The death of a young Englishman named Munro carried off by a man-eating tiger in 1792 was the inspiration for some of the strangest artefacts in the collections of any museum. Munro was the son of Sir Hector Munro, one of the East India Company's generals. His death was seen by Tippoo, sultan of Mysore as divine retribution against the British invaders. He commissioned the famous mechanical toy depicting a tiger mauling its victim, which contained an organ to reproduce the appropriate roars and screams, as well as play a tune. It was certainly a peculiar idea for a palace entertainment but then Tippoo was no ordinary prince. It was Tippoo's tenacity, military prowess and the adoption of the tiger as his personal symbol that earned him the title of the 'Tiger of Mysore' . Tippoo's father, Hyder Ali, a commander-in-chief who had usurped the throne of Mysore began a career of military expansion in South India. Together father and son involved the British in no less than four wars. Tippoo succeeded the throne in a turbulent era when the European powers were seeing the rise of revolution, first in America and then in France. Tippoo's ambassadors visited the court of Louis XVI and received among other gifts this bust of the king. But French power in India was on the wane and Tippoo also sought allies in Turkey, Afghanistan and Iran and among other Indian rulers. The British east India Company had fielded some impressive generals and administrators notably Sir Robert Clive and Warren Hastings who defeated the French and made allies of powerful leaders like the Nazim of Hyderabad. Anne Buddle The British for decades, indeed centuries, had had commercial interests in India. Tippoo was obviously a native ruler and resented the intrusion, a) of a foreign power and, b) what is more, of the infidel Christians and he was a Muslim, and he determined to lay down his life to rid his territories of what he saw as a usurping power and therefore I think conflict was indeed inevitable. Dr Rajnarayan Chandavarkar Well the main reason the British gave for their successful conquest, was related to the superiority of their civilisation, their technology of warfare their state craft, and Tippoo in a sense undermined all these myths not only because he often had British armies on the run, partly because he was a great moderniser and had very competent armies, his light cavalry were always capable of harrying and indeed did harry British troops. For all those reasons he was the obverse in a sense of the way the British presented themselves. In 1780 at a time of shifting alliances Haider and Tippoo marched against the British with a huge army. Lieutenant Colonel Bailey with a detachment of 3000 troops was cut off en route to join Munro's forces near Madras. The ensuing battle of Pollilur was a disaster for the British. Haider and Tippoo managed to concentrate their forces joining those of their French allies under Lally. They had superior numbers, their famous light cavalry, rockets and canon. The battle I'm afraid was one of a number of incidences where the British didn't shine in military management and organisation. It's not easy to fight a battle in India when your command may be at Madras and your ultimate command is the company's offices in London. The question of distance is one thing but there were very real problems in direct lines of command. Hesitation and indecision did cost the British in fact at many points in this battle. Tippoo immortalised his triumph at Pollilur in a series of painted murals in his place at Seringapatam. The artist captured wonderfully the moment when a Mysorean shell landed in the British ammunition wagon. To the great consternation of Bailey languishing in his palanquin whose expression captures the moment perfectly. Bailey himself was captured after the battle and died in Tippoo's jail. But the sultan's reputation as a cruel despot was probably in part the result of British propaganda. I think Tippoo did become a British obsession partly because Tippoo fitted with the Companies ideals of Indian Kingship if you like. It was also important to present him as a zealot and as barbarous, of course he wasn't always kind to the British. I mean I don't know that he compares particularly badly with some of the things the British did in pacification the mutiny or some thing's they did when they took back Deli. He clearly was militarily ruthless and that necessarily entailed savagery, but I don't think it's particularly helpful to make a moral judgement of that kind. No one would deny that 18th century warfare had its bloody elements and the Pollilur murals made frequent references to the gorier aspects of battle. Ten years later when Tippoo was defending Seringapatam against an imminent attack from the Governor General and Commander in Chief Lord Cornwallis, he prudently had the whole mural whitewashed over. But Tippoo wasn't merely a warrior, he was also a patron of the arts and a diplomat. This

• published: 03 Nov 2010
• views: 13515