Tipu Sultan #3 - A Riotous History Of Mysore
Buying Bangalore For Rs. 3 Lakh, Campaigns to conquer Kengeri, Palace Intrigue
I expected to cover a lot more of Dr. Vikram Sampath’s book with this, but I got sidetracked AF with the story of the battles between Bijapur and Mysore all through the 17th century.
I’ve never thought of Bangalore ever being a theater of war. Ever. Like sure, there were factories manufacturing aircraft parts starting from WW2, but… I fell down laughing when I read “Ranadheera Kanteerava laughed a campaign to get back Kengeri” or “Kempegowda annexed Domlur”. It’s like saying “Dianne Feinstein laid siege to Bernal Heights”. It is real, I just never imagined being stuck in a traffic jam located in a former battlefield.
I have watched the 1960 Rajkumar movie titled Ranadheera Kanteerva, of course, but that was more about palace intrigues than about winning a bloody battle in Turuvekere.
{Side note: I rewatched this movie. It’s pretty epic. It has scenes that are entirely in Tamil, and some characters that speak only Malayalam, and there is no attempt to make it easier for the viewer, with subtitles or a character going “In Kannada, please!”. In 1960, you were just expected to be multilingual.}
It’s intriguing to me that places I take today for granted as my stomping grounds, as one town, one culture, weren’t so in the past, so I wanted to dig into this.
The Wodeyars
The story of the Wodeyar dynasty starts in 1399 with two brothers coming down to Mysore from Gujarat (or maybe they were from somewhere else and claimed to be Yaduvanshi, i.e. descended from the clan of Krishna, to boost their ruling creds later, Vikram Sampath doesn’t talk about this). A small principality had a cunning minister looking to usurp the kingdom for himself after the King’s death. Yaduraya and Krishnaraya defeated this minister’s machinations, married the King’s daughter, and ruled over the kingdom wisely and bravely, happily ever after.
In 1565, the Vijayanagar empire collapsed after the battle of Talikota. The Hindu vassal kingdoms either ended up declaring their independence or becoming vassals of the Bijapur Sultanate. Usually both, in turn, depending on relative ruler strength.
Raja Wodeyar declared his independence and established the Mysore kingdom in 1610 in the island city of Srirangapatna.
Srirangam, Srirangapatna… what?
I’d visit Srirangam, in southern Tamil Nadu, famous for its ancient temple to Sri Ranganathaswamy some summers. When asked “Where did you go for the holidays?” I’d say “Srirangam”, and be met with a “Srirangapatna? Near Mysore?”
I shouldn’t have been too annoyed. Both are islands in the Kaveri, dedicated to Sri Ranganatha. There are three island cities to go on a pilgrimage to, called the Triranga Darshana. Adi Ranga is the temple in Srirangapatna, Madhya Ranga is in Shivanasamudra. Antya Ranga is Srirangam.
The Mysore-Bijapur Wars
Vikram Sampath doesn’t talk too much about this, but this is what I get from Wikipedia. Corrections are extremely welcome.
Let me put up a map of all the states Mysore went to war with. Mysore and Srirangapatna are marked in Maroon. Marked in Red are the capitals of the principalities/kingdoms warring with Mysore. In blue are the battlefields mentioned in this section. Other relevant places are marked in yellow.
It starts with Bijapur commander Randaula Khan invading Mysore in 1638. He captured Sira and Tumkur. He laid siege to Bangalore and captured it, which was at that point a feudatory ruled by Kempegowda II. He gave Bangalore to Commander Shahaji Bhonsle (yes, this is Shivaji’s father). He then went on to siege Srirangapatna the next year, which ended with Ranadheera Kanteerava paying him tribute. He attacked Mysore again in 1640.
In 1646, Bijapur commander Mustafa Khan was fighting in Vellore, and on his way back to Bijapur, he decided to attack Mysore again, and this time they seemed prepared enough that they defeated him and sent him retreating.
This seems to have increased their confidence. Ranadheera Kanteerava conquered the Sathyamangalam forests from the Madurai Nayaks. Madurai was supported by Bijapur, and in this battle, the Dalavoy (commander-in-chief) Nanjarajendra brutally wounded Shahji and Afzal Khan at Periyapatna. [Side note: it’s funny now when you think about how Rajkumar, who played Ranadheera Kanteerava, was captured by Veerappan and held for 100+ days in this same Sathyamangalam forest).
Anyway, Mustafa Khan invaded Mysore with 60,000 troops. Dalavoy Nanjarajendra met him with 10,000 troops at Turuvekere near Tumkur. The Mysore forces, despite being outnumbered defeated the Bijapur army, though Nanjaradenra was killed in action.
Kanteerava then went on a campaign to capture Kengeri, Dharmapuri, Krishnagiri and a few other territories. The Bijapur forces with Shahaji Bhonsle decided to recapture these territories. Outnumbered and outfought, Kanteerava retreated to Krishnagiri. Shahaji sieged the fort, having Kanteerava escape and flee back to Mysore.
