In the Fourth Anglo-Mysore War, a combined force of British East India Company troops supported by the Marathas and the Nizam of Hyderabad defeated Tipu.

Hyder Ali appointed able teachers to give Tipu an early education in subjects like Urdu, Persian, Arabic, Kannada, Beary, Quran, Islamic jurisprudence, riding, shooting and fencing.

[26] Alexander Beatson, who published a volume on the Fourth Mysore War entitled View of the Origin and Conduct of the War with Tippoo Sultaun, described Tipu Sultan as follows: "His stature was about five feet eight inches; he had a short neck, square shoulders, and was rather corpulent: his limbs were small, particularly his feet and hands; he had large full eyes, small arched eyebrows, and an aquiline nose; his complexion was fair, and the general expression of his countenance, not void of dignity".

[28] During this campaign in September 1780, Tipu Sultan was dispatched by Hyder Ali with 10,000 men and 18 guns to intercept Colonel William Baillie who was on his way to join Sir Hector Munro.

Munro was moving south with a separate force to join Baillie, but on hearing the news of the defeat he retreated to Madras, abandoning his artillery in a water tank at Kanchipuram.

After the Battle of the Nedumkotta (1789–90), due to the monsoon flood, the stiff resistance of the Travancore forces and news about the attack of British in Srirangapatnam he went back.

In response, Lord Cornwallis mobilised company and British military forces, and formed alliances with the Marathas and the Nizam of Hyderabad to oppose Tipu.

In the ensuing treaty, he was forced to cede half his territories to the allies,[26] and deliver two of his sons as hostages until he paid in full three crores and thirty lakhs rupees fixed as war indemnity to the British for the campaign against him.

[46] Although I never supposed that he (Napoleon) possessed, allowing for some difference of education, the liberality of conduct and political views which were sometimes exhibited by old Hyder Ali, yet I did think he might have shown the same resolved and dogged spirit of resolution which induced Tipu Sahib to die manfully upon the breach of his capital city with his sabre clenched in his hand.Horatio Nelson defeated François-Paul Brueys D'Aigalliers at the Battle of the Nile in Egypt in 1798.

"[37][page needed] When the British broke through the city walls, French military advisers told Tipu Sultan[51] to escape via secret passages and to fight the rest of the wars from other forts, but he refused.

Many members of the British East India Company believed that Nawab of Carnatic Umdat Ul-Umra secretly provided assistance to Tipu Sultan during the war and sought his deposition after 1799.

According to historian Dr Dulari Qureshi Tipu Sultan was a fierce warrior king and was so quick in his movement that it seemed to the enemy that he was fighting on many fronts at the same time.

The rockets had twin side sharpened blades mounted on them, and when fired en masse, spun and wreaked significant damage against a large army.

Thus, Rajputs, Muslims and able tribal men were enrolled for full time service replacing the local militia called the Kandachar[61] force of agricultural origin which existed in the Mysore army earlier.

The removal of the Vokkaligas from the local militia which had taken part in wars for centuries and the imposition of higher taxes on them in place of their quit rent led indirectly to the implementation of Ryotwari system.

[63] Under his reign, Mysore overtook Bengal Subah as India's dominant economic power, with highly productive agriculture and textile manufacturing.

[69] Both Hyder Ali and Tipu Sultan owed nominal allegiance to the Mughal Emperor Shah Alam II; both were described as Nabobs by the British East India Company in all existing treaties.

[73][page needed] After the Fall of Seringapatam in 1799, the blind emperor did remorse for Tipu, but maintained his confidence in the Nizam of Hyderabad, who had now made peace with the British.

[75] Both Hyder Ali and Tipu sought an alliance with the French, the only European power still strong enough to challenge the British East India Company in the subcontinent.

In the same year, French Admiral De Suffren ceremonially presented a portrait of Louis XVI to Haidar Ali and sought his alliance.

They wounded and killed many people, including Brahmins, plundered the monastery of all its valuable possessions, and desecrated the temple by displacing the image of goddess Sarada.

A. Saletare has described Tipu Sultan as a defender of the Hindu dharma, who also patronised other temples including one at Melkote, for which he issued a Kannada decree that the Shrivaishnava invocatory verses there should be recited in the traditional form.

[107] In a letter to Runmust Khan, Tipu himself stated:[108] "We proceeded with the utmost speed, and, at once, made prisoners of 40,000 occasion-seeking and sedition-exciting Kodavas, who alarmed at the approach of our victorious army, had slunk into woods, and concealed themselves in lofty mountains, inaccessible even to birds.

As for copper, the new large paisa was commenced by Haidar Ali in AH1195, two years before his death, with the elephant on the obverse, the mint on the reverse, and was continued throughout the reign of Tipu Sultan, who added other denominations.

During his first 4 years, the large gold coin was the mohur, with an average weight of about 10.95g (AH1197-1200), replaced with the four-pagoda of 13.74g with the calendar change to the Mauludi "مولودی" system (AM1215-1219).

Successive Indian National Congress governments have often celebrated Tipu Sultan's memory and monuments and relics of his rule while the Bharatiya Janata Party has been largely critical.

[122] Historian Alexander Beatson reported that "in his palace was found a great variety of curious swords, daggers, fusils, pistols, and blunderbusses; some were of exquisite workmanship, mounted with gold, or silver, and beautifully inlaid and ornamented with tigers' heads and stripes, or with Persian and Arabic verses".

[124] At an auction in London in April 2004, Vijay Mallya purchased the sword of Tipu Sultan and some other historical artefacts, and brought them back to India.

However, on 29 July 2019, the next Chief Minister B. S. Yediyurappa, who belongs to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), ordered the celebrations cancelled, saying: "Legislators from Kodagu had highlighted incidents of violence during Tipu Jayanti."

The previous year, not a single JD(S) leader, including the then chief minister HD Kumaraswamy, attended the event, turning it into a fiasco.