A topi can wreak havoc, cause a mutiny and shake the foundations of an empire. India’s first mutiny in the fort of Vellore stands testimony to this fact. But the backstory to the mutiny plays out like a melodramatic film with numerous twists and turns.
In May 1799, the British East India Company waged a war on the Mysore State. Tipu Sultan, the ‘Tiger of Mysore,’ was shot dead. When Colonel Arthur Wellesley found Tipu Sultan’s body in the ramparts of his palace, he took the precaution of feeling his pulse to make sure he was dead. It was a crucial moment in history, for Tipu Sultan’s death culminated in a decisive victory for the British East India Company.
After deposing Tipu, the British took his family–twelve sons, eight daughters and wives–as hostages and locked them up in the fort of Vellore, one of the most impregnable forts of Southern India, guarded by four stonewalled gates and surrounded by a moat infested with crocodiles. The princes were kept in palaces and granted a generous allowance of 25,000 rupees per annum per prince. The princes’ courtiers and followers, several thousand men and women, had joined them in the fort to cater to their needs and started living there.
But Tipu’s children were not a patch on their father. They spent their time quarrelling with each other, engaging in incestuous relationships, fornicating with their mothers-in-law and dreaming of making a come back.
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