| Social Reforms
His social reforms included the prohibition of liquor. He put an end to the purchase
and sale of abandoned girls and children. He discouraged use of tobacco. He checked lavish
expenditure on the celebrations of weddings and brought other social reforms. His
sense of justice could be guessed by the fact that he punished his eldest son, Fateh
Haider, for taking vegetables without the permission of the owner.
He thought of setting up a University at Srirangapatna and even named it as Jami-al-Umur.
He started the first newspaper, Fauji Akhbar. He was himself an author,
and knew besides Urdu, Persian and Arabic other language like Kannada, Marathi, English
and French. More than 45 books were written during his times. His library consisted of
2000 manuscripts, one of them being the hand written Quran by Aurangazeb. He
got a massive album prepared depiciting the pictures of all great Sufi saints both of
India and abroad.
"......This is a matter in which we must be undeterred and undaunted by
financial considerations. Total prohibition is very near to my heart. It is not a question
of religion alone. We must think of the economic well being and the moral
height of our people and the need to build the character of your youth. I appreciate your
concern for immediate financial loss but should we not look ahead? Is the gain to our
treasury to be rated higher than the health and morality of our people...."
--Tipu's memorandum to Mir Sadiq,1787 |
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