Library

Books and monographs

Classics:

Gidwani, Bhagwan, S. (1978). The Sword of Tipu Sultan. Publisher: Allied Publishers.

Hasan, M. (2005). History of Tipu Sultan. Aakar Books.

Other works:

Beatson, A. (1800). A View of the Origin and Conduct of the War with Tippoo Sultaun. W. Bulmer and Co. Cleveland-Row, London.

Kirmani, M. H. A. K. (1864). The history of the reign of Tipu Sultan: being a continuation of the Neshani Hyduri. Oriental translation fund of Great Britain and Ireland.

Bowring, L. B. (1893). Haidar Ali and Tipu Sultan and the struggle with the Musalman powers of the South (Vol. 10). Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Henderson, J. R. (1921). The Coins of Haidar Alī and Tīpū Sultān. Superintendent, Government Press.

Kausar, Kabir. (1980). Secret Correspondence of Tipu Sultan (1st Edition). Publisher: Light & Life Publishers.

Khan, M. H. (1951). History of Tipu Sultan. Calcutta: The Bibliophile Ltd.

Habib, I. (2001). State and Diplomacy under Tipu Sultan: Documents and Essays. New Delhi: Tulika.

Habib, I. (Ed.). (2002). Confronting colonialism: resistance and modernization under Haidar Ali & Tipu Sultan. Anthem Press.

Journal Articles

Kate Brittlebank (2003). Tales of Treachery: Rumour as the Source of Claims that Tipu Sultan was Betrayed. Modern Asian Studies, 37, pp 195-211 doi:10.1017/S0026749X03001069

Bayly, C. A. (1996). Empire and information: Intelligence gathering and social communication in India, 1780-1870 (No. 1). Cambridge University Press.

De, B., & Habib, I. (1999). The Ideological and Social Background of Haidar Ali and Tipu Sultan. Confronting Colonialism: Resistance and Modernization under Haidar Ali and Tipu Sultan, 3-12.

De, B. (1991, January). Some Socio-political Implications of the Cognomen ‘Tipu Sultan’. In Proceedings of the Indian History Congress (Vol. 52, pp. 700-707). Indian History Congress.

Brittlebank, K. (1999). Islamic responses to the fall of Srirangapattana and the death of Tipu Sultan (1799). South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies, 22(s1), 79-86.

Yazdani, K. (2014). Haidar ‘Ali and Tipu Sultan: Mysore’s Eighteenth-Century Rulers in Transition. Itinerario, 38(2), 101-120.

Yazdani, K. (2018). Foreign relations and semi-modernization during the reigns of Haidar ‘Ali and Tipu Sultan. British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, 45(3), 394-409.

Ahmed, S. (2022). Fall of a tyrant, or heroic last stand? Tipu Sultan and the moral undercurrent in historiography. Rethinking History, 26(2), 207-231.

Ahmed, S., Bhatti, M. S., & Noor, S. (2023). Colonialism and Translation: A Study of Kirmani’s History of Tipu Sultan. Journal of Development and Social Sciences, 4(1), 560-571.

Non-academic Works, Biased Literature, and Political Propaganda:

Wilks, M. (1810). Historical Sketches of the South of India, in an Attempt to Trace the History of Mysoor. (Vol. 1).

About the author: Colonel Mark Wilks (c.1760–1831) was a British East India Company officer who actively participated in the military campaigns against Tipu Sultan. He served as brigade-major and aide-de-camp during the Third Anglo-Mysore War (1790–92) and took part in the storming of Srirangapatna in 1799, the battle that ended with Tipu’s death. Later, as Political Resident in Mysore (1803–1808), he authored Historical Sketches of the South of India, one of the earliest English-language histories of the region. Though biased, the book remains a significant—if contested—primary source for the period leading to the fall of Tipu Sultan.

This conflict of interest is critical to any reading of Wilks’s work. He was not a neutral observer but a direct participant in the British aggression against Mysore. Notably, the Scottish philosopher and historian James Mill (1773–1836), in his own assessment of Wilks’s work, wrote that he:

“appears to have little pleasure in praising the Sultan, but great in imputing to him all the bad qualities which belong to the most despicable, as well as the most odious, of the human race.”  (quoted in History of Tipu Sultan by Khan, 1951: Preface).

