Hyder Ali

"Hyder Ali did not belong to the nobility. He had descended from a family of saints. He was a self-made man. He was a shrewd politician who established his kingdom. Tipu went a step ahead compared with Hyder as he also saw himself as a social reformer."

"'Nothing was to be seen on the roads for a distance of four leagues, nothing was found but only scattered limbs and mutilated bodies of Hindus. The country of Nairs [Hindus] was thrown into a general consternation which was much increased by the cruelty of the Mappilas who followed the invading cavalry of Hyder Ali Khan and massacred all those who escaped without sparing even women and children; so that the army advancing under the conduct of this enraged multitude [Mappilas] instead of meeting with continued resistance, found villages, fortresses, temples and every habitable place forsaken and deserted (p. 461)."

""Wherever he (Hyder Ali Khan) turned, he found no opponent; and every inhabitable place was forsaken and the poor inhabitants who fled to the woods and mountains in the inclement season experienced anguish to behold their houses in flames, fruit-trees cut down, cattles destroyed and temples burnt. By means of Brahmin messengers despatched to woods and mountains, Hyder Ali Khan promised pardon and mercy to the Hindus who had fled. However, as soon as the unfortunate Hindus returned on his promise of mercy and pardon, Hyder Ali Khan, like all the other Muslim tyrants of North India, saw to it that they were all hanged to death, their wives and children reduced to slavery (p. 468)."

""Before quitting the country (Kerala) Hyder Ali Khan by a solemn edict declared the Nairs deprived of all (social and political) privileges and (ordered) not to carry arms. This ordinance was found to make the submission of the proud Nairs absolutely impossible because they would have thought death preferable to such humiliations and degradation. Therefore, Hyder Ali Khan by another ordinance, consented to restore all social and political privileges including carrying of arms, to the Nairs who embraced the Mohammadan religion. Many nobles had to embrace Islam; but a significantly large section (Nairs, Chieftains and Brahmins) chose rather to take refuge in the kingdom of Travancore in the South than to submit to the last ordinance" (p. 469)."

"Chitradurga’s army comprised some 3000 Muslim soldiers. Hyder Ali contacted them secretly by using the services of a Muslim fakir who acted as a mediator. The outcome was successful. The 3000 Muslim soldiers betrayed Madakari Nayaka from within the fort. Madakari Nayaka who became aware of this treachery at the last moment could really do nothing. Instead of surrendering, he fought valiantly and died in the battle. However, nothing would appease Hyder Ali’s vengeance. In the words of Lewin Bowring, …Haidar, who, after plundering the place, despatched the [Palegar’s] family to languish in prison at [Srirangapattana]. Haidar was determined to make short work of the brave Bedars who had so successfully fought against him, and heroically sacrificed their lives in defending their hereditary chief. Not content with confiscating all their available property, and ravaging the district for the support of his army, he carried off to his capital 20,000 of the inhabitants. The young boys were afterwards trained to arms, and formed the first nucleus of a band of compulsory converts from Hinduism to Islam; a band which was largely augmented in the reign of Tipu Sultan, under the title of the Chela or disciple battalions."

"As we study the history of the rise of Haidar Ali, he does not appear to have possessed the daring and generous spirit of the hero, who courts danger and fame, disdains artifice and boldly challenges the allegiance of others. He is more conspicuous for the steady pursuit of his aims, the flexibility of his means and the ability to submit his passions to the interest of his ambition. His career was marked by implacable vindictiveness and gross ingratitude, for revenge was profitable and gratitude expensive. Pride and virtue may recoil from many of his maneuvers but one cannot but admire his power of assigning to objectives their true priorities which, combined with his brilliant opportunism, led him from success to success. He very adroitly used the machinery of fraud and the machinery of force first to establish and then to consolidate his authority."

"Haidar, who lamented more deeply than we will ever be able to discern or measure, the lack of education in himself, not only encouraged Mullahs for teaching the elements of Persian and Hindustani, but also, what is more interesting, entrusted the care of Tipu, his son and successor, to a duly qualified Muslim teacher. His attempt at educating Tipu in the traditional mode is a chapter of history by itself. It is said that Tipu’s teacher was never questioned by Haidar as to the progress made by the boy for many years, at the end of which period, he one day conducted a public examination of Tipu. This showed that the boy had not obtained the training required for a soldier’s son; instead, he had everything that would be requisite to turn him into a good Moulvie. Haidar’s displeasure knew no bounds and he exclaimed, much in the strain of Aurangzib, that his boy had not been taught the things that would make him a great and good ruler. He had not been taught; he thundered forth, the modes of warfare he should know, the manner of conquering countries or conducting diplomacy with the surrounding nations, or even the duties of kingship. Instead, Haidar protested, everything requisite for converting him into a religious zealot had been done and his mind filled with notions and fancies which had made him hate everything not connected with Islam. Everything indeed had been done, concluded Haidar in his anger, to ruin his family and his kingdom and nothing to advance either.7"

"In the midst of his savage purpose, Haidar was, we have to concede, a man. He was not a mere monster, who mechanically perpetrated cold-blooded deeds. Despite the tendencies of the times and his own baser instincts, to which he fell a prey sometimes, there is enough in him to show that he was a humanized being. It is this humanizing touch in him that helped to individualize him and make him convincing as man among men. That explains to some small extent the great hold he had upon the imagination of the men of his time . . . we have seen in him thus far the play of at least three conflicting motives and passions—his love for money as means to an end, the end being political mastery; his hatred for everyone who comes in the way of attaining that mastery; and worse than either of these, his personal animosity against Nanjaraja [Wodeyar], whom he dreaded far more for his cunning than ever for the power that he might, perchance, wield against him to his discomfiture at a moment when he least expected it . . . when his personal feelings, however rise, as now and then they certainly do, superior to these animal instincts in him, then Haidar becomes for the moment a far different person and a truly impressive figure. His directions carry moral weight; his doings assume a mighty purpose; his fights lift him above the sordid and brutal ideas to which he seems to have been born heir to; in a word, he becomes a sort of symbol, despite his birth, religion and up-bringing, of the national fight that Mysore put up to avert the awful tragedy that the 18th century witnessed in Southern India."

