Hyder Ali
Hyder Ali was the Sultan and de facto ruler of the Kingdom of Mysore in southern India. He distinguished himself as a soldier, eventually drawing the attention of Mysore's rulers. Rising to the post of Dalavayi to Krishnaraja Wodeyar II, he came to dominate the titular monarch and the Mysore government. He became the de facto ruler of the Kingdom of Mysore as Sarvadhikari by 1761, and served as the country's primary military leader in intermittent conflicts against the East India Company during the First and Second Anglo–Mysore Wars.
He concluded an alliance with the French, and used the services of French workmen in raising his artillery and arsenal. His rule of Mysore was characterised by frequent warfare with his neighbours and rebellion within his territories. This was not unusual for the time, as much of the Indian subcontinent was then in turmoil. He left his eldest son, Tipu Sultan, an extensive kingdom bordered by the Krishna River in the north, the Eastern Ghats in the east and the Arabian Sea in the west.
He was known to Benjamin Franklin for his bravery.
Ancestry
According to some historians, Hyder Ali is thought to be of Arab ancestry. According to this tradition, his ancestors were Nawayath Arab from the Quraysh tribe, who arrived in India by sea and later came to South India from Delhi during the reign of Muhammad Adil Shah, or was settled in Punjab before moving to South India.According to another school of historians, Hyder Ali was of Punjabi descent, and was a Punjabi adventurer in the army of Mysore. As per this tradition, he was descended from a Sufi mystic Shah Bahlol through Muhammad Ali, the father of Fath Muhammad. Contemporary British Raj sources mentioning Hyder Ali describe him as a Punjabi.
Early life
The exact date of Hyder Ali's birth is not known with certainty. He was born to Fath Muhammad. Various historical sources provide dates ranging between 1717 and 1722 for his birth. His father, Fath Muhammad, was born in Kolar, and served as a commander of 50 men in the bamboo rocket artillery in the army of the Nawab of Carnatic. Fath Muhammad eventually entered the service of the Wodeyar Rajas of the Kingdom of Mysore, where he rose to become a powerful military commander. The Wodeyars awarded him Budikote as a jagir, where he then served as naik.Hyder Ali was born in Budikote, modern day Kolar district, Karnataka; he was Fath Muhammad's fifth child, and the second by his third wife Razia Bibi, a sister of sufi pir Ibrahim Saheb, whose ancestors were Arab Nawayath. His early years are not well documented; he entered military service along with his brother Shahbaz after their father died in combat. Although Hyder Ali was from Mysore, his early loyalties were to the Nizam of Hyderabad, through whom Hyder Ali and his companions became Sepoys in the Deccan with partial investiture from the "Great Moghul" of that period. After serving for a number of years under the rulers of Arcot, they came to Srirangapatna, where Hyder's uncle served. He introduced them to Devaraja, the dalwai of Krishnaraja Wodeyar II, and Nanjaraja, Devaraja's brother, who also held important ministerial posts. Hyder and his brother were both given commands in the Mysorean army; Hyder served under Shahbaz, commanding 100 cavalry and 2,000 infantry.
Rise to power
Carnatic Wars
In 1748, Qamar-ud-din Khan, Asaf Jah I, the longtime Nizam of Hyderabad, died. The struggle to succeed him is known as the Second Carnatic War, and pitted Asaf Jah's son Nasir Jung against a nephew, Muzaffar Jung.Both sides were supported by other local leaders, and French and British forces were also involved.
Devaraja had started vesting more military authority in his brother, and in 1749 Nanjaraja marched the Mysorean army in support of Nasir Jung. The army went to Devanhalli, where the Mysoreans participated in the Siege of Devanahalli Fort.
The fort was held by Muzaffar Jung's forces and the siege was conducted by the Marquis de Bussy. During the successful eight-month siege, Hyder Ali and his brother distinguished themselves, and were rewarded by the dalwai with enlarged commands.
In the wars against Hyder Ali in 1751 and during the siege of Tiruchirappalli in 1752, Thondaiman sent 400 cavalry and 3000 Kallar infantry to Tiruchirappalli to support the British and the Nawab of Arcot.
By 1755, Hyder Ali commanded 3,000 infantry and 1,500 cavalry, and was reported to be enriching himself on campaigns by plunder. In that year, he was also appointed Faujdar of Dindigul. In this position, he first retained French advisers to organise and train his artillery companies. He is also known to have personally served alongside de Bussy, and is believed to have met both Muzaffar Jung and Chanda Shahib.
In these early wars he also came to dislike and mistrust Muhammed Ali Khan Wallajah, the Nawab of the Carnatic. In fact, Muhammed Ali Khan Wallajah and the Mysorean leaders were long at odds with each other, seeking territorial gains at the other's expense. Muhammad Ali Khan Wallajah had by then formed an alliance with the British, and he was accused by Hyder Ali in later years of effectively preventing him from making any sort of long-lasting alliances or agreements with the British.
