Economy under Tipu Sultan

All Credits to The Seringapatam Times

Read more about Tipu Sultan in "In the Land of Tipu"  - Available on Amazon and Flipkart

Technology Transfer and a Cashless Economy: Tipu Sultan’s efforts to imbibe European Science and keep Indian Gold in India

by Olikara

Tipu Sultan’s interest in imbibing new technology was evident from the beginning of his reign. His embassy to France’s Louis XVI which left Indian shores in July, 1787 carried requests to France to dispatch to Mysore ‘seeds of flowers and plants of various kinds, and for technicians, workers and doctors.’ This request was made by Tipu’s ambassador to France, Darwesh Khan who ‘delivered his address to the King in low tones’. The King informed the ambassador that such craftsmen and technicians, who could improve the manufacture of arms and introduce new industries in his kingdom could be arranged for.

The transcript of Tipu’s letter to the French King received from the reports of British Intelligence at the French court to London is preserved in the India Office library records makes for interesting reading. The letter requests for 10 masters for casting cannon; 10 gunsmiths; 10 foremen for casting incendiary bombs; 10 workers of Sevres porcelain; 10 glass workers; 10 wool-carders; 10 watch-makers; 10 textile-makers; 10 printers of  Oriental languages; 10 weavers; one skillful doctor and one surgeon; one Engineer; one caster of bullets; clove plants; camphor trees; fruit trees of Europe; seeds of flowers of various kinds; seeds of linseed and 10 workers necessary for their cultivation.

We also know how many French artisans agreed to enter Tipu’s service: 10 casters of cannon; 10 gunsmiths; 10 casters of bullets; 10 porcelain workers; 10 glass makers; 10 weavers of cloth; 10 tapestry makers; 10 watch makers; 10 farmers and workers of hemp;2 printers of Oriental languages; 1 physician; 1 surgeon; 2 engineers and  2 gardeners.  This list makes interesting reading because it is a comprehensive list of all what Europe at that time had to offer. While there were other rulers in India, contemporaries of Tipu who would spend vast sums of money buying and using European arms, watches, cloth and books; here was a ruler who aspired to learn these trades from the Europeans and manufacture these very items in his country.

The Iron and Steel industry in Mysore had already reached a high level of scientific proficiency and output by the end of the 18th C. These forges in Tipu’s time were optimized for labor efficiency and the wages earned by the labor force were on par or better than contemporary workmen in neighboring states controlled by the British.

Similarly ambassadors whom he sent to Constantinople in 1785 were instructed to seek besides military assistance, technicians who would be able to make muskets, guns, glass, chinaware and other things. However there is no record of Tipu having received any help from the Ottoman Caliph primarily because of British subversive activity in Constantinople and the Sublime Porte’s displeasure at Tipu’s camaraderie with France which had by then with Napoleon Bonaparte’s sword arm started to nip into the Turkish Empire in the Middle East.

Another aspect of Tipu’s economic prudence can be seen in how Tipu offered to pay for armaments procured from France and Turkey.  Early in October 1788, the French sent proposals to Tipu for a commercial treaty proposing that Tipu allow the French company to purchase the annual produce of pepper in Mysore along with sandalwood, cardamom, cotton yarn, wool, gum, ivory and other goods. These imports would be paid for in cannon, muskets, ammunition, men-of-war, silk, woolen goods or other articles from Europe, as demanded by Tipu. Only, in case there was a balance, it would be paid for in bullion or silver. As for the military assistance in the form of technicians requested from the Ottoman Caliph, Tipu offered to send such workmen as were available in Mysore and required by the Caliph, This cashless trade served two purposes.  The first was to provide a market abroad for Mysorean goods and workmen, but the most important of them was to stop the drain of bullion out of Mysore.

