The Sultan Who Fought the Future—and Tried to Shape It

 

Tipu Sultan, remembered as the Tiger of Mysore, was far more than a fierce ruler. Born around 1751 in Devanahalli near present-day Bengaluru, he was the son of Hyder Ali, a self-made military commander who rose to become the ruler of Mysore. When Tipu succeeded his father in 1782, he inherited a kingdom that was both dynamic and endangered—caught between regional rivals and the expanding ambitions of the British East India Company. For nearly two decades, Tipu Sultan resisted that expansion, modernised his state, and left behind a legacy that still sparks admiration and controversy.

He was one of the few Indian rulers of his time who grasped how technology could reshape the future. His most famous innovation, the iron-cased Mysorean rocket, was a small, portable weapon that could terrorise British forces from afar. These rockets, later studied and adapted by the British after his death, represent one of the earliest examples of industrial warfare in South Asia. He commissioned the Fathul Mujahidin, a military manual, and sought to reorganise his army along modern lines, working closely with French advisers. In an age when kingdoms still relied on traditional cavalry and elephants, Tipu’s scientific curiosity and appetite for new tools were striking.

His foresight extended beyond the battlefield. Tipu Sultan introduced new coinage, a lunar-solar “Mauludi” calendar, and a reformed system of land revenue. He promoted sericulture and built state factories for textiles, weapons, and ships. By controlling key exports like sandalwood and pepper, and by establishing trading depots as far as Muscat and Karachi, he attempted to turn Mysore into an economically self-reliant, globally connected state. Many of these policies were decades ahead of their time—an early form of state-driven industrialisation designed to strengthen sovereignty.

Tipu also tried to imagine alternate geopolitical futures. He reached out to the French, the Ottomans, and even the Afghans to form alliances that could counter British dominance. His letters reveal an awareness of global power shifts and an understanding that survival required cooperation among Asian powers. In this sense, Tipu Sultan was practicing a kind of 18th-century diplomacy rooted in foresight—seeking not just to preserve his kingdom but to shape the balance of power in the region.

Yet his reign remains deeply polarising. To some, Tipu Sultan is a hero—a martyr of anti-colonial resistance who died defending his capital at Seringapatam in 1799. To others, particularly those relying on British colonial records, he appears as a harsh and intolerant ruler who imposed his will on conquered populations. The truth, as with most powerful figures, likely lies between these extremes. His efforts to modernise and centralise power were revolutionary but disruptive; his vision of a strong, unified Mysore clashed with entrenched interests and colonial ambitions alike.

What makes Tipu Sultan fascinating through the lens of Futures Literacy is how consciously he tried to anticipate change. His adoption of new technologies, his global alliances, and his industrial experiments were all responses to what foresight practitioners today might call “weak signals” of transformation—the rise of global trade, the industrialisation of warfare, and the encroachment of European capitalism. Using frameworks like Sohail Inayatullah’s Futures Triangle, one can see how Tipu Sultan’s actions pulled toward a future of independence and innovation, pushed by the pressures of colonial expansion, and constrained by the weight of his inherited traditions.

Even his symbolic choices reveal a futures-oriented imagination. His emblem, the tiger, was not merely a royal motif—it was a metaphor for courage, defiance, and self-determination. The mechanical “Tipu’s Tiger,” an automaton depicting a tiger attacking a European soldier, stands today in London’s Victoria and Albert Museum as both a relic of power and a metaphor for the struggle between worlds. In its eerie mechanical growl lies the echo of a ruler who dared to imagine that India’s destiny could be self-defined.

Visiting Srirangapatna today, one can still sense the residue of that imagination. The fortress, the summer palace, and the tomb of Tipu Sultan are not just monuments to a past era; they are reminders of a moment when the future of India could have unfolded very differently. For travellers and thinkers alike, Tipu Sultan’s Mysore invites reflection on how foresight, innovation, and courage can challenge the inevitability of empire.

In a world still grappling with questions of sovereignty, technology, and global power, Tipu Sultan’s story feels surprisingly contemporary. He lived in an age of upheaval but refused to accept decline as destiny. His rockets, reforms, and alliances were not simply acts of resistance—they were acts of anticipation. And in that sense, the Tiger of Mysore was not only a man of his time but a visionary reaching for the future.