Complete biography of Haidar Ali

It must be borne in mind that Haidar Ali was never a sovereign prince. He was what nowadays would be and called a dictator or “leader”; in fact, he occupied a position not dissimilar from that occupied by Mussolini in Italy. There was always a raja of Mysore as there is a king of Italy, but the raja was eclipsed by Haider Ali.

Mysore formed part of the great Vijayanagar Empire that was irretevely destroyed at the battle of Talikota in 1565. The Wodiar or Vicery of Mysore retreated from the battle field, abandoned his overlord and independent prince. In 1609 his descendant, Raj Wadiar, seized Seringapatam and made it his capital. The Wadiors increased in power until in 1699the emperor Aurangzeb bestowed on the ruling prince, Chikka Devaraj, the title of “raja” and :Jaga Deva” and gave him an ivory throne, ever afterwards used for the installation of his successor. Chikka Devaraj was a galant solder and most competent ruler; but, unfortunately his descendant had little or no ability. The result was that, as in case of the later Merovingains, the royal power fell into the hands of the king’s minister.

In 1757 the new Nizam Salabat Jang, accompanied by his French adviser, M. de Bussy, marched on Mysore to collect tribute. Nanjraj, though ham­pered by the hostility of his brother Devaraj, still contrived by plundering the temples to buy off Salabat Jang with a payment of eighteen lakhs. No sooner had the Nizam gone than the Marathas, led by the third Peshwa in person, Balaji Bajirao, appeared. They were bought off by a payment of five lakhs in cash and the mortgage of several valuable districts. These payments emptied the Mysore treasury, and the unpaid troops mutinied. Nanjraj sent for Haidar Ali. Khanderao, at his orders, examined carefully the military accounts, reduced the demands of the mutineers to a reasonable figure and, disbanding four thousand men, paid the rest by plunder­ing the property of their leaders. The army reduced to obedience, Haidar Ali denounced the treaty with the Peshwa. A Maratha force under Gopalrao Pat- wardhan reappeared. Haidar Ali went to meet it and by his skill and energy foiled all the efforts of Patwardhan to occupy the pledged districts. Eventually Patwardhan retired on receiving sixteen lakhs in cash and the promise of a similar sum later. The young adventurer returned to Mysore in triumph and the grateful raja Chikka Krishnaraj conferred on him the title of Fateh Haidar Bahadur.

The raja and his mother had grown weary of the ascendancy of Nanjraj and induced Haidar to drive him out; but the court soon found their new master harsher than the old one. They per­suaded Khanderao to turn against his employer. Khanderao, whose country of origin was the Deccan, turned to the: Marathas, and with their help surprised and dispersed Haidar’s force. He rallied some of the fugitives and attacked Khanderao at Nanjangad but was again beaten. In despair he threw himself at Khanderao’s feet and actually won his forgiveness and was again appointed commander-in-chief. He once more rebelled and was again defeated. As a last hope lie forged letters in Nanjraj’s name to Khanderao’s leading officers, asking them to surrender the Deccan Brahman, as they had promised. The letters were allowed deliberately to fall into Khanderao’s hands. He read the fabricated documents and believing them to be genuine fled panic-stricken to Seringapatam. Haidar Ali then appeared and won over the leaderless army. Marching on the capital he recovered control of the administration and de­manded of the raja the surrender of Khanderao, who had hidden in the royal palace. At the same time he promised that he would not only spare the fugitive’s life, but would cherish him like a tota or parrot. On these conditions Khanderao was sur­rendered. Haidar Ali kept his promise in the letter, if not in the spirit, by confining his prisoner in an iron cage and feeding him until his death on rice and milk.

In 1763 Haidar Ali added Bednur to his possessions. The ruling chief, Bas- wappa Naik had died leaving his widow, Virammaji, as guardian of an adopted son named Chenna Baswaia. The widow and her paramour murdered the boy; but an impostor presented himself at Haidar Ali’s camp, claiming to be Chenna Baswaia and the lawful heir to the throne of Bednur. Haidar Ali adopted his cause and with the help of the dead chief’s former minister surprised the town and its treasures and sent widow, paramour and pretender to various prisons in Mysore.