Mr. Montgomery Martin who in 1835, did a survey of records in India House from 1807-1814 of the condition of provinces in Bengal and Bihar for  his book,  ‘Eastern India’ writes  “It is impossible to avoid remarking two facts as peculiarly striking – first the richness of the country surveyed and second, the poverty of  it’s inhabitants…..The annual drain of British Pounds (BP) 3, 000,000 on British India has amounted in thirty years, at 12 percent compound interest to the enormous sum of  BP 723,900,000 sterling….So constant and accumulating a drain, even in England, would soon impoverish her. How severe then must be its effects on India when the wage of a labourer is from two pence to three pence a day.’

Sir John Shore says in his minute of 1787 – “The export of specie from the country for the last twenty-five years have been great and particularly during the last ten of that period…..Upon the whole, I have no hesitation in concluding that since the company’s acquisition of the Dewany (of Bengal), the current specie of the country has been greatly diminished….; and that the necessity of supplying China, Madras and Bombay with money, as well as the exportation of it by Europeans to England, will continue still further to exhaust the country of it’s silver….”

Dadabhai Naoroji in his bold for that time book ‘Poverty and Un-British rule’ makes the point that the export of Indian Bullion by the British to China to finance the Opium trade and to England, remittances of English surplus in revenue from Indian trade as well as savings and bribes earned by company servants in Gold and Silver exhausted India of its bullion forcing an import of the precious metal into India. Dadabhai calculates from the returns of 1801 to 1869, only a paltry amount of 34 shillings per capita remained for all possible wants, commercial, social, religious, revenue, railways and other public works. And having no precious metal left to pay for the heavy English drain,   India began to pay in goods which now began to affect supply of raw material for our own trade and Industry. By 1869, the debt that India owed to England had climbed to an astounding 82,000,000 British Pounds !

Tipu even thought of establishing depots in foreign territories for the purpose of commerce. These centers were to buy rare goods and send them to Mysore for sale, and also sell rarities of Mysore in the foreign markets. Including the two existing depots at Cutch and Muscat they were to be 17 in number. The Sultans purpose in establishing these trade depots can best be expressed in his own words:-  “Sending in charge of your deputies or agents to other countries, the  produce  of our dominions, and disposing of the same there; the produce of those countries must be bought hither in return; and sold at such prices as will afford profit.”

The Revenue regulations of Mysore drafted under Tipu’s supervision himself is a very important source which helps us understand the importance Tipu gave to Mysore’s Iron and Steel Works. This book of regulations was to be compulsorily retained , read and followed by all Government functionaries throughout the extant of Mysore’s possessions from Malabar to  Dharwar.

Instruction no. 68 in the booklet read thus:- If the Reyuts (Farmers) in discharge of their rents, shall offer Gold, Silver, Copper or Brass, these articles are not to be disposed of to traders, but are to be purchased for government; according to the current price of the Bazaar(Market), and to be entered in the accounts of the office, and to be forwarded with the account of them to the Cutchery, at the same time with the supplies of stores. If in breach of these rules, you shall allow these articles to be disposed of to merchants, and receive the purchase money on account of government, you shall incur the displeasure of Government.

This showed Tipu’s adamancy that even payment of taxes in bullion kind should not be disposed off to merchants but be sent to the seat of Government at Seringapatam for deposit in the treasury. It was this surplus of precious metal in the treasury that helped Mysore to pay off the 33 Million Rupee indemnity imposed upon it by the British and their allies after the 1792 Mysore war in 16.5 million Rupees cash and bullion and the remaining within a year!

Tipu’s preferred policy of commerce in kind and not cash helped Mysore to stay bullion rich and thus prosperous during Tipu’s reign. “Tippoo   prohibited” writes a later contemporary of his “the importation of any foreign commodities so that the Canara merchants carried specie always out and thus the country so far as Arcot was drained of its gold.”  Though this was a misrepresentation of Tipu’s policy, as Tipu only prohibited trade with hostile countries and paid in cash when payment in goods was declined, the statement by the British observer shows how Tipu had managed to keep the flow of precious metals reverse of what it would be just seven decades from then in an India that had by then fallen under British dominion.

