Bharat Ek Khoj—The Discovery of India
A Production of Doordarshan, the Government of India’s Public Service Broadcaster
Episode 40: Tipu Sultan

With Salim Ghouse as Tipu Sultan, Tom Alter as Dubuke, Vijay Kashyap as Purnaiyya, Ravi Jhankal as Mir Sadiq, Aparajita Krishna as Ruqqaya, John Holyer as Weliesly, Brian Canavan as Cornwallis, Declan Hill as Stuart, S.C. Makheeja as Mahadji Shinde, Lalit Tiwari as Announcer, and the script is by Javed Siddiqi.

There is an opening panorama of several Impressionist paintings showing, as Nehru observes, the 1st to 4th Mysore Wars towards the closing years of the 18th century fought by Haider Ali and Tipu Sultan. They were formidable adversaries, who inflicted severe defeat on the British and came near to breaking the power of the East India Company. In the scene, we see Haider on his deathbed extracting promises from son Tipu to continue resistance to the British and motivate men to draw inspiration from the American War of Independence. If they could defeat the English, why not us? Upon Haider’s demise in 1783, Tipu symbolically forsakes the throne until the last rites and concentrates on organising joint efforts to drive the British out. For this purpose, he sends envoys to the Peshwa Nana Sahib of the Marathas, the Nizam of Hyderabad and Nawab Shuja-ud-Daula of Oudh. With remarkable prescience, he plans to mobilise foreign powers too against his adversary by sending missions to the Ottoman Sultan of Turkey in Constantinople and to King Louis XVI of France in Versailles.

While, on the home front, he attempts to re-organise the governance of his kingdom on systematic basis, his joint efforts prove futile with Nana Sahib refusing to trust him and the Nizam openly preferring the English to Tipu. His overtures abroad in Turkey come to nothing and Louis XVI, despite professing friendliness, sends only skilled technicians and gardeners but no army. Tipu, outnumbered and outgunned, is faced with a treaty on humiliating terms - an eight-figure indemnity, the surrender of half his territories, and British custody of his two sons, aged only 8 and 10, as surety.

Unexpectedly the terms are all complied with by the ‘Tiger of Mysore’ and while he is busy restoring his truncated kingdom to an enviable prosperity, there is an extenuating fact that the victorious Napoleon has made no secret of his design on the British in India. Governor General Wellesley hails Napoleon’s correspondence with Tipu as the needed pretext to lay siege on Mysore. Srirangapatnam is stormed and sacked with devilish ardour. Tipu fights bravely to the end, is betrayed and goes down with a rare show of bravery along with some 9000 Mysore troupes.

Nehru notes that Tipu’s final defeat in 1799 by the British left the field clear for the final contest between the Marathas and the British East India Company. Every other ruler acknowledged the influence of one or the other. While the Nizam bought permanent peace by ceding territory, the Marathas, after some notable initial victories over the British, were finally crushed by 1818 and accepted the overlordship of the East India Company. The British then became the unchallenged sovereign of a great part of India, governing the country directly or through puppet princes.


Producer Doordarshan
Language Hindi

Credits

Uploaded by Public.Resource.Org
Based on Pt. Jawaharlal Nehru, The Discovery of India
With Roshan Seth as Jawaharlal Nehru
Om Puri as the Narrator
Produced and Directed by Shyam Benegal
Chief Assistant Director was Mandeep Kakkar
Executive Producer Raj Plus
Script by Shama Zaldi and Sunil Shanbag
A production of Doordarshan