Aware that the Marathas would sooner or later return to avenge the check of Gopalrao Patwardhan, he made extensive preparations to meet them; but the new Peshwa, Madhavrao, was a most capable prince and in spite of Haidar Ali’s skilful generalship defeated him severely at Rattahalli. The adven­turer sued for peace and obtained it on the surrender of most of the lands that he had recently conquered and an in­demnity of thirty-two lakhs of rupees. To repair his broken fortunes Haidar Ali cast his eyes on the Malabar Coast, alleging that its inhabitants, the Nairs, were subjects of the Bednur princi­pality. A legend ran that the whole court was once ruled over by a viceroy of the Chera dynasty. In A.D. 825 the last viceroy turned Moslem and resolved to go to Mecca. Before going he divided his lands among his principal chiefs. To the ruler of Kolattiri he left his regalia and the northern part of his territory; to the ruler of Travan- core the southern part; to the chief of Perimpatappa Cochin; and to the Zamorin of Calicut he gave his sword and as much country as the crow of a cock could be heard over. The chief of Kolattiri supported Haidar Ali, but the Nairs resisted the invader vigorously and only submitted after a fierce struggle. Haider Ali insured against further re­bellions by deporting them wholesale to the Mysore plains, where most of them died of hunger.

Haidar Ali had hitherto fought Indian princes. From 1767 to 1769 he was engaged in a war against the English of Madras and their ally, Mahomed Ali the Nawab of Arcot. The Nizam of Hyderabad, Nizam Ali, had at first joined the English, but he soon changed sides and joined Haidar Ali. The opposing armies fought a number of actions without any decisive result. The English won a hard-fought battle at Trinomalais, but Haidar Ali’s activity ena­bled him to overrun and lay waste a large extent of territory, thus cutting off the supplies of the more slowly moving English forces. Near Erode he and his general, Fazl Ullah Khan, over­whelmed an English detachment under Captain Nixon. The recovery of such districts as the English had won followed, and Haidar Ali marched to within five miles of Madras. This daring move was completely justified by its success. The Madras government sued for peace and entered into a defensive alliance with Mysore, both sides restoring their recent conquests.

No sooner had Haidar Ali imposed an advantageous treaty on the Madras government than he had again to face a Maratha invasion. In 1767 the Peshwa, Madhavrao, had extorted from him thirty-five lakhs of rupees. In 1769 the Peshwa demanded a crore, or ten million rupees, as indemnity. Haidar Ali called on his allies, the Madras government, to assist him, but they sent him nothing but fair promises. Madhavrao’s advancing troops carried everything before them, including the fort of Nijagul, the only place indeed that resisted. He would probably have succeeded in completely humbling Haidar Ali had not consumption, the heredi­tary sickness of his family, compelled his return to Poona. He made over the command to his uncle Trimbakrao, who advanced victoriously to Chirkuli. There the Marathas inflicted so severe a defeat on the Mysore troops that had they pushed on at once to Seringapatam, they might well have taken it; but fortunately for Haidar Ali they wasted so much time plundering the temple of Melukot that the active adventurer was able to put the capital in a state of de­fence and resist successfully Trimbakrao,
when at last he besieged it. Both sides be­came weary of the struggle and the Marathas accepted fifteen lakhs in cash and a promise of another fifteen lakhs later, as the price of their withdrawal. Haidar Ali vented his ill temper on his unfortunate master the raja Nanjraj, who had succeeded his father, Chikka Krishnaraj, in. 1766. Charging him with having made secret overtures to the Marathas, Haidar Ali had the young prince strangled. In his place lie raised his brother Chamraj to the throne.

Political events in Poona enabled Haidar Ali to recover the districts pledged to the Marathas for the second fifteen lakhs and also to make himself master of Coorg. The able and gallant Peshwa, Madhavrao I, died in 1172. His younger brother Narayanrao succeeded him, but in the following year he was murdered by his guardsmen, incited thereto, as it was supposed, by the Peshwa’s uncle, Raghunathrao. The latter assumed the Peshwaship, but his claim was frustrated by the birth of Narayanrao’s posthumous son, Madhavrao II. Raghunathrao would not give up his title and to secure Haidar Ali’s help lie connived at his recovery of the districts won back by Madhavrao I and reduced the tribute payable by Mysore to six lakhs a year. Safe from Maratha interference Haidar Ali overran Coorg, a thickly wooded province on the edge of the Sahyadris.

Since his conquest of Bednur Haidar Ali had claimed suzerainty over Coorg. A disputed succession enabled him to make his claim effective. In 1770 Lin- graj, one of the claimants, asked for the dictator’s help. He was not free to act until 1773. Intriguing with both claimants Haidar Ali reached Merkara, the capital, unopposed. One of the claimants, Devappa, fled, but was caught and imprisoned in Seringapatam. To the other Haidar Ali gave the principality as a feudal appanage of Mysore. Then marching through the passes of the Sahyadris he completed the subjugation of Malabar.

