The month of May holds a special place in Pakistan’s defence history as the 28th of this month is celebrated as Youm-i-Takbeer, marking that fateful day in 1998 when Pakistan conducted its first nuclear tests in the mountain wilderness of Chagai in Balochistan. But the thing is that nuclear weapons are fairly useless without an effective delivery system, whether that’s a plane or, more usually, a missile. And we do love our missiles: The Baburs, the Ghauris and the Ghaznavis that every now and then also decorate roundabouts in various towns and which are named after ‘(North) Western’ warriors. But this isn’t about them; the subject of our story and the father (in many ways) of modern missiles is to be found further south.

In 1827, Major General Sir William Congreve wrote A Treatise on the Congreve Rocket System and its comparison with Artillery. In it, he stated “I cannot conclude this address to the public, without stating that the rocket system not only owes its existence but its present state of perfection to the patronage of His Majesty (King George IV).”

However, he did forget to give credit to a warrior prince from the East, to whom he owed much of his technological success. I would not blame Sir Congreve for the omission as we too tend to overlook inconvenient elements of our history, especially those that lie in the near East. Characters like Bhagat Singh might fall victim to the “Two Nation Theory” or perhaps the fact that his guerrilla tactics weren’t glamorous enough for posterity, but there exists a hero who fought a conventional and technologically advanced war against the British rule and who seems to have been overlooked despite having all the right credentials: Sultan Fateh Ali Tipu.

The Tiger of Mysore stood up to British might in South India and defeated them in the Second Anglo-Mysore War. He was a great strategist and realised that fighting the British would need advanced weaponry and some international collaboration. The old adage “the enemy of your enemy is a friend” came into play and Tipu contacted none other than Napoleon Bonaparte to launch a joint action against the English in India. However, as luck would have it, Napoleon got too entangled in Africa and Europe and despite willingness from both sides, the plan only materialised in the form of limited men and supplies and not a full-fledged joint-op. Though he did say that “To live like a lion for a day is far better than to live for a hundred years like a jackal”, the man possessed much more than just courage and part of the proof of this comes from his adversaries themselves.

The British have a wonderful habit of keeping records, publishing them and making them widely available. And so it is that we come across a book published in 1893 Haidar Ali and Tipu Sultan and the struggle with the Musalman Powers of the South written by Lewin B. Bowring who served as the chief commissioner of Mysore.

While describing the final siege of Seringapatam, Tipu’s capital, he explains that there were several grooves (topes) of areca-nut and cocoa trees between the British forces and Tipu’s fort that provided “safe cover to Tipu’s skirmishers and rocketmen, and enabled them to harass the English pickets.” He tells us that two columns were detached at sunset to expel Mysore troops from Sultanpet Tope. “The first of these, under Colonel Shawe, got possession of a ruined village, which it successfully held. The second column, under Colonel Wellesley, on advancing into the tope, was at once attacked in the darkness of night by a tremendous fire of musketry and rockets (emphasis added). The men, floundering about amidst the trees and the water-courses, at last broke, and fell back in disorder, some being killed and a few taken prisoners. In the confusion Colonel Wellesley was himself struck on the knee by a spent ball, and narrowly escaped falling into the hands of the enemy. The next day, however, a detachment under his command succeeded in taking possession of the grove.

Gunpowder was originally discovered by Chinese alchemists, reportedly searching for the ‘Elixir of Life’ in the first millennium. It soon propelled the development of firearms and Chinese rockets. How the technology landed in Tipu Sultan’s father Hyder Ali’s arsenal remains open to research, but metal casings and other improvements were added to them to increase their range, strength and destructive power.

Dr A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, former president of India and their “missile man” in his autobiography describes how Tipu’s rocket research, originally commissioned by his father Hyder Ali, helped the development of the Congreve system — “When Tipu Sultan was killed, the British captured more than 700 rockets and subsystems of 900 rockets in the battle of Turukhanahally in 1799. His army had 27 brigades, called Kushoons and each brigade had a company of rocket men called Jourks. These rockets had been taken to England by William Congreve and were subjected by the British to what we call “reverse engineering” today.”

In 1793, Major Dirom who was the deputy adjutant general of British forces in India describes rockets used by the Mysorean army as “A missile weapon, consisting of an iron tube of about a foot long and an inch in diameter, fixed to a bamboo rod of 10 or 12 feet long. The tube being filled with combustile composition, is set fire to and, directed by the hand, flies like an arrow, to the distance of upwards of a thousand yards. Some of the rockets have a chamber, and burst like shell; others, called the ground rockets, have a serpentine motion, and on striking the ground, rise again, and bound along till their force be spent.”

Sometimes truth is stranger than fiction and it is an irony that a weapon invented by one of Napoleon’s coalition partners in the East was ultimately used against him by the British in the West. Coincidentally, it was Colonel Wellesley once injured by Tipu’s rocketmen, who ultimately defeated Napoleon at Waterloo as a General and Duke.

In Pakistan Tipu is perhaps found too Eastern to name a missile after him and perhaps in an inadvertent admission of the two nation theory on the other side of the divide, he didn’t find a place amongst the Prithvis, Agnis and Trishuls either.

However, British records are not the only ones to acknowledge his development and deployment of solid fuel metal cased rockets.

Dr A.P.J. Abdul Kalam further writes in his book that when he visited National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Wallops Flight Facility at Wallops Island in East Coast, Virginia, which is the base for NASA’s sounding rocket programme, he saw a painting prominently displayed in the reception lobby. It depicted a battle scene with a few rockets flying in the background. The painting caught his eye because the side launching the rockets were not white, but dark-skinned, South Asians. It turned out to be Tipu Sultan’s army fighting the British!

In this bizarre world, a great granddaughter of Tipu’s house, Noor Inayat Khan, was honoured with a commemorative stamp in March 2014, for working as a spy for Britain and helping France against the Germans during WWII. However, acknowledgement of Tipu’s contribution to rocketry is overdue by a few centuries.

In the East hardly any picture of Tipu exists without his gleaming sword. However, none exists with his beloved rockets. Perhaps it is time that we scratch away the layers of stereotypes that we have entombed our heroes in. Our histories need to be re-written to tell the truth and to benefit from it.

As for me, every time I see a space shuttle launch or read news of a satellite launched into space using rocket propulsion, I smile to myself. For I have been told, some of my ancestors once worked as technicians for Tipu Sultan — the tiger of Mysore who pioneered the art and science of solid fuel rocketry. Today, May 4th, is the day he died on the field of battle.

The writer can be reached at vagabonds.odyssey@gmail.com