Tipu Sultan- The Saga of Mysore's Interregnum (1760-1799)

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VIKRAM SAMPATH.

a Bangalore-based historian, is the author of ten acclaimed books, including: Splendours of Royal Mysore: The Untold Story of the Wodeyars. His two- volume biography, Savarkar. Echoes from a Forgotten Past and Savarkar: A Contested Legacy, and his latest books, Bravehearts of Bharat: Vignettes from Indian History and Waiting for Shiva: Unearthing the Truth of Kashi's Gyan Vapi, have all gone on to become national bestsellers. In 2021, Vikram was elected a fellow of the prestigious Royal Historical Society. He was awarded the Sahitya Akademi's first Yuva Puraskar in English literature and the ARSC International Award for excellence in historical research in New York for his book My Name Is Gaubar Jaan: The Life and Times of a Musician. Vikram was among four writers and artists selected as writers-in-residence at the Rashtrapati Bhavan in 2015. He has a doctorate in history and music from the University of Queensland, Australia, and was a senior research fellow at the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, New Delhi. He was also a fellow of the Aspen Global Leadership Network, an Eisenhower Global Fellow and a visiting fellow at the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin. Currently, he is an adjunct senior fellow at Monash University, Australia. Vikram is the founder of the Archive of Indian Music (AIM) and the Foundation for Indian Historical and Cultural Research (FIHCR).

I have read a great deal of history on the 'legend' Tipu Sultan since my childhood. I am happy that I got an opportunity to read one more book on Tipu Sultan authored by historian Dr Vikram Sampath and to write the foreword for the same. Before I elaborate, I can only say that among the many books that I have read on the subject, this book is exceptional, for it is an exhaustive, intense and well-researched book with factual accounts and a captivating narrative style.

As I was reading this book, my memories went back to the articles I had written in a leading Kannada daily long ago when controversy erupted in Karnataka over the celebration of Tipu Sultan's birth anniversary (jayanthi). These articles give a critical view of Tipu Sultan's rule and legacy, covering religious persecution, forcible conversion and its impact on our culture.

During 1969-70, the Central government under Indira Gandhi, with a mission to integrate the nation through education, had established a committee under the chairmanship of G. Parthasarathy, a diplomat who was close to the Nehru-Gandhi family. At that time, I was a Reader in Philosophy of Education at NCERT and was selected as part of the five-member committee. In the first meeting, Mr Parthasarathy explained the purpose of the committee in his typical diplomatic polite language: 'It is our duty to remove thorns from the minds of the growing children, which will shape up as barriers for the national integration. Such thorns are mostly seen in history lessons. We can even find them occasionally in the lessons of language, social science and history. We have to weed out such thorns.

After the storming of the fort of Srirangapatna in May 1799, which led to the annihilation of the most dreaded foe of the British- Tipu Sultan of Mysore the victors found a rather curious toy in his chambers. The Musical Tiger', as it was called, was a near life- size figure of a tiger, carved and painted from wood, preying on a prostrate English soldier in uniform. It was designed in such a manner that by the turning of a handle, the animal's growls would mix with the shrieks of its distressed and dying victim. Tipu's favourite toy is supposed to have kept him busy in his waking hours and possibly fuelled and deepened his unbridled hatred for the British. The conquerors were amused by this contraption and shipped it to London, where it cast a spell on everyone who saw it after it was first displayed in the East India Company's museum in 1808. Once the Company was dissolved and its assets were all transferred to the British Crown, the toy seems to have shifted hands. For some strange reason, it was found to have made its way to the India Office Library. Tipu Sultan's restless spirit seemed to plague his foes even after his death. In the middle of an afternoon, when scholars were engrossed in their research, the contraption would suddenly start operating by itself, scaring the wits out of everyone in the room.¹ As the librarian A.J. Arberry recounted in The Library of the India Office: A Historical Sketch:

But we almost forget our old friend, the tiger. Who has not seen and, what is more, heard him at the old India House? And who, having suffered under his unearthly sounds, can ever dismiss him from his memory? It seems that this horrid creature-we mean, of course the figure representing it was found among the treasures of Tippoo Sultan when he fell at the siege of Seringapatam [sic] these shrieks and growls [of the victim and tiger respectively) were the constant plague of the student, busy at work in the library of the old India House, when the Leadenhall Street public, unremittingly, it appears, were bent on keeping up the performance of this barbarous machine. No doubt that a number of perverse lections have crept into the editions of our oriental works through the shock which the tiger caused to the nerves of the readers taken unawares. Luckily he is now removed from the library, but what is also lucky, a kind of fate has deprived him of his handle, and stopped up, we are happy to think, some of his internal organs; or, as an ignorant visitor would say, he is out of repair, and we do sincerely hope that he will remain so, to be seen and to be admired, if necessary, but to be heard no more.

After it fell into disrepair, it was restored in a manner that left the apparatus without its auditory mechanism, but it remained a passive exhibit, admired by awestruck visitors. Like its owner, the toy too had been tamed and permanently silenced. It was among the items that were allotted to the Indian section of the South Kensington Museum, now called the Victoria and Albert Museum. One can see this muted toy in display even now at the V&A.