Srirangapatana

Sequestered 16 kms to the north of Mysore is the riverine island of Srirangapatana. An ancient town that is dotted with more monuments of national importance than Mysore. This was the capital of the erstwhile Mysore Kingdom which was first ruled by the Royal Family of Wadiyars who were unseated by military genius Hyder Ali

The glory and fame of Srirangapatana reached its zenith under Hyder Ali and his son and successor Tipu Sultan who tormented the British empire till the latter fell in the 4th Anglo-Mysore war on May 4, 1799 and the Fort town was captured and razed by the marauding British Army.

The kingdom was made over to the Wadiyars once again who shifted the capital from Srirangapatana to Mysore. The fall of Srirangapatana led to its decline in importance and saw the rise of Mysore in stature. But Srirangapatana retains its quaint charm and is one of the most important tourist destinations that cannot be given the miss.


Sri Ranganathaswamy Temple

The town derives its name from the presiding deity of a temple dedicated to Lord Vishnu and has a splendid and a massive idol in the form of Sri Ranganatha. The temple, located on the banks of the Cauvery river and adjoining the railway line, is one the biggest of its kind in Karnataka and is well-maintained. Art historians aver that the temple may have existed in an earlier form since the time of the Ganga dynasty around the 9th century A.D. The temple tower is visible from a distance and is a picture of great proportion and elegance.

Tipu Sultan

While the origin of this town is shrouded in the mist of time and is associated with Gautama of mythological fame, it rose into prominence under military genius Hyder Ali and his son Tipu Sultan who established a kingdom that was vast and spread across a large area in South India. In the words of historian Vincent Smith “… Tipu Sultan kept the south in continual alarm and was regarded, until the day of his death, as the most formidable power with which the East India company had to deal…. His name dominates the writings of the time…”


A little bit of history here makes for fascinating reading. Tipu is generally regarded as a visionary who established contact with the French and tried to forge an Indo-French alliance to evict the British out of India. He was responsible for popularizing Sericulture in Mysore region and had experts from China to guide him in sugarcane cultivation. His fame in history rests to a great degree for brining about innovations in military and is universally acknowledged as the forerunner of modern missile technology. Tipu Sultan’s army had a rocket brigade and modern scientists recognize that considerable advances in rocket science made at Srirangapatana and were fired en masse at the enemy troop which ran helter-skelter. Relics of these missiles have been retrieved and preserved in the Woolwhich Artillery Museum, London.

[Sidenotes: After Tipu's death, the surviving members of his family were captured and dispersed and a few who claim to be his descendants live in penury in Calcutta. But a lady of exquisite beauty - Noor-Un-nisa Inayat Khan - and who was the daughter of the great grandson of Tipu Sultan, Hazrat Inayat Khan, evokes tremendous curiousity.She was born in pre-Lenin Russia and her mother was an American. She studied at Sorbonne, Paris, wrote poetry and was a humanist. She enlisted for services during World War II and as a Special Operations Executive for British, was the first lady SOE sent on a mission to the German-occupied France and worked as a radio operator. On September 11, 1944 Noor-un-nisa Inayat Khan, who was only 30 years of age, along with three other special officers, were executed by the Nazi soldiers at the Dachau concentration camp. She is reckoned to be the only Indian to have died in a Nazi concentration camp and was posthumously awarded George Cross, the highest British Gallantry Award, which has been awarded to only a few women so far. But there has been a renewed interest in Noor Un nisa Inayat Khan and a book "Spy Princess" has been released in the West. Unfortunately, modern India, squabbling over Tipu's secular credentials, has not heard of her nor is there an attempt to study this intriguing personality]