Daily Times

By treating the diary’s contents as secret Kirkpatrick effectively anchors Tipu’s story within the shameful colonial tradition of demonising noble Indian rulers for the purpose of legitimising British military intervention in India

It is true that Tipu was at war with the British and regional rulers but to imply that warfare was his sole concern would be inaccurate Brittlebank also points out that by recounting experiences with past individuals Tipu was claiming a place in the “historical narratives of the Muslim world,” again a kingly legacy Brittlebank’s corrective aim at the imperial narrative, therefore, deeply enriches our understanding of the Khwab Nama. He is not an abstract figure but very human Tipu Sultan, who is also known as the Tiger of Mysore, the ruler of the south Indian Kingdom of Mysore, died fighting the combined might of the East India Company’s troops and the Nizam’s forces on May 4, 1799. Even after two centuries, Tipu continues to intrigue the world: some call him a tyrant, some a moderniser, yet to some he is a martyr. But the one thing all agree on is his unwavering courage in the face of overwhelming odds.

In a time when the British were itching to expand southwards, it was the valiant Tipu, of all the Indian rulers, who put up a spirited struggle to wrest India away from imperial political meddling but lost in the final battle against the British and her allies. The subject of this article is not Tipu’s military campaigns or his political and religious outlook but his dream diary, the Khwab Nama; a very personal writing whose significance is largely unknown to the most people.

With the death of Tipu Sultan, the British victors descend into a violent orgy at Seringapatam, the island capital of Mysore. As they plunder and remove loot from Tipu’s palace they stumble upon a fascinating discovery :a small diary lying among his private papers. Composed in Persian in Tipu Sultan’s own hand, this manuscript carries a record of 37 of his dreams and is probably the most personal document associated with him. So what do the British do with the manuscript?

The British immediately ensure that the dream diary forms part of the anti-Tipu literary campaign functioning full throttle ever since the 1780s when the East India Company had recognised a formidable adversary in the sultan. London already swirls with stories that characterise Tipu by his religion and revile him as a despotic tyrant. What the British see in the dream log is yet another sizzling opportunity to further malign Tipu’s image.

William Kirkpatrick, the British officer who finds the diary, sensationalises how it had been located “in an escritoire among several papers of a secret nature”, noting in a letter to Governor General Lord Mornington that the Mysore ruler had “always manifested peculiar anxiety to conceal it from view of those who happened to approach him while he was either reading or writing in it. “By treating the diary’s contents as secret Kirkpatrick effectively anchors Tipu’s story within the shameful colonial tradition of demonising noble Indian rulers for the purpose of legitimising British military intervention in India.

Alexander Beatson, another British officer who was present at the fall of Seringapatam, is all set on depicting Tipu as warlike and bloody-minded. He includes English translations of six of the dreams out of a collection of 37, as an appendix to his book on the Mysore war called A view of the origin and conduct of the war with Tipu Sultaun; comprising a narrative of the operations of the army under the command of Lieutenant-General George Harris, and of the siege of Seringapatam. A brief of the dreams Beatson selects runs as follows:

In dream captioned No.1,Tipu receives a French envoy who informs that he has arrived at Seringapatam with a detachment of 10,000 troops to assist Tipu in military campaigns. Delighted, the sultan responds as, “It is well done, by the favour of God, all the preparations of war are here in readiness, and all the followers of Islaam are, tribe by tribe, ready to persecute the holy war’. In dream No.2, Tipu is presented with a silver tray of splendid dates that he construes as ‘the dominion of the three kaufers (infidels) shall fall into my hands.” By the three kaufers Tipu is alluding to the British, the Marathas, and the Nizam. In the next dream the sultan is granted a visit by Ali, son-in-law of the prophet. Dream No.4.is concerned with Mysoreans’ conquest of the Marathas. Dream No.5 tells of a battle with the English that results in the total routing of their forces. The final dream centres on Tipu’s encounter with a strange creature that is half-cow and half-tiger characterised as “greatly destructive.” Tipu views the cow as symbolising the British whom he can annihilate with effortless ease as indicated by the confident remark “all the irreligious Christians will be slain.”

Beatson’s focus on military dreams only is highly suggestive. It tells us more about the particular interests of the interpreter than about his subject. By concluding that Tipu’s dreams reveal a mind that was obsessively belligerent Beatson like his counterpart Kirkpatrick brings home the propagandist point of British authorship. So how does one approach the Khwab Nama to recognise its true significance? To know this we must turn to the scholarly works of Kate Brittlebank, a leading authority on Tipu. She is the author of Tipu Sultan’s Search for Legitimacy in a Hindu Domain and Tiger: TheLife of Tipu Sultanas well as several articles on the Mysore ruler.