Throughout the Carnatic Wars, Hyder Ali and his Mysore battalions served alongside French commanders such as Joseph Francois Dupleix, Count de Lally and de Bussy; he also assisted Chanda Sahib on various occasions. Hyder Ali supported the claims of Muzaffar Jung and later sided with Salabat Jung.
Skills
Early in his career, Hyder Ali retained, as one of his chief financial assistants, a Brahmin named Khande Rao. Hyder Ali, who was illiterate, was reported to be blessed with a prodigious memory and numerical acumen.Hyder Ali could rival or outperform expert accountants with his great arithmetic skills and worked to develop a system, with Rao, that included checks and balances, so that all manner of income, including plunder of physical goods of all types, could be accounted for with little possibility of fraud or embezzlement.
This financial management may have played a role in Hyder Ali's rise in power.
Control of Srirangapatna
In 1757, Hyder Ali was called to Srirangapatna to support Devaraja against threats from Hyderabad and the Marathas. Upon his arrival, he found the Mysorean army in disarray and near mutiny over pay. While Devaraja bought his way out of the threats to Srirangapatna, Hyder Ali arranged for the army to be paid and arrested the ringleaders of the mutiny.Campaigns against Calicut
In 1757, to resist the invasion of the Zamorin of Calicut – an East India Company ally at the time, the Palakkad Raja sought the help of Hyder Ali. Hyder Ali then led campaigns against the Zamorin of Calicut in the Malabar Coast of India. In 1766, Hyder Ali defeated the Zamorin of Kozhikode and absorbed Kozhikode into his state. The smaller princely states in northern and north-central parts of modern-day state of Kerala including Kolathunadu, Kottayam, Kadathanadu, Kozhikode, Tanur, Valluvanad, and Palakkad were unified under the rulers of Mysore and were made a part of the larger Kingdom of Mysore. For his role in these activities, Hyder Ali was rewarded by Devaraja with the jaghir of Bangalore.Capture of Bangalore (1758)
In 1758, Hyder Ali successfully forced the Marathas to lift a siege of Bangalore. Hyder Ali's forces entered the city, thus capturing it.By 1759, Hyder Ali was in command of the entire Mysorean army.
Siege of Channapatna (1759)
In the year 1759, Balaji Baji Rao launched a military expedition against Bangalore and Channapatna, with Gopal Hari and Anand Rao leading the forces. However, Hyder Ali managed to defeat the much larger Maratha army with a smaller force. As a result, Channapatna and the surrounding districts were incorporated into the Mysore territory.Nawab of Mysore (1759)
The young King of Mysore, Krishnaraja Wodeyar II, rewarded Hyder Ali's performance by granting him the title of Fath Hyder Bahadur or Nawab Hyder Ali Khan. Hyder Ali is also known to be the first ruler of Mysore to be granted the title of Nawab; thus, it can be said that he was briefly the "Nawab of Mysore" by 1759.Because of the ongoing conflicts with the Marathas, the Mysorean treasury was virtually bankrupted, prompting the queen mother to force into exile Nanjaraj, who had assumed the position of dalwai upon his brother's death in 1758. Hyder Ali was a beneficiary of this action, rising in influence in the court.
Deposition of Khande Rao
In 1760, the queen mother conspired with Khande Rao, who had gone into the raja's service, to oust Hyder Ali. He was precipitously forced out of Seringapatam, leaving his family, including his son Tipu Sultan, under house arrest.The sudden departure left Hyder Ali with few resources. He may have been fortuitously aided at this time by the faraway Third Battle of Panipat, in which the Marathas suffered a major defeat on 14 January 1761. Because of this loss, the Marathas withdrew forces from Mysore and Hyder Ali's brother-in-law Makdum Ali chased them into Bidnur and Sunda.
Hyder Ali soon consolidated his strength by placing Mirza Sahib as the commander of Sira, a Sufi Pir Ibrahim Sahib in Bangalore and Amin Sahib, his cousin in Basnagar. Soon afterward, Hyder Ali marched alongside Makdum Ali's forces, which numbered about 6,000, along with the 3,000 men from his garrison at Bangalore, toward Seringapatam.
They clashed with Khande Rao's forces before reaching the capital. Khande Rao, with 11,000 men, won the battle, and Hyder Ali was forced to apply to the exiled Nanjaraj for support. Nanjaraj gave Hyder Ali command of his army and the title of Dalwai.
With this force, Hyder Ali again moved out against Khande Rao. Hyder Ali sent letters appearing to be from Nanjaraj to some of Khande Rao's commanders, confirming their agreement to hand Khande Rao over to Hyder Ali. Fearing a conspiracy, Khande Rao fled into Seringapatam.
After a minor battle against the now-leaderless army, Hyder Ali took over most of its remnants and surrounded Seringapatam. The ensuing negotiations left Hyder Ali in nearly complete military control of Mysore. Concessions that he extracted included the surrender of Khande Rao, who Hyder Ali imprisoned in Bangalore.