The Throne of Tipu Sultan

ALL CREDITS TO The Seringapatam Times

The magnificent throne of Tipu Sultan was in the form of a life size Tiger, clothed in shimmering gold metal sheets and studded with dazzling precious stones. An aesthete’s delight, the marvelous piece of art, crafted in wood and gold, was broken into pieces, by the Prize Agents of the East India Company after the sack of Seringapatam. After the throne was dismantled, what remained was a massive Tiger head, two small tiger headsand the gorgeous bird of Paradise (Huma) that perched over the ornamental canopy of the royal seat. The bas-reliefs of the throne, with silver steps to ascend, were decorated with tiger heads, worked in sheets of gold and adorned with precious stones.

Shortly after Tipu’s attack on the Travancore Lines and the return of his Embassy to the Turkish Sultan at Constantinople in May 1790, with letters patent from the Sublime Porte allowing the Sultan to assume the title of an independent King, the right to strike coins as well as to have the ‘Khutba’ read in his name, he directed the formation of a throne of Gold, ornamented with jewels of great value. By about 1792, work on the throne was completed.  Preparations were underway for Tipu to ascend throne on the ordained day. One branch of the national festivity was to have been the solemnization of 12000 marriages on one and the same day. A separate code was prepared about this same period for regulating domestic manners and morals. A draft of one of these in the Sultan’s own handwriting was to the following effect: ‘The faithful shall dine on animal food on Thursday evening, and on no other day of the week‘. He was obviously trying to emulate the Great Moghal Akbar’s instructions to the followers of the Din-E-Ilahi movement he initiated.

Another of Akbar the Great’s custom that Tipu wanted to emulate on ascending the throne is mentioned by Kirmani is his contemporary account of the event. He says:’As according to the customs of the Kings of Delhi, first introduced by Sultan Jalaluddin Muhammad Akbar – for they previously demanded the daughters of the family of Juswant (i.e. daughters of the Rajput princes of Hindustan)-previous to the Sultan’s ascension, a certain ceremony remained unperformed‘, the Sultan having dispatched hundreds of thousands of pounds to the Raja of Kutch, for realizing the object. Kirmani writes – ‘By his presents and favors, Tipu made the Raja willing and agreeable in this matter. At this period however, fortune being employed in endeavors to ruin those professing the true religion, and the defender of God’s people, this happy result was not attained.‘ Tipu like Akbar, may have been seeking a princess from a Royal line.

But the turbulent events that Tipu faced from 1790 on wards did not give him time and opportunity to do so. From 1792 on wards  he was engaged in a series of wars against the marauding British forces and their Indian allies. He was never destined to sit upon the magnificent throne.

Only one sketch by an artist who actually saw the throne exists today. This is titled the ‘Front view of the throne of the late Tippo Sultaun’, and drawn by Thomas Marriot, ADC to the Commander-in-Chief, Madras dated 6 August 1799. Thomas Marriott preceded provided one of the few eyewitness accounts and pictorial representations of Tipu’s throne before it was broken up on the orders of the Prize Committee.

Front View of Tipu Sultan’s Throne

Tipu Sultan’s Throne – Top View

This sketch is the only known record of the throne viewed from above. It shows two additional smaller tiger-head finials at the rear of the throne not visible in any other depiction of the throne and in all likelihood explaining the origin of the finial from the Wigington collection (sold at Sotheby’s London, 25 May 2005, lot 7).

There is another painting of the throne of Tipu, encased in a gilded frame (38.5*53.2 cm.), portraying the sultan seated on the royal chair painted in water colour on paper. It was drawn by Anna Tonelli (July 1800), a year after Tipu died in the battle of Seringapatam. This painting of the fabulous throne is the only one of its kind as its shows Tipu sitting on the throne; no other similar painting has been found so far. However Anna Tonelli did not actually see the throne or Tipu but only made a sketch after hearing descriptions of it from first hand witnesses. The sketch is also factually wrong as it is well documented that Tipu never sat upon this throne.