Brittlebank tells us that the dream register is not an oddity, as regarded by early writers, but a rich source of information. It can help us tune in directly to the workings of Tipu’s mind only if it is studied in the context of his life and the period in which he lived. The fact that Tipu inhabited a world where warfare was the order of the day-“a world where kingship was conditional and thus subject to challenge”-explains his focus on his kingdom and power including concerns relating to containment and defeat of his enemy. It is true that Tipu was at war with the British and regional rulers but to imply that warfare was his sole concern would be inaccurate.

Military dreams are only one aspect of the register, insists Brittlebank. It is only when the dreams are considered in their entirety that we get closer to Tipu’s reality. Tipu also documents dreams that have an Islamic focus. He mentions encounters with Prophet Mohammad (pbuh) and his son-in-law, Imam Ali, as well as various Sufi saints and the great Persian poets Sa’adi and Jami. The presence of Islamic luminaries indicates Tipu’s deep concern with “bolstering his legitimacy as king.” Moreover, their gestures in the dreams such as the conferring of turbans and sacred relics accentuate support for the Mysore ruler. This leads us to view Tipu’s dreams in a different angle. They “reveal a man certain of his own abilities, never doubting his right to rule, and confident that God is on his side.”

The need for evidence of divine favour through dreams in order to consolidate authority was a common practice with medieval kings. This rules out the likelihood that Tipu was recording his dreams merely for his own satisfaction. He certainly had an audience in mind that dispels Kirkpatrick’s assumption that the dream contents were meant to be a secret. Brittlebank also points out that by recounting experiences with past individuals Tipu was claiming a place in the “historical narratives of the Muslim world, “again a kingly legacy meant to enhance prestige and provide an enlarged sense of well being. This is evident in dream number 9 in which Tipu receives two envoys from China who present him with two magnificent white elephants. Highly pleased, Tipu expresses the significance of the gift: “…some three or four hundred years ago, the ruler of China had sent a present of a white elephant, a horse, and a female slave to Alexander and this one could still read in the pages of the Sikandar Nama of Hazrat Nizami. Perhaps since then the Emperor of China, I added, had never sent such a present to anyone until it had been sent to the Sarkar-i-Ahmadi (the kingdom of Mysore). Having said that I showed all courtesy and kindness towards them.”

Alexander the Great is a popular figure in the Muslim world. His legend is forever preserved in an epic poem, Sikandar Nama, composed by Nizamuddin Abu Muhammad Ilyas bin Yusuf, one of the great 12th century Sufis and poets of Persia. Tipu’s desire to be another Alexander says a great deal. It is a powerful testimony to his own ambition and also his wish to live on in history as a great king and a man of daring vision and enterprise.

Brittlebank further notes that Tipu’s dreams hint at a deeply syncretic nature of his world. Apart from Muslim content, Tipu’s dreams also teem with Hindu imagery. A dream dated May 1795, for instance, involves an accident that occurs at Sri Ranganatha Temple by Tipu’s palace on the island Seringapatam. Tipu records that the Hindu worshippers had arranged lights on several wooden rods suspending them at a considerable height to illuminate the place. Suddenly, the lights are snuffed out, the rods collapse and the gigantic gate crashes down with a loud bang. The commotion brings Tipu out of his palace and his first impulse is to ensure the safety of his people.

Brittlebank insists that “what is most notable in his dream is the Mysore ruler’s concern for the people living near the temple, undoubtedly Hindus.” In this dream Tipu’s benevolence towards all Hindu subjects shows up with extraordinary vividness. He was not a religious fanatic who made war with his enemy on the basis of their religion, as Beatson liked to believe, but was hostile towards those who threatened the integrity of his kingdom be it the British, the Marathas, or the Nizam.

Brittlebank makes another fascinating observation concerning the way the dream log is structured. The dreams date from April 1786 to 16 January 1799, leading historians to believe that the document was compiled over that entire period. She clarifies that Tipu started recording the dreams in this particular book sometime in the mid-1790s, the time when he suffered a string of defeats at the hands of the British culminating into the Treaty of Seringapatam. The journal mentions dreams from the earlier period of his reign-the 1780s that mark his glorious military successes and juxtaposes them with the dreams that he was having in the present from 1790 onwards. Tipu was doing thus with a specific motive: “to make sense of his life and direct future course.”

Seeking guidance through the medium of dreams was a traditional custom with Muslim kings. So it is not inapt that following the practice Tipu goes back to his dreams of the 1780s, already recorded elsewhere. He wishes to cope with his unpleasant circumstances “by comparing the dreams he was experiencing with those that occurred earlier, when he was at the height of his powers.”

Brittlebank’s corrective aim at the imperial narrative, therefore, deeply enriches our understanding of the Khwab Nama. It is when we take an aerial view of the manuscript against the backdrop of historical and cultural environment that it speaks to us of an interestingly revealing portrait of Tipu Sultan. He is not an abstract figure but very human, filled to overflowing with many aspirations and many passions. Everything that he was and hoped to be, his varied and many-sided nature, his strength and vulnerability, his response towards the changes in his fortune, this indeed is the stuff Tipu Sultan’s dreams are made of.

The writer is a lecturer in English at University of the Punjab