Haidar Ali, Tipu Sultan, Goa, and Kanara Christians: Article

 Talk delivered at Xavier Centre of Historical Research, Povorim, Goa, 2016 

Haidar Ali’s and Tipu Sultan’s policy towards Goa and their Kanara Christian subjects were dramatically different.

Before we go into details, let us get a brief overview of the status of these four entities at the time when they interacted.

When Haidar came to power in 1760, Goa had just emerged from a traumatic century which culminated with the loss of its Province of the North to the Marathas in 1739. Goa itself barely survived by paying a humongous amount to buy off the Marathas who had occupied Margao and Salcete. One of the results of this near disaster was that, from that time onwards, Goa recruited and maintained a professional army with regular salaries. New technologically advanced artillery was brought from Brazil, and French officers were hired to train recruits from Indian castes known for their fighting skills. Until then, soldiers were employed only in times of foreseeable conflict. At other times, especially during the monsoon when the ghats made Goa impenetrable to invasions from the east, they were unemployed. Many left Goa in search of service with neighbouring rulers, where they earned a reputation as good soldiers, especially as skilled artillerymen. 

Kanara, meanwhile, had a Christian population of about 40,000, mainly immigrants from Goa. I emphasize here that though I refer to these Christians as Kanara Christians, they were really expatriate Goans, subjects of the ruling Ikerri dynasty, but looked upon has having a continuing relationship with Goa by virtue of their religion and language. Strong family ties strengthened their bond to their ancestral home in Goa, the malgado ganv. Goa reinforced this relationship by having the Ikerris acknowledge, in a series of treaties, that the priest or factor, both Goans, had judicial jurisdiction in addition to religious authority, over them. This was accepted by Haidar, again by treaty.

This Goan-Christian community, though had a certain influence in their adopted state. Mainly agriculturists, they brought advanced technologies in the cultivation of crops like coconut, and I suspect, new crops that the Portuguese had introduced into Goa from Brazil and other countries, for instance chilies, cashews, potatoes, etc. Their hard work, common to migrants globally, brought good revenue to the government. Kanara, being located in the non-core regions of the sultanat-i-khudadad, was subject to heavy taxation under both Haidar and Tipu, as enormous revenue was required to finance the large army. This did create tensions in the farming community of Kanara, but it must be remembered that the greater majority of farmers were of local origin and not Christians. Most Christians kept to themselves, isolated from the mainstream by their religion, language, and the perception of their belonging to the ferangi mehzab, the Portuguese sphere of influence.   

Two Goan priests achieved a personal relationship with Haidar. Bishop Noronha brought a significant force of French and Topasse cavalry and infantry, together with a number of skilled artisans when Pondicherry fell to English forces in 1760. Haidar was at this time attempting to regain control of Srirangapatna following a coup by Khande Rao, his one-time right hand, under the instigation of the Wodeyars. Bishop Noronha accompanied Haidar on his campaigns, and even fought alongside him. He left for Goa after a misunderstanding.

The other priest was Padre Joachim Miranda from Talaulim. When Haidar captured Bednur, Kodagu was its feudatory. When it refused to accept Haidar’s sovereignty, Haidar sent in a large force to subdue it. It included Frenchmen and Topasses, all Catholics. Padre Miranda therefore went to Madkeri as their pastor. In this capacity he attained a personal relation with Haidar and received his grant to set up a seminary to train local boys for priesthood at Ferangipet, near Mangalore. 

Haidar placed a great value on his Topasse troops. Topasses were a community with mixed parental ancestry: Indian and Portuguese or French. They were Catholics. While employing them in their garrisons, the English did not consider them good soldiers. Haidar converted his Topasses into shock troops through intensive training and trust. A Marathi origin government official who served both Haidar and Tipu at Srirangapatna writes that between 1763 and 1768, Haidar recruited a considerable number of men from Kanara to man his garrisons and groom his cavalry throughout his state. According to Launay, 9,000 were recruited from Mangalore. There lived in Mangalore a community of mesticos and topazes who had a certain reputation as mercenaries. The English recruited 500 of them during the 1768 invasion. In all likelihood, Haidar’s recruits came from this community; the Bamons and Charodis were not known for their martial qualities.

