ask why the attack was not being carried out when the enemy was under attack.
But they were silenced by the answer that this was the Sultan's strategy.
But in reality the traitors had planned to tie the hands and feet of the Mysore lion and throw it in front of the enemies.
But the Lion of Mysore still did not give up.
On one occasion, he himself came out with an army and delivered sixes to British General Harris.
Lord Wellsley also acknowledged in a report that Tipu was an expert general.
But Tipu's traitorous officers were also helping the British here.
They deliberately brought Tipu's troops under enemy artillery.
Thus, Tipu suffered heavy losses and retreated to a defensive position at Saranga Patam.
In April 1799, just two months after the attack began, the British laid siege to Sarangapatam.
In such a situation, the traitors told the enemy which part of the city's protective wall was weak.
The British hit the same wall and there was a big crack.
On the night of May 3, 1799, Mir Sadiq, the Sultan's minister, came out of the wall and held a secret meeting with the British.
It was decided that the British would attack the crack by noon the next day.
While Mir Sadiq has already removed the army there.
Mir Sadiq went back and then the sun of May 4 rose.
The astrologers said to Sultan Tipu, "Today is a very bad day for you."
Stay with the army and do charity.
But when the Sultan sat down to eat in the afternoon, he found out that Syed Ghaffar, the commander of his artillery, had been martyred.
Upon hearing this, Tipu came out of the fort to assess the position of the army.
When the Sultan came out of the fort, the traitors locked the gates of the fort from inside so that Tipu could not return to the fort.
It is said that Syed Ghaffar was martyred under a conspiracy.
So on hearing this news, Sultan rushed out of the fort in excitement.
So this whole operation was a big drama.
Whatever the reason, the Sultan had now come out of the fort.
On the other hand, Mir Sadiq and Purnia had removed the army from the crack under the pretext of paying salaries. Now the field was empty.
The British army began to enter through this gap.
The Sultan tried to enter the fort to regroup his army.
But alas, the fort's guards prevented the owner from entering.
On this occasion, the Sultan decided to shake hands with the British for the last time.
There were a handful of soldiers with the Sultan. He took a gun from a servant and started firing at the British.
A handful of his comrades also fought to the death. But soon these last loyalists began to fall one by one.
The Sultan himself was shot and wounded.
An employee said, "Tell the British who you are and they will respect you."
But then Tipu said the words that have become immortal in history.
He said that a day's life of a lion is better than a hundred years of life of a fox.
The Mysore Lion fought until it fell helplessly.
The British did not know at the time that the man fighting outside the fort was Tipu Sultan.
When the Sultan fell, a greedy Englishman stepped forward to take off the diamond belt tied around the Sultan's waist.
But the Sultan was still alive.
He blew the leg of a British soldier with a sword.
The British fired back, hitting Sultan Tipu in the head.
Thus Sultan Tipu was martyred.
But by then the news had spread in the fort that Mir Sadiq and Purnia had deceitfully removed the army from the crack.
The soldiers were furious when the news spread. They shot and killed Mir Sadiq.
But by then it was too late.
The British army had captured the city and the body of the Sultan of Mysore was lying at the entrance of the fort.
Tipu Shaheed was buried by the British at Sarangapatam with full military honors.
Tipu was forty-nine years old at the time of his martyrdom, so he was saluted with forty-nine cannons.
Fifty-five years after Tipu's martyrdom, the British flag was flying all over India.
Thus the words of the British officer who saw the body of Tipu Sultan came true and said that now India is ours.
The British had sent Tipu's family to Calcutta.
Tipu's descendants worked in the city for two hundred years.
In 2000, the Indian government finally came up with the idea of restoring his royal status and returning Tipu's property.
Today, both Hindus and Muslims visit the shrine of Tipu Sultan.
Sarangapatam is part of the Indian state of Karnataka.
And Tipu Sultan's birthday is celebrated at the official level in the state.
Although the BJP and hardline Hindu organizations oppose it.
There have been protests against Tipu's birthday.
However, the fact remains that Tipu Sultan is still considered the great hero of the subcontinent.
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