In 1716 the young raja Chamraj died. Although he despised the royal house, Haidar Ali resolved to continue it as a po­litical necessity. To find a successor to Chamraj, who had left no son, the dictator had recourse to the following expedient. He collected the youngest children of the royal family, and then threw in front of them a variety of toys and trinkets. One of the children, also called Chamraj, seized a dagger, attracted no doubt by its jewelled handle. Haidar Ali declared that this act proved the child’s capacity for kingship and made the late sovereign’s widow adopt the little boy as her son. He became the father of Maharaja Krishnaraj of Mysore. Whom the English in 1799 acknowledged as ruler of Mysore. He reigned for sixty-eight years, dying in 1868.

The year 1776 witnessed one of Haidar Ali’s most brilliant campaigns. The palegar or hill baron of Bellary, a petty chief under the Nizam of Hydera­bad, suddenly renounced his allegiance to his sovereign and asked the help of Mysore. The Nizam sent a French officer, M. Lally, to besiege Bellary, but Haidar Ali by forced marches reached the town in five days, entered the fort, surprised the attacking party and all but captured M. Lally, who escaped with difficulty to Hyderabad. From Bellary the dictator marched sixty miles east­wards to the fortress of Gutti, the head­quarters of Murarirao Ghorpade. He was the descendant of Santaji Ghorpade, the commander-in-chief of Shivaji’s son, king Rajaram. Thinking that his master would be taken inside Jinji fort by the Mughals, Santaji had, without orders, seized the stronghold of Gutti in the valley of the Tungabhadra. Thereafter he and his descendants had ruled there as independent princes. Haidar Ali, however, claimed to levy tribute from Murarirao on behalf of the raja of Mysore. Murarirao rejected the demand but was at last forced to surrender through want of water. Haidar Ali sent the Maratha’s family to Seringapa­tam, but he imprisoned Murarirao in Kabaldrug, where he soon afterwards died. Nor was Haidar Ali less success­ful in checking the advance of a new Poona army sent by the regent, Nana Phadnavis, to punish him for allying himself to the pretender Raghunathrao, whose because the English in Bombay were supporting. With the Marathas marched a considerable contingent from Hydera­bad. Haidar Ali’s general, Mahomed Ali, met the allied army at Saunsi, some ten miles north of Savanur. By a feigned retreat-a ruse often effectively used by the Marathas themselves-he led them into an ambush where they suffered heavily from the Mysore artil­lery. The rainy season put a stop to further operations and the contending forces withdrew to their respective headquarters.

The withdrawal of the Poona and Hyderabad armies gave Haidar Ali a breathing space. He used it in an attempt to reduce to servitude the Bedar chief of Chitaldrug. The ancestor of this ruler had been appointed com­mandant of Chitaldrug by the king of Vijayanagar, but when Vijayanagar fell, the Bedar chief declared himself inde­pendent. His claim, however, was con­tested by both the Marathas and Haidar Ali. The former claimed tribute from Chitaldrug as the successors of the Bijapur kings, while Mysore claimed it as the owner of the SIRVA district. When Sirs had been held by the Moguls, the Bedar chief had, it appeared, paid them tribute. When Haidar Ali attacked Chitaldrug the Bedar chief appealed to the Marathas and defended himself gallantly while they marched to his aid.

During the cold weather of 1777-1778 the regent and his ministers sent sixty thou­sand horse and foot under Harris Ballal Phadke and Parashrambhau Pat­wardhan to relieve Chitaldrug. Haidar Ali, on their approach, raised the siege in return for a cash payment and a vague promise of military support in the future.

As he marched to meet the Marathas Haidar Ali, with the help of Bajirao Barve, a Konkanastha Brahman and a connection of. Raghunathrao, contrived to bribe several of the Maratha leaders. The most important of these was Manaji Shinde, a very brave Maratha soldier, who had been acclaimed by his troops as Phadke, or the gallant. He received six lakhs and undertook to desert with his men at the first general action. Patwardhan heard of Shinde’s treachery just before Haidar Ali attacked him near the Tungabhadra. Patwardhan at once cut the traitor’s division to pieces before it could change sides, Shinde escaping with only thirty horsemen. Patwardhan then broke off the action. On enquiring into the conspiracy he found so many of his other officers in­volved that he no longer dared continue his march. He retired to Poona, harassed all the way by the Mysore light cavalry.