Having fought to destroy Tipu’s state, Wilks had every incentive to paint the Sultan as a tyrant and the British conquest as justified. His analysis should therefore be taken cautiously—as the testimony of an aggressor with little interest in representing the interests of the victims of the aggression.

The historian John William Kaye (1814–1876) captured this colonial pattern perfectly in his History of the Sepoy War in India:

“It is a custom among us odisse quem laeseris*—to take a Native ruler’s kingdom and then to revile the deposed ruler or his would-be successor.” (Vol. III, pp. 361–62)

Wilks exemplifies this very custom: having helped seize Tipu’s kingdom, he then set about reviling the deposed Sultan in his historical writings.

*Note: The Latin phrase “odisse quem laeseris” translates to “to hate the one you have harmed.”

Balakrishna, Sandeep. (2014). Tipu Sultan – The Tyrant of Mysore.

About the author: Sandeep Balakrishna, an Indian fascist and software engineer by training (B.Tech. in Engineering Physics from IIT Guwahati) with no formal degree or professional training in history, archaeology, or archival research, exemplifies the growing trend of non‑specialists writing polemical, politically aligned history. His book Tipu Sultan: The Tyrant of Mysore mirrors the ideological positions of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), presenting Tipu as a bigoted persecutor while systematically ignoring evidence of his administrative tolerance and anti‑colonial resistance.

Balakrishna’s work promotes several core themes of Hindutva ideology (Indian Fascism inspired by Nazism) that clash with modern humanist principles: the idea of India as an exclusively “Hindu nation” (Hindu Rashtra) where minorities are cast as perpetual outsiders; the justification of majoritarian violence as “retribution” for past Islamic rule; the conflation of religious identity with political loyalty; and the erasure of pluralistic, syncretic traditions in favor of a monolithic Hindu civilization. These themes reject the Enlightenment values of secularism, religious equality, and universal human rights, and instead advance a vision of society where faith determines belonging—a stance fundamentally at odds with humanism’s commitment to individual dignity and freedom of conscience.

The ideological lineage of the RSS with European fascism is not a matter of political accusation but is well documented in scholarship. Early RSS figures were deeply inspired by Italian fascism and Nazism. In 1931, Hindu Mahasabha leader B.S. Moonje—a mentor to RSS founder K.B. Hedgewar—visited Italy, met Benito Mussolini, toured fascist youth indoctrination camps, and returned determined to create an Indian version of these camps through the RSS. Moonje helped establish military schools for boys in Nagpur and Nashik modeled on fascist youth organizations such as the Balilla and Avanguardisti. RSS founder K.B. Hedgewar himself chaired a conference on “Italian Fascism and Mussolini” in January 1934. Hedgewar also held a conference with Moonje that discussed how to organize Hindus militarily according to the model of contemporary fascist states, including both Germany and Italy. Hedgewar even hoisted the RSS’s saffron flag when the Congress would hoist the tricolor, and the RSS stayed away from the Quit India movement against the British. The Italian scholar Marzia Casolari, in her book In the Shadow of the Swastika (2020), has documented these connections in detail, noting that Moonje’s visit “was a decisive event, which would have a major impact on the future structure of the RSS” and that Moonje “insisted on structural changes within the RSS, based on the example of fascist youth organizations.”

Similarly, M.S. Golwalkar, the second sarsanghachalak (supreme leader) of the RSS, expressed open admiration for Nazi Germany in his book We, or Our Nationhood Defined (1939). Golwalkar praised Nazi Germany for having “shocked the world by her purging the country of its semitic races” to “keep up the purity of the race and its culture.” He proposed that India could “profit” from such a model to deal with its “internal threats,” a category that explicitly included Muslims and Christians. Golwalkar also wrote that India should emulate Nazi Germany’s racial policies to solve what he called the “Muslim problem.” He sought to turn the RSS into a Nazi‑style militia, with the goal of eventually installing himself as führer. In Bunch of Thoughts, he listed Muslims, Christians, and communists as three internal “threats” more dangerous than any external enemies. These writings remain unapologetically fascist in their endorsement of ethnic cleansing and majoritarian dictatorship.

