"Tipu had clear pre-modern characteristics. He was a patriarch who possessed a harem with servants, eunuchs, and 333 women. He showed prejudice against the children of prostitutes and ran an Islamic theocracy that discriminated against non-Muslims in the administration, army, and taxation. He prohibited drinking alcohol and smoking tobacco or cannabis. Tipu neglected to modernise Mysore’s traditional education system. He established no universities, military and engineering schools during his reign. He was neither interested nor capable of modernising the political and judicial system according to principles such as equality before the law, the rule of law, principles of democracy and citizens’ rights. At the same time, he was very aware of the need to modernise the military, economic and technological structure of the country. He successfully continued his father’s proto- modernisation of the military establishment along European lines . . . All this suggests that Tipu Sultan was neither pre-modern nor modern, but a person who, like his father Haidar, reflected the contradictions of a society in transition."