"The Kannada work Haidar-Namah written in 1784 as his memoir by an anonymous Hindu admirer praises Haidar to the skies and terms him as a man who was the epitome of perfection in all qualities (sakala gunabhirama). But he mentions that were some defects in him that were intricately a part of his nature, like poison mixed with milk. ‘One such is noteworthy,’ he states, ‘namely, the capture by force of beautiful damsels wherever they might be found. A second one was that he was treacherous, broke promises, and teased and punished men summarily without due enquiry. Had he only been free from these defects, there is no doubt that he would have been considered the noblest of men in this world (satpurusha). But, alas, just as a thousand paintings are marred by a blot of ink, the regime of Haidar could not last long.’"

"Hyder, from the earliest youth of Tippoo, made no secret of lamenting, that his [Tipu’s] intellect was of an inferior order, and his disposition wantonly cruel, deceitful, vicious and intractable. Among the pranks which he [Tipu] practiced about this period, two gave particular offence to his father. 1st. In taking his exercise on horseback, it was his particular delight to hunt the sacred bulls of the Hindoo temples, wounding them, and sometimes destroying them with his lance (indeed after his own accession he made no scruple of recommending this divine animal to his associates as the best beef). Hyder was shocked at these wanton and unprofitable outrages, on the feelings of the great mass of his subjects."

"An appropriate concluding assessment of Haidar Ali, his stormy life and his legacy is in the words of historian Hayavadana Rao: Haidar may have been illiterate but he was not unintelligent. On the other hand, he was shrewd, carefully calculating, hard thinking, always with an eye to turning transactions to his own profit. He was also deep-seated, cunning, with a thorough understanding of mundane matters, never yielding to mere sentiment, appeal or importunity. He could be in turn kind, friendly, dissimulating and cruel. He could enjoy a joke and indulge in one too. He was, in a word, perfectly human, with an understanding of men and things that surprised those around him and made them fear him and his artful ways and sudden turns of disposition. To describe him either in uniform black paint as a hard, rapacious person bent on plundering his neighbours or to represent him in so dazzling a light that he becomes almost indistinguishable is hardly correct. He was extraordinary in the sense that history, ancient or modern, affords no exact parallel to him. If to the people of the eighteenth century he was a terror and his name was associated always with war—indicated popularly throughout the whole of Southern India by such phrases as Haidarana Haavali [the terro of Haidar] and Haidar Kalaapam [Haidar’s exploits]—to the people of the twentieth- century, he is still continuing to be something of a marvel. That is where he is interesting, yet as a unique historical personage.58"

"If people were caught embezzling funds from the revenues allocated for them or there was a deficit in the collection, they were given the harshest of punishments. As Schwartz, too, had noted in his memoirs how on a daily basis the severest of tortures were organized for errant officials who literally trembled at the very thought of being apprehended. Mirza Ikbal elaborates: He [errant] was seized and tied with ropes, like a horse, before and behind, and having been stripped naked, an order was given to flog him with a whip . . . beat him cruelly over the back and loins, after which salt was thrown upon his wounds. If he complained, he was beaten on the mouth with a shoe; and if he cried, red pepper, dried and pounded, was thrown in his eyes; and he was tortured in this way every day for a month, if he did not agree to pay the money. Besides this, every two or three days, iron spits or rods were made red hot, and he was burned or branded all over him. This was in addition to imprisonment, starvation, and chains. As soon as the delinquent had paid the money, Hydur’s rage was softened and he presented him with shawls, and golden chains, and again offered the same office to the poor man who had just escaped from death. But if he refused to take it, the fire of Hydur’s wrath was rekindled. His cruelty, however, was still greater, when exerted in extorting money from the Hindoos."

"...all through his career, Haidar carefully calibrated his image of not assuming any external visages of royalty or denying the claims of the Hindu dynasty. It was another thing that through subterfuge, he eliminated the king himself or interfered in the succession lines. But overtly, there was no affront to the family, as he very well knew that the population, being a Hindu majority one that looked up to the dynasty with reverence, would brook no disrespect and he would be condemned as an ungrateful usurper... How much of these gestures were out of genuine respect towards another faith and how much was necessitated by realpolitik, as Kirmani suggests, for keeping Mysoreans happy, is something that we will never know. In his campaigns outside Mysore, it has already been seen how holy places were desecrated or captives circumcised and converted. This was possibly more to do with humiliation and cultural subjugation of a vanquished community, than completely theologically driven. One cannot, however, deny the theological sanction for such acts, which were committed in addition to the normal pillage and plunder that all wars and protagonists of the time casually involved themselves in when it came to enemy territory."