The influence of European fascism on early RSS leaders has been documented by multiple scholars, including Christophe Jaffrelot (author of The Hindu Nationalist Movement in India) and Shamsul Islam (author of RSS, School of Fascism). It is not merely a matter of historical curiosity—the same methods of mass mobilization, paramilitary drills, strict uniforms, hierarchical organization, and portrayal of minorities as existential threats continue to shape the RSS and its offshoots, including the ruling BJP.

Thus, when Sandeep Balakrishna produces a book denigrating Tipu Sultan while promoting Hindutva triumphalism, his work is inseparable from the larger intellectual apparatus that has long glorified European fascism and seeks to reshape India in its image.

Sampath, Vikram. (2024). Tipu Sultan: The Saga of Mysore’s Interregnum (1760–1799). Publisher: Penguin Random House India.

About the author: Vikram Sampath is an Indian fascist and social‑media personality whose work exemplifies the increasingly polemical and politicized trend in Indian historical writing. While his educational background includes a B.E. in Engineering from BITS Pilani and an MBA, the doctorate he consistently references in his professional biography is a PhD in ethnomusicology from the University of Queensland, Australia. That field – the study of music in cultural context – does not constitute formal training in archival research, historical methodology, or critical historiography. Sampath is, by training, a musicologist‑turned‑popular‑historian, not a professional historian.

His work promotes several core themes of Hindutva ideology (Indian version of fascism) – a political doctrine that academic scholarship has traced directly to European fascism. These themes clash fundamentally with modern humanist principles: the idea of India as an exclusively “Hindu nation” (Hindu Rashtra) where minorities are cast as perpetual outsiders; the justification of majoritarian violence as “retribution” for past Islamic rule; the conflation of religious identity with political loyalty; and the erasure of pluralistic, syncretic traditions in favor of a monolithic Hindu civilization. Together, they reject the Enlightenment values of secularism, religious equality, and universal human rights, advancing instead a vision of society where faith determines belonging – a stance fundamentally at odds with humanism’s commitment to individual dignity and freedom of conscience.

Sampath’s intellectual project falls squarely within the ideological framework of Hindutva. This is made explicit by his formal institutional ties. As of 2021, his listed address is the BJP Central Office, 6‑A, Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Marg, New Delhi, signifying a direct institutional link to the ruling political party. Furthermore, he has been characterized in the press as a “soft persuader” for the RSS, adept at placing himself “on the right side of a political establishment.” His two‑volume biography of V.D. Savarkar – the ideological godfather of Hindutva – was launched by External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar, a senior BJP leader, underscoring its political function.

The ideological lineage of the RSS with European fascism is not a matter of political accusation but is well documented in scholarship. Early RSS figures were deeply inspired by Italian fascism and Nazism. In 1931, Hindu Mahasabha leader B.S. Moonje – a mentor to RSS founder K.B. Hedgewar – visited Italy, met Benito Mussolini, toured fascist youth indoctrination camps, and returned determined to create an Indian version of these camps through the RSS. Moonje helped establish military schools for boys in Nagpur and Nashik modeled on fascist youth organizations such as the Balilla and Avanguardisti. RSS founder K.B. Hedgewar himself chaired a conference on “Italian Fascism and Mussolini” in January 1934. Hedgewar also held a conference with Moonje that discussed how to organize Hindus militarily according to the model of contemporary fascist states, including both Germany and Italy. Hedgewar even hoisted the RSS’s saffron flag when the Congress would hoist the tricolor, and the RSS stayed away from the Quit India movement against the British. The Italian scholar Marzia Casolari, in her book In the Shadow of the Swastika (2020), has documented these connections in detail, noting that Moonje’s visit “was a decisive event, which would have a major impact on the future structure of the RSS” and that Moonje “insisted on structural changes within the RSS, based on the example of fascist youth organizations.”

