Tipu Sultan #7 - The Sneaky, Corrupt Rise Of Hyder Ali, and the Birth of Tipu Sultan
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It’s Wednesday! Every Wednesday, I read a little bit of a demanding book, and break it down for you - facts, insights, surprises, and the bits that stick. Currently, I’m reading Vikram Sampath’s Tipu Sultan - The Saga Of Mysore’s Interregnum. Whether you're reading along or just curious, these posts keep you in the loop without the homework.
In this post, we get into what Hyder Ali was doing during the Carnatic wars, that led to him being an extremely successful commander, and how he used it to usurp the all-powerful Sarvadhikari position in the Mysore kingdom.
The story so far…
The Kingdom of Mysore was a principality within the Vijayanagar kingdom, that declared its independence after the kingdom’s defeat in the Battle of Talikota. Under kings like Ranadheera Kanteerava, it fought to keep its independence, but ultimately was forced to pay tribute to the Sultan of Bijapur. When Aurangzeb destroyed Bijapur, Mysore made a series of clever deals with the Mughals and established peace. Parallely, the Dalavoy (Commander-in-Chief) and Sarvadhikari (Chief Minister) posts in Mysore became increasingly powerful, with them concentrating power, indulging in large-scale corruption, and deposing any kings who dared to wield power. This reached its zenith under the Dalavoy Devarajayya and his brother Karachuri Nanjarajayya.
Mysore’s peace was threatened when the Carnatic erupted into chaos with Chanda Sahib taking over Madurai. Mysore wanted the rock fort of Trichy, and I suspect, to protect the temple of Srirangam. In a large-scale conflict involving the Nizam of Hyderabad, the Nawab of Carnatic, the British and French East India Companies, the Marathas, and several small rulers, Mysore fought expensive long-standing wars through the 1740s and 1750s to attain Trichy. These were spearheaded by Karachuri Nanjarajayya. He failed miserably, ceding territory and draining the treasury of money, and returned to Srirangapatna in disgrace.
The entire series of posts can be read here:
Now that the backdrop is established, we will focus on our main characters - Tipu Sultan and Hyder Ali.
Hyder Ali during the Carnatic Wars
Hyder Ali started his career in 1749 as a horseman. Among the skirmishes in the war of succession of Hyderabad, the Nizam’s forces and the Marathas had allied with the chief of Doddaballapur and taken over Devanahalli. Hyder Ali was among the soldiers deployed in this skirmish. The Mysore forces besieged Devanahalli for nine months Hyder seemed to show superior abilities because he was entrusted with commanding small infantry groups even though he was a neophyte. It was observed that he stayed cool in even the most dangerous situations and carried himself with the confidence of a much more experienced soldier.
When Mysore won this battle, Hyder was rewarded and given a promotion, where he commanded 50 horse and 250 foot soldiers and ordered to recruit new men.
In 1750, the Marathas decided they’d backed the wrong guy in the war of succession and got Nizam Nasir Jung killed. The Hyderabad troops were plunged into confusion and chaos. Hyder Ali capitalized on this - He used Bedar tribesmen (Yes, the same group as depicted in the Rajkumar hit, Bedara Kannappa) as his irregulars, and got them to loot the wealthy Hyderabad forces blind.
Hyder ended up with several camels laden with gold. He presented them to the Maharaja in Mysore, who was so impressed that he gave three of them to Hyder as a reward for his bravery and presence of mind in battle.
Of course, he had kept some all of himself, and he was using them to build his own private militia.
He also used his money to buy matchlocks (guns that were ignited by lighting a fuse with a match) for his men. They cost ₹3-4. At this point, Maratha horsemen were earning Rs. 6 a month, and unskilled laborers ₹2 a month… so it’s like ₹12,000 today for a matchlock. (Aside: I checked costs of guns in India. A pistol/handgun seems to be about ₹1 Lakh and a rifle seems to be about ₹50,000. BUT a matchlock back in the day gave you a bigger advantage in war. I suppose it would be some kind of a small drone in present-day warfare. I couldn’t find how much those cost. Defense experts are welcome to weigh in. Anyway, it seems like Hyder got those guns for cheap.)
He was one of the jamadars (junior officers) in charge of the troops at Srirangam that got surprise-attacked by the British. The other was Hari Singh, who was a “personal enemy” of Hyder Ali. He hated that while he was better at cavalry charges, Hyder always got the bulk of the loot, simply because he employed irregulars.
Besides, Hari Singh was Dalavoy Devarajayya’s man while Hyder was Nanjarajayya’s man, and Devarajayya was increasingly concerned about his brother’s dependence on Hyder.