Subsequently, allies of Mysore were attacked and subdued by Bijapur, and by 1654, Mysore was paying tribute to Bijapur. This meant there was peace, and by now, Mysore had established itself as a formidable power.
His successor Kempadevaraja expanded the kingdom a little more . He was followed by Chikkadevaraja, who capitalized on this peace and built up a postal system, tax policy, bureaucracy, and other administrative reforms.
But now, the landscape was changing. Aurangzeb was expanding into the South. Shivaji was expanding his sphere of influence. Mysore successfully fended off attacks to its territory and sovereignity.
In 1685, Aurangzeb attacked Bijapur. If we remember from last week, this was the war that destroyed Haider Ali’s grandmother’s entire family and drove his grandfather to Kolar. The Sultanate was no more. Mysore could heave a sigh of relief and look to negotiate with the new rulers.
Given the Marathas were a common enemy at this time for both Mysore and the Mughals, Chikkadevaraya became a vassal of the Mughals, and negotiated territories.
Chikkadevaraya bought Bangalore from Aurangzeb for Rs. 300,000. What a steal! With present real estate prices, you won’t even get a carpet-sized piece of land for that much.
Phew, let’s take a breath and process all that.
So, all of Bangalore feels like home to me, from Hesarghatta to Kothnur, from Sunkadkatte to Whitefield, from Nelamangala to Koramangala. I’m sure most of us feel that way. Though I didn’t write about it here, how Kempegowda made Bangalore is even more insane to read - he started in Yelahanka and then waged wars to annex more territory - the forests of Domlur, Dasarahalli, and a few other areas, and built a fortified township there. Then, he acquired Ulsoor, Varthur, Jigani, and Kengeri.
It is really hard to imagine those areas as being “different”. Just look at how close they all are! Barely a day’s journey away by horse.
So many of the districts we don’t even consider far away now were under completely different rulers, and they were sites of large-scale battles with hundreds of thousands of men, horses, and elephants giving their lives. Battle of Turuvekere, like WTF. Laying siege to Krishnagiri for months on end. Launching a campaign to retrieve Kengeri.
If you think your drive to the airport in Devanahalli is long, think of Haider Ali, at barely 20, riding to Devanahalli from Srirangapatna, spending nine months besieging it, because the chief of Doddaballapur invaded it.
And sure, when I’d visit Madurai or Vellore, they’d feel different than home, but we’re the same country. And yeah, we experienced riots over Kaveri water sharing, but the Madurai Nayak warring with the Mysore Maharaja, spilling real blood, and spending real money on real cannons and gunpowder over territory feels unthinkable now.
But this makes me realize a very real thing - every square foot of real estate we take for granted we can buy with money, every inch of it, has had blood spilled over it. That this country is under one rule, and there is enough peace that it is hilarious to imagine Kempegowda getting stuck in traffic should he attempt to siege Domlur from Yelahanka, is nothing short of a miracle. It did not come to us easy, and we have to be cautious about it devolving into that kind of situation again.
“Weak Rulers”
After Chikkadevaraya’s death in 1724, we enter the no-man’s land of history textbooks called “Weak Rulers”. In every history chapter, we’d learn about two or three “great kings” of a dynasty. Then, the textbook would get into vague language about subsequent happenings and then say Weak Rulers. "Weak Rulers” was a prelude to the total collapse and decimation of the kingdom, after which a New Dynasty would be established.
But these Weak Rulers had the Mughal king’s protection, so there weren’t territory-seizing wars. But at this point, the Nizam of Hyderabad decided it was his job to collect taxes from Mysore, and would routinely attack the kingdom under the excuse of non-payment of levies. Mysore put up stiff resistance. Peshwa Baji Rao too attacked Mysore in 1726, and was surprised at the heavy firing in Srirangapatna, going as far as to call it “Beerangi-patna” (city of cannons).
Mysore came up with an ingenious way to ward off these attackers - buying them off. (No, this is not ingenious).
Rs. 10,000,000 was offered to the attackers of a combined attack from the Nawabs of Arcot, Cuddapah, Kurnool, Savanur, the Nayak of Ikkeri, and the Ghorpade of Gutti, for instance. It bought peace for a bit, but it dwindled the treasury.
A short note on Titles
Since we’re going to be talking about multiple kings with the same names in a short while, it bears to talk about different conventions.
In the English convention, kings and queens with the same names are styled as First, Second, Third and so on.
In Kannada, the first of a name seems to be prefixed with Dodda or Hiriya (elder). The next of the name is prefixed with Chikka (younger).
So Chikkadevaraya is styled in English as Devaraja Wodeyar II. His father, referred to in Kannada as Doddadevaraya, is Devaraja Wodeyar I.