In 1779, Rev Schwartz, who was sent as an emissary from Madras, found many Europeans and ‘Malabar’ Christians serving in the army, ‘Malabar’ being used to denote Tamil. Haidar’s army had Christians from many places: Europe, Goa, Kanara, Tamil Nadu, Mysore.

Haidar’s policy towards Goa was dictated by his need for European trainers for his army which he was re-modelling along European lines. He sought armaments and gunpowder from Goa, and was particularly keen on Goan expertise for building his navy. In return he offered Goa rice and pepper from Kanara and Malabar. Haidar knew his main European rival was England, with its three widely separated Indian bases in Madras, Bombay, and Calcutta, and distant England, all connected by a powerful navy. In his grand strategy, he even began building ships that could withstand ice in the event the opportunity to invade England arose. Portugal had such expertise, and this was a factor that determined his relations with Goa. Goa though was wary of his immense army, and knew that such a fleet could be used against it. It therefore appeased Haidar with miserly supplies and allowing a few Portuguese soldiers to serve Haidar. One of them was Peixoto, who kept a record of his service with Haidar, a valuable document indeed.    

The family history of the R from Mangalore records that when the Jesuit organization was disbanded by the Pope in 1770s, five Jesuits from Spain sailed to India. Haidar offered them sanctuary and they served in his armaments factories. Monseur de la Tour, a Frenchmen who served Haidar, writes in his memoirs that when Haidar’s army was on the outskirts of Madras in 17   , he asked Tipu to bring him some learned Europeans so that he could gain intelligence of English plans. Tipu brought four Jesuits from their residency in Mylapore. This was the genesis of the popular fiction centered around Balthu Chutney, a Mangalorean who tantalized Haidar’s palate with tasty chutneys.

In 1768, an English force took Mangalore and ejected the Portuguese factor. It was not long before Haidar retaliated with a massive force; the English were forced into ignominious retreat with the loss of ships and men. Attempting to regain its factory at Mangalore, Goa sent feelers. Haidar still hoping for military assistance, came to an understanding that permitted it to return with certain trading rights and the exercise of its earlier religious and judicial authority over Kanara’s Christians. When the expected supplies from failed to materialize, Haidar expelled the Portuguese and built his own fort at the site of the factory in 1772. That was the end of Goa’s two-century presence in Mangalore. 

During Haidar’s brief presence in Mangalore in 1768, he came to know that some of the Portuguese merchants living there for many decades had supplied the English invading force with provisions. They, along with the padres in Mangalore, were imprisoned until peace was re-established. Haidar warned them that if a similar incident occurred in the future, they were to leave Mangalore and move to Nagar above the ghats. During their trial, he clearly acknowledged they were subjects of Goa by asking what would be the punishment for a similar act under their, ie Goa’s, laws.              

For real politic reasons therefore, Haidar kept his channels to Goa open. Both states benefitted.  

From the moment Tipu succeeded Haidar, he adopted a very different policy, one that caused much anxiety to Goa and his own Christian subjects. Many superficial and biased reasons have been offered over time for this. Let us explore an alternative that I offer now.  In brief, Tipu’s antagonism towards Christians arose in his effort to establish his legitimacy to rule his sultanat-i-khudadad, the ‘God-given state’.  

Haidar, acutely aware of his humble origins, that of a common soldier, had not attempted to legitimize his rule by either the accepted symbolisms of Indo-Muslim rulers, or non-Muslim kingdoms. He maintained the Wodeyar as nominal king, and ruled in his name. He exhibited him to the population with all pomp and ceremony during the annual dasara festival; he still remained the people’s link to the divine. At all other times, he was kept a closely guarded prisoner within his palace with a paltry allowance. Haidar maintained a tight control over finances, administration, and the army, and the personal loyalty of his close confidantes; he did not need to consolidate his rule employing the accepted symbolisms of power.   