He considered Hyder “an upstart, indebted for his success in life more to fawning and flattery than to military merit”.
But it was undeniable that Hyder Ali had a way with communication. When the Mysore troops, after several years in battle, tired and exhausted, found that their salaries were not getting paid, they protested outside Nanjarajayya’s house. Nanjarajayya requested Hyder to deal with the protesting troops. So powerful was Hyder Ali’s ability to deal with people that he got them to get back to base as if nothing had happened.
All these skilled moves, combined with a generous helping of flattery, meant he got promoted. On the way back from Trichy. Nanjarajayya made him a Faujdar (Military governor) of Dindigul, (which is a day’s horseback journey from Madurai, a day and a half from Trichy) and he was in charge of Erode and Sathyamangalam (yes, the Veerappan forests).
He busied himself subduing local chieftains in those areas — and indulging in large-scale corruption!
Hyder Ali’s monumental corruption
He got his irregulars to loot and plunder in the area - cattle, sheep, guns, jewelry, grain… and even clothes that people were wearing.
He’d send fake lists of injured and dead soldiers in war to Srirangapatna. Injured soldiers were given an allowance, and dead soldiers a compensation, so he’d get back tons of money, which he’d keep all for himself. This was no small amount - Rs. 14 a month was given to each injured soldier until he was cured.
There is an eyewitness account saying Hyder somehow managed to count ten thousand men as eighteen thousand. There is yet another eyewitness account where 67 men were wounded in a battle, but Hyder Ali sent a list of 700 people as injured. He asked the remaining 533 men to wrap themselves in bandages and scream in pretend-pain when officials came to check on them. He gave the soldiers half of the Rs. 14 and pocketed half. This is the sort of corruption that is hard to nail down because everyone involved benefits greatly from it.
He also ended up clashing with Yusuf Khan, a general of Arcot (Yes, this is the Marudhanayagam who Kamal Haasan was supposed to play, and the movie is yet to be made), and realized his army needs to be modernized. He hired French deserters, and even involved French officers to organize his artillery. This was expensive, and he couldn’t ask impoverished Mysore to do this for him. So he was always trying to make a fast buck.
Since he was illiterate, he needed a smart accountant. Khanderao was not only a great bookkeeper, but he carried back larger-than-life tales about Hyder to Srirangapatna. He happily helped Hyder cook the books, and carried grim tales of how dangerous things were in Dindigul, necessitating more men and more money to be sent there, and more districts added under Hyder so he could have more of an income to run the place.
Given the massive corruption that Nanjarajayya indulged in, it’s no wonder Hyder exceeded his superior. Seems like corruption flows down from the top.
The Birth Of Tipu Sultan
When it rains, it pours. Everyone I know seems to have a life that goes on the upswing once a baby is born. Hyder Ali was no exception.
Hyder Ali was married at 19 to the daughter of a pirzada and they a daughter. But his wife got sick with dropsy (water retention, which could be the symptom of heart, liver or kidney disease) and got crippled. His family urged him to remarry.
He seems to have remarried in about 1745, to Fakhrunnisa/Fatima Begum, who also seems to have been from an army family. He was still very considerate to his first wife, calling her the “ornament of his family” and giving her authority over running his house. He also had her brothers join the Mysore army and administration.
For four years after the marriage, they didn’t have any kids, despite eating organic, pesticide-free food, getting plenty of exercise, and his wife not being busy girlbossing. I suppose the stress of being in war might cause one to shoot blanks, but I don’t know.
They went on a pilgrimage to Arcot, to the Sufi shrine of Tipu Mastan Aulia, which was supposed to have magical powers. Which it clearly did, because soon after, a baby boy was born, in 1750 or 1751. They hosted feasts for forty days in celebration.
In reverence of the saint whose powers had given them the baby, they named the baby Tipu Sultan.
This is a bit of a revelation - I thought Sultan was a title he got after coming to power. Not part of the name given to him at birth. I wonder if people would think about him very differently if his name was Tipu Ghulamnabi (IIRC Ghulamnabi/Ghulam Mohammed are ubiquitous names).
Nanjarajayya house-arrests the Maharaja
A crisis brought Hyder Ali back to Srirangapatna from Dindigul.
Maharaja Krishnaraja II (or should we say Immadi Krishnaraja) wanted to exert his independence. Sure, he was married to Nanjarajayya’s daughter. But Nanjarajayya had drained the treasury with a wasteful campaign, and the Maharaja felt emboldened to flex his muscles.