The second of a name is also styled “Immadi”. The third is prefixed with “Mommadi”, and the fourth is “Nalvadi”.
“Weak Rulers” and Too-Powerful Bureaucrats
Let’s look at why rulers get ‘weak’ and what happens then.
The movie Ranadheera Kanteerava has this type of palace intrigue as its main conflict - the King of Mysore is more inclined to live a life of leisure, while his Sarvadhikari and Dalavoy run riot. His mother, the dowager Queen, is angry with him for this state of affairs. He takes more of an interest in statecraft, but the powerful ministers poison him dead. They bring his cousin, Kanteerava, thinking they can control him, but he outwits all their plans, and becomes the King of the people and slashes the high taxes.
Heck, the origin story of the Wodeyars itself is of Yaduraya rescuing a Weak King from his Wicked Minister.
The interesting thing is Nanjarajendra, his Dalavoy who won the battle of Turuvekere and was KIA, is portrayed as the villain in the movie. Things were clearly more complex.
Anyway. After Chikkadevaraya’s death, the next king was Kanteerava Narasaraja II, who was hearing and speech impaired. He relied heavily on his subordinates to conduct matters of state. Thus, the office of the Dalavoy accrued a lot of power. Besides, the Dalavoys were usually from one clan, who consolidated their power by marrying into the royal lineage.
In 1724, under Kanteerava Narasaraja’s son Maharaja Dodda Krishnaraja, Devarajayya became the Dalavoy. He appointed his cousin Nanjarajayya as the Sarvadhikari - the Chief Executive Officer of the kingdom, and his brother, Karachuri Nanjarajayya, as the Chief Minister. The trio ran riot and controlled the whole state.
Chief Minister Karachuri Nanjarajayya is an interesting character. Karachuri means ‘dagger’. Imagine if the White House Chief of Staff was named Dagger Dave. He seems to have not only been a brave and talented warrior, but he also was a scholar of music. He authored the Sangeeta Gangadhara, which seems to be a respectable composition on the lines of the Gita Govinda. So, what was the problem?
Corruption, it turns out. The Sarvadhikari was the head of revenue and finance. The Dalavoy controlled the military. This trio set up a system of embezzlement and fraud to reroute some of the public money into their own coffers. They appointed acolytes and accomplices in every office of check and balance, and carried on all their nefarious schemes.
The next king, Chamaraja Wodeyar VII, got wise to their antics in 1734, and decided to shut them down. But Devarajayya wouldn’t go down easy. He took the Dowager Queen (the king’s mother) to his side. Emboldened by this new ally, he plotted a bold coup.
Soldiers on his payroll started to take the king hostage right when he was conducting his Durbar. When shocked courtiers shut the palace doors to safeguard their King, Devarajayya had the door stormed open with elephants. The king was deposed and imprisoned. He eventually died in prison.
His six-year-old brother, Immadi Krishnaraja was crowned, with the Dowager Queen as regent. Karachuri Nanjarajayya married his daughter to Immadi Krishnaraja when he came of age.
Dagger Dave was well and truly in control.
What in the Regicide!
I KNOW RIGHT?
Let’s look at the map of enemy states gunning for Mysore once again:
Why on earth would you conduct all these intrigues and corruption when enemies surround you? Why do you want a weak king?
Right when this trio was getting started, in 1724, Mysore had to pay a combined force of 6 invading kingdoms a king’s ransom. Peshwa Bajirao attacked in 1726. There were several wars of succession in the Carnatic throughout the 1720s and 1730s, and Nadir Shah attacked India in 1739.
I don’t doubt their love for the land or their administrative skills, because, at this level, you’re not in it for the money. But this level of grift during a time of strife is something else.
Maybe it was the constant wars that made the Dalavoy so powerful - you want a super-strong army chief if you’re at war, and the war becomes a good excuse for him to keep getting stronger and stronger and doing whatever he wants with impunity.
I wonder if some of it just starts with the strong officials disdaining and resenting the king for not being smart or decisive during hard times, and foisting his responsibilities on the. And then they decide they are running this kingdom just fine and resent not being able to become king themselves, and think that justifies them pilfering the treasury.
Either way, these powerful offices of the Dalavoy and Sarvadhikari would be how Haidar Ali and Tipu Sultan ruled Mysore.
Next Week:
I do want to get to how Haider Ali outfoxed Karachuri Nanjaraja and usurped the kingdom soon. But first, we will look at the chaos in the Carnatic that allowed Haider to rise. We’ll look at the what the Marathas were doing at this point in Thanjavur. We’ll go into the horrific story of Madurai Queen Meenakshi, who was tricked and destroyed by Chanda Sahib of Arcot. And we’ll see how Mysore gets drawn into this conflict, tempted by the fertile lands of Tiruchirapalli. And now is when the Europeans come in, to make things more interesting.
All of that and more, next week, same time, same Substack!