Part 1 of 2
IN 1778, King Louis XVI of France declared war on Britain, and London responded by driving the colonial French out of the port of Mahé in Mysore, a kingdom in southwest India dating back to the turn of the fifteenth century.
This trespass incensed Hyder Ali, Mysore’s brilliant military commander whose hero status had already relegated King Krishnaraja Wodeyar II to a mere figurehead. Hyder’s army swept east towards Madras, the city founded by the British in 1639, abducting thousands of children and ensuring years of famine by torching fields and granaries – Tanjore did not fully recover for over a century* – and a series of British commanders was barely able to contain him.
After Hyder died in 1782, his son Tipu, egged on by Britain’s colonial rivals in France and Holland, continued Hyder’s military campaigns and brutal policies. The brunt of them was borne by the people of Kodagu, who were hunted down, forcibly converted to Islam, and conscripted into Tipu’s army.*
Tanjore is known today as Thanjavur.
The Kodagu or Haleri Kingdom became the Coorg Province in 1834, then the Coorg State in 1950, and was merged with Mysore in 1956. It lies today in the Kodagu administrative region of India.
Précis
Hyder Ali was a military commander in the Indian state of Mysore, who in 1778 launched a campaign against Britain’s colonial presence and those Indian rulers who supported it. Hyder died undefeated in 1782, and his son Tipu followed his father’s example with ruthless gusto, ensuring loyalty by forcible conversion to Islam, and a steady supply of soldiers by conscription. (58 / 60 words)
Part Two
TIPU’S frantic efforts to win colonial backing from the French, Dutch and Ottoman Turks all ended in disappointment. Nonetheless, for nearly two decades he enjoyed remarkable military success against the British and their Indian allies. Sometimes those allies fought alongside Tipu; the threat of Tipu made London more cooperative, and though he ran Mysore as an Islamic stronghold Tipu could be a benefactor of his Hindu neighbours when diplomacy demanded.
Between them, Tipu and his father fought four stubborn wars against the British, but General George Harris eventually defeated Tipu at Seringapatam in 1799.*
Seeking stability and reconciliation, Harris interviewed and was profoundly impressed by Tipu’s Hindu right-hand man, Purniya. He reappointed Purniya as Mysore’s chief administrator, and made him tutor to the young king, Krishnaraja Wodeyar III. Purniya was as gifted in peacetime as Tipu had been in war, and Mysore flourished thereafter as one of British India’s most progressive, peaceful and cultured states.
Today, Seringapatam is known as Srirangapatna.
Précis
Tipu’s campaigns against the British in India, which he conducted singlehandedly after other colonial powers declined to help him, continued for seventeen years before he was defeated by General George Harris at Seringapatam in 1799. Harris did however let Tipu’s trusted administrator Purniya remain in post, a decision which helped Mysore become one of the best-governed states in the Raj. (59 / 60 words)