The Dowager queen, who had joined hands with the corrupt triumvirate to bring down a previous king she thought was not respectful enough, turned on Nanjarajayya. She told Krishnaraja to imprison Nanjarajayya and appoint Venkatapathayya in his place.
Nanjarajayya was in Nanjangud at this point when he heard of these plans. He turned heel and marched with his troops to Srirangapatna. He imprisoned Venkatapathayya and his family and plundered their lands. He planned to kill the king and place his baby on the throne. This is despite the fact that his daughter was married to the king, and was pregnant right then.
She scolded her father and exhorted him to fear the gods, but she realized there’s no point, and she just told her husband to watch his back as there were conspiracies against his life. Krishnaraja added 4000 more loyal troops to guard his life.
Dalavoy Devarajayya, who was the star of many previous palace coup attempts, was now old and mellow and tried to broker peace. But Nanjarajayya just proceeded with placing the Maharaja under house arrest.
Don’t bring a sword to a gun fight
In February 1757, The Maharaja sent out feelers to the Peshwa, asking for his help to get rid of Nanjarajayya. And then he gave Hyder Ali’s accountant Khanderao 50,000 gold pieces for Hyder to come and attack the palace and free him.
Devarajayya and Nanjarajayya heard of this. So they shut the gates and had soldiers all around and guns mounted at every rampart.
The Maharaja and 300 of his loyalists, including priests and women, charged at the troops with drawn swords. But… Nanjarajayya had guns, and fired upon them, and a hundred were dead.
They then came to kill the king.
BUT, the Dowager Queen, she of past intrigues to dispose of errant kings, dramatically clung to the King, her adopted son, and said they had to kill her before they could kill him.
So the King, his Queen, his baby and the Dowager Queen were all locked up.
Dalavoy Devarajayya realized this had gone too far, and some loyalist of the King would surely kill him. He decamped to Sathyamangalam.
This left Nanjarajayya all-powerful in Srirangapatna.
Marathas Attack Mysore!
The King, however, was still talking to he Marathas, and offered him ₹60 Lakh, and even called upon the French to help him. But Nanjarajayya threatened the Marathas that if they attacked Mysore, the king would be killed even before the troops reached Srirangapatna.
Yikes.
A month later, Nanasaheb Peshwa attacked Srirangapatna under the pretext of extracting taxes/tributes as they had discussed a year ago. The Marathas fired guns, but then one of the bullets hit the Sriranganathaswamy temple. No one wanted to incur the wrath of the Gods, and they decided to negotiate.
Nanjarajayya, as usual, tried to pay them off with 32 Lakhs. But he wanted Hyder Ali’s input on this, and recalled him from Dindigul.
Haider came right back and made an excellent suggestion that mirrors today’s productivity gurus - creative procrastination. Pay a little today, delay subsequent payments, it’ll get rainy by June and they’ll want to leave anyway.
It worked! The Marathas did leave with a little money! And Hyder was seen as so smart and indispensable.
But the treasury was empty, and they were again not paying the soldiers. So the soldiers began protesting again. Once again, Hyder was right there to help him resolve this tricky issue that was the consequence of his own action.
Hyder could do no wrong. And in trying to be more influential, Hyder suggested to Nanjarajayya — why not make up with your brother?
The Insecure Naik
So, Hyder’s title for the longest time was Naik, which was a pretty respectable title, like Captain. His meteoric rise happened so fast that not everyone was abreast of it, and still continued to address him as Naik.
Hyder was very class-conscious and insecure about being respected. He was elevated to being called Hyder Ali Khan Bahadur, and yet people still called him Naik. Kind of like how everyone calls the bus terminus “Majestic” even when the name board says Kempegowda Bus Terminus.
He was so pained by this that he got the Maharaja to issue an order that anyone who called him Naik would get their tongue cut off! It’s insane that the Maharaja even agreed to this, but things are pretty insane in Mysore at this time.
We should realize that back in the day, a lot of people did live under a rock, and news traveled slow, especially boring news about titles. The story goes that the very next day after this rule was passed, some commoner addressed Hyder Ali as Naik. Hyder literally got his tongue cut off!
So at this point, Hyder gets to Sathyamangalam and tries to get Devarajayya to come with him to Srirangapatna to reconcile with his brother. Devarajayya couldn’t care less, so to get him to care, Hyder fires a few shots at his fort.
Realizing he has no other choice, he decides to go with Hyder.
On the way, he called Hyder ‘Naik’. In fact, he’d never stopped calling Hyder ‘Naik’. Hyder, sensitive as ever about this, resented his superior calling him thus.