On his enemy’s retirement Haidar Ali reduced all the country between the Krishna and Tungabhadra rivers and took after a long siege the fortress of Dharwar on the edge of the Marathi- speaking Deccan. He then remem­bered the chieftain of Chitaldrug, who not unnaturally had not sent him any help against the Marathas. The Bedar resisted heroically, but a band of three thousand Moslem mercenaries in his pay went over to Haidar Ali and made any further defence impossible. The chief surrendered and was imprisoned with his family in Seringapatam. Haidar Ali transplanted twenty thousand Bedars to lands near the capital. All the Bedar boys whom he captured he converted to Islam and turned them into janissaries under the name of Chela Battalions.

The next victim of the dictator’s land hunger was the Nawab of Kadappa. Against him Haidar Ali sent his brother- in-law, Ali Raza Khan, and after the capture of Chitaldrug joined his lieu­tenant in person. Kadappa was well defended by its Afghan cavalry, but even­tually yielded to superior forces. Haidar Ali spared the life of the Nawab, but forced him to give him in marriage his beautiful sister, Bakshi Begum. He took also into his service the Nawab’s Afghan cavalry. This act nearly cost the con­queror his life. Eighty Afghan troopers burning with hatred tried one night to murder him in his tent. They cut down his guards, but the lucky dictator escaped. The mutinous Afghans were killed or executed. Warned by this peril, Haidar Ali showed himself more indulgent to­wards the Nawab of Savanur, a powerful feudatory of the Nizam. The Nawab’s eldest son was married to Haidar Ali’s daughter and the Nawab’s daughter to the dictator’s second son, Karim. The marriages were celebrated with great splendour in Seringapatam.

During the marriage festivities an envoy came to Haidar Ali from Poona. He invited the Mysore government to join with the Nizam and the Marathas in expelling the English from Madras. In 1778 a Bombay army had marched on Poona to install Raghunathrao as Peshwa but had been forced to capitu­late at Wadgaon. The Madras govern­ment had enraged the Nizam by occupy­ing one of his districts, Guntur, and by binding themselves to support against him his brother, Basalat Jang. Haidar Ali was angry with the English because in spite of their alliance they had steadily refused to send him any support against the Marathas and had always helped against him Mahomed Ali, the treacherous and incompetent Nawab of arcot. In return for military aid Nana Phadnavis of­fered to confirm the dictator in possession of all territory occupied by him between the Krishna and Tungabhadra rivers, and to reduce his tribute for Mysore to eleven lakhs. Haidar Ali and the Nizam both joined the alliance. The Nizam did little, but Haidar Ali’s attack was of the most formidable kind. In July, 1780, he marched on Madras with an army of eighty-three thousand men, officered in many cases by gallant French adventurers. Having isolated the capital he sought out the English armed forces. On September 10 he surprised a detachment of 3,700 men commanded by Colonel Baillie and after a hard fought battle forced it to surrender.

This grave defeat threatened seriously the whole British dominion in India. Fortunately Warren Hastings was gover­nor-general in Calcutta and he took into his own hands the conduct of the war. His first step was to appoint as com­mander-in-chief of the Madras army, Sir Eyre Coote, then commanding in Cal­cutta. This distinguished soldier had first served in 1745 against the Scottish insur­gents. He had been a divisional general at Plassey and it is believed that it was his insistence that led Clive to attack the enemy in spite of overwhelm­ing odds. In 176o he defeated de Lally at Wandewash and took Pondicherry in 1761. He had then returned home and had entered Parliament, but in 1779 had accepted the commander-in-chief- ship of Bengal and although not the Eyre Coote of 1760 he was still far the most competent English soldier in India.

At the same time Warren Hastings detached Nizam Ali from the confederacy by ordering the immediate rendition of Guntur. He also undertook vigorous action against the Marathas in Central India. Captain Popham escaladed Gwalior, and Colonel Carnac defeated Madhavrao Sindia’s army at Seronj. The English thereafter so wasted Sindia’s territories that on October 13 the Maharaja not only agreed to remain neutral, but promised to press the Poona government to make peace with the English. Mudhoji Bhosle, the Maratha captain established in the Central Pro­vinces, was won over by a large cash subsidy and the cession of the districts of Karra and Mandela. The Poona government waited to see how Haidar Ali was faring before they took definite steps. Coote had won several actions against Mysore, but had also suffered some reverses. His most successful battle was at Porto Novo. For some months previously he had lost the initiative owing to the sudden appearance of the French fleet off Madras. He had attacked the fort of Chilambrun at first without success; but on the arrival of an English fleet and the departure of the French he again attacked the stronghold. Haidar Ali by a forced march to its relief compelled the English commander to raise the siege and meet him in the open. The Mysore troops were confident of victory, but the English artillery was so well served that Haidar Ali’s infantry and cavalry were first checked and then defeated with a loss of ten thousand men near the town of Porto Novo, that gave its name to the battle. This vic­tory enabled Coote to effect a junction with a reinforcement from Bengal, to raise the siege of Wandewash and capture the stronghold of Tirapasur. On August 27 Haidar Ali again attacked the English on the very spot where he had in the previous year overwhelmed Colonel Baillie. This time the English were more numerous and also better led and equipped and Haidar Ali was forced to retire.