With Tipu, it was different. His first year as ruler nearly ended his authority to rule the sultanat-i-khudadad. He assumed the musnad in December 1782 on Haidar’s death, when the second Mysore war was in progress. During the investiture ceremony itself, he heard of the treachery of Sheik Ayaz, a Nair convert slave, who had risen to high favour with Haidar, and was now the governor of Bednur. He defected to an English army from Bombay that had invaded the west coast. The defection of such a senior confidante of Haidar was the first serious blow to Tipu’s authority that year. 

Tipu recovered Bednur and much of the captured territory, but got stuck for eight months before the decrepit fort of Mangalore, defended by a small English force. Just as it was being taken, the early arrival of the monsoon struck a devastating blow to Tipu’s cavalry, on its way to safety above the ghats. Then in July, his French allies abandoned him. Shortly after came news of an attempted coup in Srirangapatna by his most senior officials backed by the Wodeyar. In November two English fleets appeared off Mangalore, exposing his vulnerability from the sea. At the same time, an English force tore through his southern province, took Coimbatore and Palghat, and threatened Srirangapatna. That same month saw a potentially dangerous revolt in the army. In December, the English captured Kannur, the capital of his ally, the Bibi. 

Tipu urgently needed to firmly establish his authority and legitimize it in the accepted traditions of kingship. He chose to do so in a manner acceptable to all his subjects. The majority of the sultanat-i-khudadad’s population was Hindu. Tipu therefore chose as his emblem that employed by the Hoysalas and the Cholas, the tiger. The tiger emblem dominated court iconography, and he depicted his tiger as devouring the ghandaberunda, the double-headed mythical emblem of the Wodeyars. It also involved patronizing temples within his core region, seen as symbolizing the authority of the state, by giving them dana or gifts in age-old tradition. 

Tipu is often cited as a destroyer of temples to highlight his so-called bigotry. It is true that Tipu destroyed temples of those who had revolted against him. This was an accepted practice in those times. Destroying a temple patronized by an enemy was another way of destroying his political authority. It was with this purpose that a Maratha force that had allied with the English and the Nizam in the third Mysore war, desecrated the Sringeri temple in 1792. Tipu responded by financing its restoration. This had nothing to do with religion; it was just plain politics as it was understood in those times. 

Tipu’s staunchest support came from his Muslim subjects, constituting perhaps just 5% of the population. He had to convince them of his authority to rule in the best traditions of those employed by past Indo-Muslim rulers.  One of these was the need to convince them of his capability to defeat his greatest enemy, the Europeans, also identified as nasrani or Christians, bitter enemies of Islam for over a 1,000 years. His policy required that he project himself as their inveterate enemy. An accommodation was made with the French whom he needed in his struggle against the English. Tipu’s vocabulary in describing these two European nations is revealing. In his narrative of the retaking of Bednur, in which the French allied with him, he calls them by their nationality, while terming the English as nasrani, a term that depicts them as religious enemies as well, and thereby generates further support from fellow Muslims. 

Unfortunately, he also uses this same term to describe his own Christian subjects. They paid grievously for it.  

In March 1784, having signed a peace treaty with the East India Company, he arrested and deported to Srirangapatna the sultanat-i-khudadad’s entire Christian population. Describing it as a glorious year, Tipu says they numbered 60,000. Of these, about 33,000 came from Kanara, 7,000 or so having escaped. The rest were Kannada and Tamil speakers. Of those taken from Kanara, about a third succumbed to disease within the first year, and another third, those below 20 years, were forcibly converted to Islam and incorporated into the lashkar-i-ahmadi, the corps of chelas or military slaves. Simultaneously, he moved a large force to Goa’s border and closed his ports to Goan shipping. Goa’s food supplies were seriously affected. 

