DOI: 10.36347/sjahss.2018.v06i02.023

Pages: 443-446

Tipu Sultan was one of the first Indian kings to be killed on the battlefield while defending his kingdom against the Colonial British. Indian rockets in the twentieth century can be seen as a revival of the eighteenth century dream of Tipu Sultan. He was the first to introduce long travelling missiles with heat resistant tubes. Two centuries before Sriharikota and Chandipur emerged on the national scene as rocket launching and missile testing centres, the riverine island of Srirangapatnam had made giant strides in the field of “rocket science and missile technology”. Tipu wrote a military manual called “Fathul Mujahidin” in which 200 rocket men were prescribed to each Mysoream ‘Cushoon’. The organizational structure of Indian Rocket unit in 1793 evolved in Tippus army. At the Battle of Pollilur (1780) during the II Anglo Mysore war. Colonel William Brailles ammunition stores were thought to have been detonated by a hit from one of Haider Ali Mysore rockets resulting in a humiliating British defeat.Some rockets seized by the British army are currently on display at London’s Royal Artillery Museum with the death of Tipu Sultan Indian rocketry also met its demise, to be revived only in the 1970’s by VikramSarabai, Abdul Kalam and others. Kalam also went to the Wallops Flight Facility at Wallops Island in East Coast, Virginia. This place was the base for NASA’s sounding rocket program. There he saw a painting prominently displayed in the reception lobby. It depicted a battle scene with a few rockets flying in the background.