Weary of the war and disappointed at his failure to destroy Haidar Ali’s army in a pitched battle, Sir Eyre Coote resigned; but the governor of Madras, Lord Macartney, persuaded him to with­draw his resignation and march to the relief of Vellore. Its garrison was in serious straits, for the siege had been pressed under the guidance of skilled French engineers, and Haidar Ali re­garded its fall as certain. Coote’s advance surprised him, while his guns were unharnessed and their bullock trains grazing at some distance from their camp. Haidar Ali rallied his troops with great rapidity, but after the loss of five thousand men he was obliged to abandon the siege and withdraw from the field.

The Mysore government at this time received a welcome ally in the Dutch governor of Negapatam. In 1781 the Dutch were at war with the English; and for the assistance of his troops, Haidar Ali offered the Dutch governor the English district of Nagur then in Mysore occupation. Colonel Braith- waite was detailed to crush this combina­tion, but after taking Nagur and storm­ing Negapatam, he was surprised by Haidar Ali’s heir, Tipu Sultan, his little army destroyed and he himself taken prisoner.

In spite of this success the Poona government decided that Haidar Ali would never succeed in driving the English out of southern India; and on May 17, 1782, the regent Nana Phadnavis signed with them the treaty of Salbai. By it the English agreed to abandon the pretender Raghunathrao, but were allowed to retain the province of Sal- sette, near Bombay. Their other con­quests they agreed to restore. Haidar Ali thus found himself deserted both by the Nizam and the whole Maratha confederacy. On the other hand he received a reinforcement of twelve hundred

their last battle. Coote had tried to surprise Arni, the chief arsenal of the Mysore forces below the western Ghats. The surprise failed and an indecisive action followed, which led to Coote’s retirement.

In August the Bombay government sent an expedition under Colonel Hum- berstone to invade Malabar. The Bom­bay troops took Calicut, but were forced to take post at Ponani, near the coast, where they were protected by the guns of two British men-of-war. Tipu and his French general de Lally attacked Humberstone without success. Sud­denly to the surprise of the English Tipu retreated with all speed. The reason was adequate. He had learnt of the death of his father, Haidar Ali. The dictator had long suffered from cancer in the back. It suddenly took a more malignant form, and on Decem­ber 7, 1782, he died in his camp near Chittur.

It is impossible to deny the greatness of Haidar Ali. A penniless adventurer, he raised himself to the first position in his country and made Mysore greater than it has ever been before or since. Illiterate, he yet restored the finances of his country, and left to his successor a full treasury and an efficient army. His judgment of men can be gauged by his liking for the French, who rendered him the most valuable services both as officers and engineers. He was no bigot and cared not a jot to what religion his subordinates belonged so long as they did their duty. He would gladly have been allies of the English, and had he met Warren Hastings those two great men would probably have become fast friends. It was their common misfortune that Haidar Ali’s dealings were always with the Madras government who, subservient to the faithless Mahomed Ali, Nawab of Arcot, were quite untrustworthy. I shall conclude by copying a few of the great adventurer’s reflections recorded by Wilks and quoted in Bowring’s admirable work on Haidar Ali and Tipu Sultan:

“I have committed a great error. I have purchased a draught of country liquor at the price of a lakh of pagodas. Between me and the English there were grounds for mutual dissatisfaction, but no sufficient cause for war, and I might have made them my friends in spite of Mahomed Ali, the most treacherous of men. The defeat of many Baillies and Braithwaites will not destroy them. I can ruin their resources by land but I cannot dry up the sea. I ought to have reflected that no man of common sense will trust a Maratha and that they them­selves do not expect to be trusted. I have been amused by idle expectations of a French force from Europe; but supposing it to arrive and to be success­ful here; I must go alone against the Marathas and incur the reproach of the French for distrusting them; for I dare not admit them in force into Mysore.”