Tipu Sultan Seated on Throne, Anna Tonelli

The throne was in Tipu’s palace the Lal Mahal in Seringapatam. Sadly, this palace was dismantled in the years between 1807 and 1809 on the orders of Colonel Wellesley.

Ruins of Lal Mahal – The throne of Tipu Sultan sat here

The grandeur of the throne was viewed from different angles and perspectives by those who had the opportunity to see it. ‘This throne was considerable beauty and magnificence. The support was a wooden tiger as life, covered with gold, in the attitude of standing; his head[and] fore legs appeared I the front and under the throne, which was placed across his back. It was composed of an octagonal frame, eight feet by five, surrounded by a low railing on which were ten small tiger heads made of gold, beautifully inlaid with precious stones; the ascent to the throne was by small silver steps on each side. From the centre of the back part, opposite the large tiger’s head, a gilded iron pillar rose, seven feet high, surrounded by a canopy superbly decorated with a fringe of pearls. The whole was made of wood, and covered with thin sheet of the purest gold, richly illuminated with [a] tiger stripes and Arabic verses. The huma was placed on the top of the canopy, and fluttered over the Sultan’s head.‘-Asiatic Annual Register, 1800.

Mir Husain Ali Kirmani, a noted historian during the reign of Tipu, gives a vivid description of the throne -‘The seat of the throne was supported on the back of a tiger, the solid parts being made of heavy blackwood entirely covered with a coat of the purest sheet of gold, about as thick as a guinea, fastened on with silver nails and wrought in tiger stripes, curiously intended and most beautifully and highly polished. The floor of the throne about 8 feet in length,5 feet in width was raised 11 feet on the ground. The ascent to it on each side was a ladder of solid silver gilt; intermixed with the ornamentation of the howdah were hundreds of Arabic sentences, chiefly from the Koran, superbly stamped. The canopy was formed of a lighter wood entirely cased with sheet of gold with a thick fringe all around it, composed of fine pearls strung to threads of gold. The central part of the canopy was surmounted by a most curious and celestial figure of the Hummaha, formed of solid gold, nearly the size of a pigeon and covered over with the most fabulous jewelry, its back being one large and beautiful carbuncle, the tail resembling that of a peacock studded with jewels. The whole tail was so arranged as to imitate the most dazzling plumage and so closely set that the gold was scarcely visible. The throne legs with tiger stripes and in tiger claw feet.‘

But, Major David Price, one of the prize agents, saw it differently – ‘As far as I can now describe, it was a clumsy wooden platform, of six or eight sides, entirely overlaid with gold, of the thickness, I should conceive, of a sheet of lead; sculptured all over with the tiger streak device. It was to be supported on four tigers of wood, also covered with gold; and on an iron stay, curving over from the hinder part of the platform, was to be fixed, the Huma or phoenix ; also covered with gold and set with jewels ….. the sheet of gold was of the highest touch, and almost touch, and almost flexible to the hand.‘

On May 4, 1799 Seringapatam fell to the British and Tipu Sultan was slain fighting. The palace of Tipu, the Lal Mahal where the throne sat, his treasury and the city were plundered for 2 days. A prize committee was set up by Maj Gen. Harris, under the chairmanship of Gen. Floyd to determine the quantum of prize money to be distributed among thee rank and file of the army and others. One of the terms for distributing the looted wealth of Seringapatam was that each soldier would receive his share based on his rank. The coins and other articles seized from Tipu’s bed chamber were allotted to the army; the store and ordinance to the East India Company. For the purpose of distribution, the prize agents broke up Tipu Sultan’s magnificent throne. This annoyed even Arthur Wellesley (Later Duke of Wellington). Commenting on their behavior, in a letter to his brother, Lord Mornington on 19 August 1799, he said, ‘You may conceive what sharks they are. This day I have been obliged to send an order to prevent them from selling the doors in the palace.‘

