Tipu Sultan The First Freedom Fighter By Prof. Sheik Ali (Former Vice Chancellor of Goa & Mangalore Universities) Patriotic fervour The first freedom fighter His efforts on gathering support A model army...a dread for enemies Progressive thinking & Modernisation A model army...a dread for enemies Under Tipu's leadership the Mysore army became a model and a school of military science to Indian powers. The dread of an
	Haider Ali & Tipu in the Battle of Poliyur ......a painting
European army had no longer any effect on them. A lad of 17 yrs, Tipu made such a surprising dash on Madras in 1767, that the entire English council, who were all members of the Madras Government, sought refuge in a ship. He fell with such fury on Colonel Bailey in 1782, that the entire English army was either cut or taken prisoners. Bailey himself languished for long in prisons of Srirangapatna.

The hero of Buxar, Sir Hector Munro, who had defeated three rulers at Buxar-Shah Alam, Shuja-ud-daula and Mir Qasim-and who had paved the way for the consolidation of British Power in India, was forced to throw off all his guns into the tank of Conjeevaram and run for life to Madras, when Tipu chased him. Similarly the entire detachment of Colonel Braithwaite was captured, and Braithwaite himself was kept for long captive in Srirangapatna. General Medows, and Lord Cornvallis were harassed for two long years in the third Mysore War. It was only an All India Confederacy of the Nizam, the Maratha and the English together with an Surreptitious entry into Srirangapatna in the dead of night that enabled the confederates to beat Tipu in 1792. Even Arthur Wellesley, the duke of Wellington, who later became the conqueror of Napoleon, was harassed greatly in 1799 and was forced to join the camp of General Harris.