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

Name: Tipu Sultan: The Saga of Mysore's Interregnum (1760–1799)
Rating: 4 (22 reviews)

Vikram Sampath

Oct 2024 · Penguin Random House India Private Limited

4.0

22 reviews

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Over two centuries have passed since his death on 4 May 1799, yet Tipu Sultan’s contested legacy continues to perplex India and her contemporary politics. A fascinating and enigmatic figure in India’s military past, he remains a modern historian’s biggest puzzle as he simultaneously means different things to different people, depending on how one chooses to look at his life and its events. Tipu’s ascent to power was accidental. His father Haidar Ali was a beneficiary of the benevolence of the Maharaja of Mysore. But in a series of fascinating events, the Machiavellian Haidar ran with the hare and hunted with the hounds; he ended up overthrowing his own benefactor and usurping the throne of Mysore from the Wodeyars in 1761. In a war-scarred life, father and son led Mysore through four momentous battles against the British, termed the Anglo-Mysore Wars. The first two, led by Haidar, brought the English East India Company to its knees. Chasing the enemy to the very gates of Madras, Haidar made the British sign such humiliating terms of treaties that sent shockwaves back in London. In the hubris of this success, Tipu obtained the kingdom on a platter, unlike his father, who worked up the ranks to achieve glory. In a diabolical war thirst, Tipu launched lethal attacks on Malabar, Mangalore, Travancore, Coorg, and left behind a trail of death, destruction and worse, mass-conversions and the desecration of religious places of worship. While he was an astute administrator and a brave soldier, the strategic tact with opponents and the diplomatic balance that Haidar had sought to maintain with the Hindu majority were both dangerously upset by Tipu’s foolhardiness on matters of faith. The social report card of this eighteenth-century ruler was anything but clean. And yet, one simply cannot deny his position as a renowned military warrior and one of the most powerful rulers of Southern India. Meticulously researched, authoritative and unputdownable, Tipu Sultan: The Saga of Mysore's Interregnum (1760–1799) opens a window to the life and times of one of the most debated figures from India’s history.

Ratings and reviews

4.0

22 reviews

Mujammil Pathan

November 28, 2024

Nice book

Hydar Patel

November 27, 2024

Good book

GAFAR PATEL (TM)

February 26, 2025

King 👑 of india 💚🙌🏻👑

About the author

Bangalore-based historian Vikram Sampath is the author of seven acclaimed books, including Splendours of Royal Mysore: The Untold Story of the Wodeyars; My Name Is Gauhar Jaan: The Life and Times of a Musician; Voice of the Veena: S Balachander: A Biography; Women of the Records and Indian Classical Music and the Gramophone: 1900-1930. His latest books, published by Penguin Random House India, are the two-volume biography Savarkar: Echoes from a Forgotten Past and Savarkar: A Contested Legacy, 1924-1966. Both the volumes have gone on to become national best sellers. In 2021, Vikram was elected as fellow to the prestigious Royal Historical Society of the United Kingdom. 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 on Gauhar Jaan. The book has also been adapted to theatre as a play Gauhar by Lillette Dubey and is being adapted to a Bollywood film by Ashutosh Gowariker. Vikram was among the four writers and artists to be selected as a writer-in-residence at the Rashtrapati Bhawan in 2015. Vikram 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 is also an Aspen Global Leadership Fellow and an Eisenhower Global Fellow 2021. An engineer/mathematician from BITS-Pilani and with an MBA degree in finance from S. P. Jain, Mumbai, Vikram is also a trained Carnatic vocalist. He has established the Archive of Indian Music, India's first digital sound archive for vintage recordings. He is the founder-director of the Bangalore Literature Festival and curates the ZEE Group's ARTH-A Culture Fest.

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