Major Pultney Mein, a surgeon in the British Army, also participated in the siege of Seringapatam. In 1842, in response to a report on the siege in a journal, he observed the features of the throne and the details of its destruction –

Sir,

In your paper of February 9th , you give an account of the celebrated tiger’s head so frequently employed to ornament the Royal sideboard. As you seem to have been misinformed on the particulars of its history, I take the liberty of sending you a true account of it. In the first place it was not taken by Earl Cornwallis but by Lord Harris; it formed no part of a footstool but was the head of a large tiger which supported the platform and the throne above.

This tiger was made of wood covered with gold and was in a standing posture. The head was sold by auction on the behoof [sic] of the army and was purchased by me for something less than 500 pounds. It was afterwards purchased by the Marquis Wellesley to be sent to the court of Directors. The platform itself was surrounded by a gold railing ornamented with ten smaller heads set with rubies, emeralds and diamonds, one of which I posses and is, I believe the only one not in public collection. The bird which you call a Peacock and which overhung the canopy was intended to represent a fabulous bird called the huma and which I suppose was in the Hindoo mythology analogous to the classic Phoenix. The canopy itself was ornamented with a fringe of pearls, ten inches deep. This bird, now as you say, so highly valued. I may add that this gorgeous throne was barbarously knocked to pieces with a sledge hammer.

Tippoo’s pistols, too. Were very handsome, the barrels being inlaid with gold, representing a tiger hunt and having an inscription in Persian of which I send you the following translation.

The matchless pistols of Hindoostan’s King
Outvie the lightening on its fiery wings,
Courting destruction should a foe oppose
His mangled forehead would their force disclose.

I remain,
sir,
Yours very obedient servent,
An Eye Witness.

The Jaganmohan Palace Museum at Mysore boasts of a Howdah, which is a wooden chair made for travelling on an elephant, that belonged to Tipu Sultan in it’s collection. This in my opinion is the only surviving chair of Tipu Sultan that is closest to resembling Tipu’s throne or at least gives us a fair idea of it’s shape and design.

Bubri Howdah of Tipu Sultan

A closer view of the Bubri Howdah – Tiger Stripe Designs and Tiger Finials

The Howdah is made of wood and is a stately piece. It is octagonal in shape and has embroidered cloth trappings on all sides. The embroidery seen are the typical Tipu Tiger Stripes – Bubris across the 8 sides of the howdah. The Brass Tiger head finials are also placed at the 8 corners of the chair. Tipu’s throne was similar with gold sheets placed on the wood and bubris carved across the sheets. The tiger head finials were not of brass but made of lac and covered with gold and set with precious stones. And to complete it, it had a golden canopy with the gem set Golden Huma suspended to it.

Today one may look at this wooden Howdah and only imagine the grandeur of Tipu Sultan’s throne in Seringapatam. Coveted for nearly half a a century by the British, the throne had come to symbolize the wealth and magnificence of the state of Mysore – that he called ‘Khudadad Sarkar’ or ‘God Given Government’, which was plundered and divided just like the throne into several parts among the victorious allies – the British, Marathas and the Nizam that day.

Tipu’s throne is also a reminder of something more striking – His personal character. History is replete with examples of thrones many among them more ornate and valuable than Tipu Sultan’s. But it was only Tipu who refused to ascend the throne he had built until he felt himself to be worthy of it. For 7 long years, from 1792 till his death in 1799, Mysore was in a state of war with half of it’s territories surrendered to the British and Tipu’s sons taken hostage after the third Mysore war. He considered it an act of dishonor to himself and to his people if he ascended this throne without getting Mysore it’s due and rightful share in the game of thrones that came to symbolize the turbulent history of late 18th Century India.

This sentiment was unlike the sentiments of most rulers of then and even today. He perhaps would have agreed with his friend and ally, Napoleon Bonaparte who said – ‘A throne is only a bench covered with velvet.‘