Sampath’s character is further compromised by credible and well‑documented allegations of academic plagiarism, followed by an aggressive legal campaign to suppress his accusers. In February 2022, three US‑based historians – Dr. Audrey Truschke (Rutgers University), Dr. Ananya Chakrabarti (Georgetown University), and Dr. Rohit Chopra (Santa Clara University) – wrote a letter to the Royal Historical Society (RHS) in London, of which Sampath is a fellow. The letter alleged that Sampath had plagiarized significant portions of his work on Savarkar from earlier scholarship. Specifically, a 2017 essay by Sampath in the India Foundation Journal was found by plagiarism detection software to be “roughly 50%” plagiarized, with nearly half of the unoriginal material traced to articles by historians Vinayak Chaturvedi (UC Irvine) and Janaki Bakhle (UC Berkeley). The letter also pointed out similarities between a passage in Sampath’s two‑volume Savarkar biography and an award‑winning undergraduate thesis written by a Wesleyan University student, Paul Schaffel, in 2012. When asked by The Wire whether his work had been plagiarized, Prof. Chaturvedi responded: “It is very disappointing to learn about this situation… I encourage anyone interested to read the two articles side‑by‑side and judge for themselves.”

Rather than addressing the allegations with scholarly honesty – such as issuing a retraction or apology – Sampath denied the allegations and called the historians’ letter “quite thoroughly libelous.” He then filed a defamation lawsuit against Truschke, Chakrabarti, and Chopra, seeking ₹2 crore in damages and a permanent injunction. He secured an interim order from the Delhi High Court restraining the academics from publishing their letter or any “defamatory material” against him, obtained court orders directing Twitter to take down Truschke’s tweets that had raised the plagiarism allegations, and threatened legal action against The Wire for reporting on the allegations. This pattern – being caught in serious academic misconduct and responding not with accountability but with litigation and censorship – reveals a fundamentally dishonest character incompatible with genuine scholarship. As historian Janaki Bakhle, whose work was among those allegedly plagiarized, observed: “If such plagiarism is the unintentional result of shoddiness in writing and publication, the honourable course of action would be a public apology and a retraction.”

A striking irony lies at the heart of Vikram Sampath’s public persona. Having spent years relentlessly defaming Tipu Sultan—while simultaneously dismissing objective, professional historians such as Prof. Mohibbul Hasan, Prof. Irfan Habib, Bhagwan S. Gidwani, and others as a biased “cabal of leftist-Marxist historians”—Sampath has displayed a remarkable sensitivity when his own integrity is questioned. When a group of academics raised legitimate concerns about plagiarism in his work, he responded not by engaging with their criticisms in a scholarly manner but by filing a defamation lawsuit against them. He did not hesitate to accuse his accusers of damaging his reputation, even as he himself has not hesitated to tear down the reputations of other historians.

Sampath’s aggressive legal tactics extend beyond this single case. His lawsuit named not only the three historians but also tech journalist Abhishek Baxi, academic Ashok Swain, and Twitter (now X) as defendants, demanding that the court force the platform to remove “defamatory” posts. The Delhi High Court, while issuing interim injunctions, noted that Sampath had made a prima facie case and that continued publication of the letter was causing “considerable damage to the plaintiff’s reputation and career.” However, the court did not make any final determination on the truth of the plagiarism allegations themselves – only that the publication of the letter might be defamatory. The ethical question of whether Sampath actually plagiarized remains unresolved, with the court’s intervention effectively silencing the accusers rather than adjudicating the underlying academic misconduct.

In sum, Vikram Sampath is not a historian in any meaningful academic sense. He is a publicist for Hindutva – an ideology with direct historical roots in European fascism – whose writings serve not as objective historical inquiry but as active components of a contemporary political project that rejects secular, humanist values in favor of a narrowly defined and majoritarian vision of Indian history. His dishonest character is further exposed by the plagiarism scandal: having been credibly accused of lifting half an essay from other scholars without attribution, he chose the path of legal intimidation and censorship over scholarly accountability – threatening to sue not only the accusing academics but also the journalists who reported on the allegations. This is the behaviour of a propagandist, not a scholar. Consequently, his books – including Tipu Sultan: The Saga of Mysore’s Interregnum (1760–1799) – should be read not as credible history, but as politically motivated propaganda dressed in academic garb, produced by an individual who has demonstrated, both in his writing and in his conduct, a profound disregard for the ethical foundations of genuine scholarship..

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