In a ‘sweet nod’ to how Meghan Markle laughingly, passive-aggressively tells Mindy Kaling her name is not Markle, “It’s Sussex now”, Hyder said “It’s Hyder Ali Khan Bahadur now”.
Devarajayya, realizing this shit could cost him his life, laughing blames it on his old man memory, and orders his minions to address Hyder as Hyder Ali Khan Bahadur in official communication henceforth.
The Sneaky Sarvadhikari
But Devarajayya needn’t have bothered. He died not long after. He got to Srirangapatna, and his brother Nanjarajayya, and the King all came together and pretended no one had been trying to kill the other. And then Devarajayya died of old age.
Nanjarajayya was broken-hearted and ended up relying on Hyder to do all of his work. The Maharaja also regarded Hyder positively, and thought Hyder was the only one protecting him from the violence of Nanjarajayya. Possibly both those things were true.
Among other things, the Mysore troops were getting madder and madder at not being paid, and even started blockading the royal residence so they couldn’t get food supplies. Nanjarajayya relied on Hyder to deal with this.
But Hyder had a whole plan tied to this, that he now put into action.
He wrung his hands and said he couldn’t do anything because he had no official authority. He was after all just Hyder Ali Khan Bahadur. That didn’t give him any power to sell assets and pay the soldiers, or even to punish soldiers who were protesting, or the people aiding the protests.
A simple solution, he suggested, would be if he was appointed the Chief Executive Officer, or the Sarvadhikari (sarva = all, adhikari = official).
This is obviously a sneaky attempt to usurp power, which we can clearly see. But just like how the woman in a horror movie goes to investigate strange noises alone, Nanjarajayya and the Maharaja were desperate enough, and trusted Hyder too much, that they agreed!
So Hyder’s representative, Khanderao the corrupt accountant, was installed as Sarvadhikari.
Immediately, he began swapping out deployed troops who were installed at Srirangapatna with those loyal to Hyder.
The power grab was only just beginning.
Checkmate Hari Singh
Now Hari Singh, who was a sworn enemy of Hyder Ali, was away in Malabar, carrying out some business of his mentor Devarajayya. Devarajayya didn’t quite trust Hyder, and neither did Hari Singh.
Hari Singh gets the news of Devarajayya’s death. He realizes, correctly, that this might mean his position is at risk. He had even been planning to switch over to the Thanjavur Army in this scenario.
But his immediate concern is to secure his position. He leaves Malabar and heads straight back to Srirangapatna.
On the way, it begins to rain, and he camps at Avinashi.
Hyder has a plan ready. He says he’s sending over troops to his fort in Dindigul and sends his brother-in-law with a posse of troops. They get to Hari Singh’s camp and attack him in the middle of the night. In the ensuing battle, Hari Singh is killed.
Hyder loots Hari Singh’s troops blind, and brings back all of the loot and lays it at the King’s feet — Hari Singh was a traitor who was planning to defect to Thanjavur, and that’s why he’d abandoned the business in the Malabar. But Hyder had caught him out and put an end to his nefarious plans.
The bad guys were gone, the King was free, and all his troubles were over! So impressed with Hyder Ali was the Maharaja that he gave him all of Bangalore to collect taxes from. It was all a smooth road from here on.
Little did he know he was driving into Silk Board.
What the actual…?
Yeah, isn’t that all insane? The lesson here is obvious - don’t trust Hyder Ali. BUT…. when you’re right in the thick of it, how would you know? This is the guy who keeps coming through for you time and again.
The problem clearly is the horrific corruption and control that Devarajayya and Nanjarajayya indulge in, and how they likely surrounded themselves with yes-men and had no checks and balances to their insanity.
It almost feels like Indira Gandhi’s rule - She does some mindbogglingly corrupt thing, and then fixes that with the help of some incredibly compromised individual, who will then ask for his pound of flesh, which she gives by indulging in even more mindboggling corruption.
I was listening to an interview of prosecutor Ujjwal Nikam. He says the scariest criminals are highly intelligent people with little to no education. Both Indira Gandhi and Hyder Ali fit that description.
The lesson really is don’t be corrupt and compromised, but really, when you’re swimming in gold, it’s hard to heed that.
Next week….
The Marathas come back, they mean business, and this time they have Hyder Ali to reckon with.
But then, a Hyder loyalist stabs him in the back. And the troops still are demanding to be paid.
And spoiler, Hyder Ali comes out on top and usurps the throne.
How does he do this despite the betrayal?
More importantly, what does he do with the traitor?
All this and more, tune in next week, same time, same Substack!
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