The British saw Tipu Sultan and Hyder Ali’s Mysore Kingdom as a significant obstacle to the British Empire in India. The British lost the first three Anglo-Mysore wars before defeating Tipu Sultan in the fourth. The British allies were the Nizam of Hyderabad and the Peshwas. Cutting to the present, the BJP’s battle against Tipu Sultan is limited—it is about the Karnataka elections. The attack on him is a not-so-thinly-veiled attack on Muslims. Since it is difficult to make heroes out of the British while vilifying Tipu Sultan, two Gowdas who allegedly fought and killed Tipu Sultan had to be invented. Tipu Sultan has to be defeated by Gowdas and not the British. That this incident figures in no history book or account of the fourth Anglo-Mysore War matters little to the BJP’s social media warriors—certainly not when winning the election in Karnataka is at stake.
What the BJP completely misses is that Hyder Ali and Tipu Sultan not only kept the British at bay for more than 30 years, they also significantly advanced rocketry beyond what existed anywhere at the time. The military significance of rockets had dwindled with the improvements to cannons. Rockets, compared with cannons, had a lower range and lacked accuracy. This is where Hyder Ali and Tipu Sultan’s advances in rocketry came in. Instead of using cardboard or wood as the casing of European rockets, Mysore rockets used iron casing for the body. This allowed more powder to be packed in the rocket, increasing its range and explosive power. Mysore rockets
— source newsclick.in | Prabir Purkayastha | 07 Apr 2023