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Tipu Sultan’s Confederacy
Tipu Sultan’s Confederacy included an alliance between some of the greatest powers in the history of modern India.

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Tipu SultanTipu Sultan, the king of Mysore took an attempt to sign treaties and made alliance with some powers, following the tradition of his father Hyder Ali. In 1779, Haidar Ali of Mysore built up a "terrible confederacy" with the help of the Nizam and all the Maratha chieftains, except the Gaekwar of Baroda, to destroy British power in India, a calamity that was averted by the Treaty of Salbai (May 1782) and the Treaty of Mangalore, with Hyder"s son, Tipu Sultan, in March 1784.

That treaty was never accepted as final by Tipu Sultan who was even more ambitious than his father and lacked the chastening influ¬ence of misfortune. During his reigning period, Tipu solicited mandatory letters calling upon the Nizam and other Muslim chiefs of the Deccan to join him in the Holy War. But Nizam Ali Khan, the Subedar of the Deccan, was reluctant to listen to these calls for a confederacy. He was disposed to ally himself with the Marathas in another campaign against Mysore, to keep the unruly upstart from crossing the Tungabhadra. He sent an army, late in 1785, under Mushir-ul-Mulk, Mughal Ali and Sham Sher Jang to cooperate with the Marathas in the defence of Badami, Adoni, Nirgund and other forts.

The Guntoor Circar affair, long a thorn in the side of the Nizam, also became more alarming during this time. The territory was of great importance to him as the only outlet to the sea; it was equally valuable to the English, who had acquired a contingent right over it by the Treaty of 1768, because it lay between Madras and the Northern Circars. The Nizam was striving his utmost to retain the Circars.

Tipu SultanIt is significant also that the embassies from Hyderabad were ostensibly from Imtiaz-ud-daulah. The reason being one of the articles of the treaty by which an offensive and defensive alliance was formed, stipu¬lated that the daughter of the Nizam"s sister (married to Imtiaz-ud-daulah) should be given in marriage to Tipu Sultan. According to Colonel Read, for about two years there were constant rumours of the matrimonial alliance, as the basis of a political confederacy.

Meanwhile, discussions proceeded rapidly and it was agreed that Tipu was to restore to the Nizam all the territory in his possession that pertained to the Deccan in the time of Nizam-ul-Mulk. Tipu also expressed a desire to include the Marathas in the alliance, and the Nizam himself was found by Colonel Read sending Sooraji Pandit, the Poona Vakil at Hyderabad, with a letter to Nana Fadnavis "to prevail on the Pant Pradhan to enter into a conference with His Highness, Tipu Sultan and the French against the English".

Tipu, therefore, ordered the Maratha Vakils and Hafiz Fariduddin Khan to attend him at Coonattoor and, about the middle of September 1789, Colonel Read was able to report that the basis of the negotiations.

The negotiations include:

•A firm and lasting union between Nizam Ali Khan and Tipu Sultan in all matters in which they mutually engage for the good of their two States.

Tipu Sultan
•His Highness to join Tipu in a war against Marathas, at any time that nation shall oppose their views.


•The Guntoor Circar to be made over to Tipu for the usual rent and His Highness to break all connection with the English.


•His Highness to give his daughter to Tipu"s son in marriage.

Besides this, a truce was agreed upon with the Marathas for a period of three years and six months. As per history, Shivaji Rao, the Maratha Vakil, was in Tipu"s camp and that it was currently reported that the Marathas had entered into engagements to assist Tipu in the event of war with the English. This engagement was further corroborated by the discovery by Colonel Read of the following events, (mentioned in his despatch dated 4 January 1790).

Tipu"s Vakils at Hyderabad were given a rather cold audience on 2 January 1790, and they were sent back in April of that year, without any apparent mark of friendship from the Nizam. They also carried with them a definite refusal. Meanwhile, by his attack on Travancore, Tipu had invited the wrath of the Company on his head and Lord Cornwallis had, by conci¬liation and compromise, gathered together once again the broken threads of diplomacy. On 5 July 1790, a treaty of offensive and defen¬sive alliance was concluded between the Company, the Marathas and the Nizam. This aroused the wrath of Tipu and the walls of Daria Daulat Bagh Mansion reflect the pathetic perpetuation of Tipu"s wrath, at the break-up of his projected Confederacy.


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