These actions were followed by the destruction of Christian churches within the sultanat-i-khudadad. This was in the tradition by which victorious Indian rulers, Muslim or otherwise, destroyed or desecrated temples patronized by their rivals to emphasize their triumph. Tipu’s court history depicts the arrests and the conversion of the Christians as a great victory over the nasrani, without specifying that the nasranis arrested were his own subjects, and not Europeans. Further, clause 70 of the Revenue Regulations specified that any Christian found within the sultanat-i-khudadad was to be apprehended and sent to Srirangapatna, and his property confiscated. 

This was the first of many of Tipu’s actions that demonstrated his unambiguous interest in Goa. Goa had great strategic value to Tipu. Its fine port took his offensive capability by sea so much closer to Bombay. Besides it offered one more avenue for receiving men and armaments from the French. Further, it offered a very defendable territory from which to threaten the Marathas, who regularly invaded his territories to collect chauth, from the west. Tipu’s interest in Goa continued to the very end.

In 1786, in the war against a Maratha-Nizam alliance, his armies crossed the Tungabhadra. The nearness of Tipu’s army to Goa’s borders sent rumours flooding the Goan capital that Tipu, with the aid of French troops, would soon attack Goa. Lallee, the French mercenary in the service of the sultanat-i-khudadad was said to be mobilizing at Kittur. In August 1787, Goan authorities discovered and suppressed a conspiracy of priests and military officers, mainly from Bardez, to overthrow the government. Tipu was suspected to have had a role in it. Padre Gonsalves, the main conspirator, was believed to have travelled through Malabar and Kanara and developed contacts with Tipu’s officials there. 

Goa’s problems with Tipu subsided only in 1788 when he turned his attention to reforming his Malabar province. Meanwhile, Tipu’s second embassy to France received a clear message from the French king, acting on the Pope’s instruction, that he wished an end to the persecution of the Christians. Tipu sent an embassy to Goa, perhaps seeking some sort of support for his coming war with the English, where he promised the archbishop to rebuild the churches at his cost. He never kept it. 

Goa’s problems with Tipu ended with the next war with the East India Company-Maratha-Nizam alliance, which cost Tipu the loss of half his territories and the payment of an indemnity of Rs 3.3 crores.

Tipu’s interest in Goa did not, however, subside. Slowly and surely, he re-organized his truncated sultanat-i-khudadad, as the Nizam received a crushing defeat at the hands of the Marathas. Further, rivalry among Maratha factions reduced their strength. Tipu, meanwhile, found an ally in the renewed French effort to weaken Britain by cutting of its source of wealth from India. French strategists advocated the necessity of a port on India’s west coast; the only suitable one was Goa. Napoleon ousted the Ottomans from Egypt and sent a feeler to Tipu. But, the French fleet in the Mediteranean was destroyed and Napoleon himself made a precipitate retreat from Egypt.

The arrival of a pirate Frenchman, Ripaud, in Mangalore in 1797, fired Tipu’s latent hopes again. Ripaud told Tipu that a large French force was stationed in Mauritius and it could be used to attack the English and drive them out of India. Tipu immediately sent ambassadors to Mauritius and proposed an alliance for a joint attack on the English and the division of conquered territories. 

The embassy was a disaster. Just 99 Frenchmen arrived in Mangalore. It provided the excuse for the East India Company’s new governor-general to attack Tipu. On May 4, 1799, Tipu was killed and the sultanat-i-khudadad ceased to exist. Goa was forever freed of the anxiety of conquest from its southern neighbor. Goa, however, lost her freedom, ironically to the England. In 1806, English forces, claiming a threat from France, occupied Goa, leaving only in 18  .

To conclude, Haidar accepted the different identities of his subjects, and allowed the exercise of their own laws as long as they did not affect the larger interests of his state. His relations with Goa and his Christian subjects were based entirely on how he could benefit from them. They contributed in good numbers to his military effort, and in Kanara, by way of tax revenues on their agricultural output.

Tipu’s hostility towards the Europeans led him to attack their Christian identity as well. As a natural development, it extended to his own Christian subjects resulting in their arrest, loss of property, deportation to Srirangapatna, and incorporation of the younger generation into the service of the government. In effect it was an attempt to erase their Christianity identity and replace it with one aligned to state policy, namely Islam.