The Battle of Panipat in 1761 was more than a decisive loss for the Marathas—it was a seismic shift in the balance of power across the Indian subcontinent. In the aftermath of their defeat, the Marathas withdrew their garrisons from key territories, including Mysore. This retreat proved to be a windfall for one rising figure in the south: Hyder Ali.
Before Panipat, Hyder was a subordinate force in Karnataka, paying regular tribute to the Peshwa and remaining militarily restrained. But with the Maratha presence diminished, he seized the moment. No longer content with subservience, Hyder launched an aggressive campaign to consolidate control over Mysore, eventually expanding his borders as far as the Krishna River by 1763.
Yet the Marathas had not abandoned their imperial aspirations. In 1762, Peshwa Madhavrao I—one of the most capable leaders of the Maratha Confederacy—turned his attention southward. After negotiating peace with the Nizam, he mounted an expedition against Hyder. But Hyder, ever calculating, refused open battle. He withdrew into forested terrain, avoiding confrontation and offering partial tribute to stall Maratha advances. Domestic unrest in Pune forced Madhavrao to suspend operations without achieving a final resolution.
A year later, Hyder's territorial ambitions had grown. In February 1764, Madhavrao launched a renewed southern campaign. This time, his army crossed the Krishna and occupied Manoli and Hubli. Hyder again attempted his evasive tactics, retreating into the forest. But in May, he was compelled to fight—and decisively lost. His army suffered 1,000 dead and as many wounded; the Marathas, by contrast, lost only 50 soldiers with 200 wounded.
Remarkably, even with Hyder on the defensive, the Marathas failed to finish the job. In both 1764 and 1765, they had Mysore within their grasp. Instead of imposing final defeat, they settled for a meagre tribute—just Rs. 30 lakhs in 1765. The East India Company official Mark Wilks would later describe this compromise as “an adjustment of extreme moderation, considering the desperate circumstances in which Hyder was placed.” The leniency was widely attributed to Raghunath Rao, Madhavrao’s uncle, whose political ambitions often ran counter to Maratha state interests.
In May 1767, Madhavrao mounted yet another campaign. Once again, the Marathas emerged victorious, killing 2,000 of Hyder’s troops. And once again, they let him go—this time for Rs. 31 lakhs. The Anglo-Mysore War (1767–69) offered the Marathas further opportunity to leverage Hyder’s vulnerability, but internal divisions, especially the ambitions of Raghunath Rao, blunted any decisive action. Historian R.C. Majumdar, in his The Maratha Supremacy, defends Madhavrao and assigns blame to Raghunath Rao for weakening Maratha policy and allowing Hyder to survive repeated defeats.
Undeterred, Madhavrao launched another expedition in January 1770. Hyder, wary of his adversary’s skill, once again declined open battle. As Wilks notes, Hyder paid “the highest tribute to Madhavrao’s military genius” by refusing to engage him directly. In March 1771, the Marathas defeated Hyder’s army near Seringapatam. Hyder escaped disguised as a monk. But with Madhavrao gravely ill and unable to oversee the southern theatre, the window for final conquest closed once again. In November 1772, Madhavrao died—just 27 years old.
Hyder wasted no time. Exploiting the leadership vacuum, he negotiated with local Maratha commanders, securing his survival with a payment of Rs. 31 lakhs and minor territorial concessions. It was a pragmatic, if humiliating, exit from yet another Maratha siege.
If the military roles had been reversed, one cannot imagine Hyder sparing a defeated Maratha force for a token sum. The Marathas defeated him in at least six major campaigns, yet they failed to dismantle his military apparatus or establish lasting control in Mysore. Their battlefield victories did not translate into durable political gains.
This failure—victory without consolidation—defined Maratha policy in Karnataka. Time and again, they bested Hyder and later his son Tipu Sultan, yet they lacked either the will or the unity to impose terms. Had they done so, the geopolitical landscape of southern India could have been dramatically different.
Modern portrayals in films, literature, and popular memory have cast Hyder Ali and Tipu Sultan as legendary warriors. Tipu, in particular, is celebrated as the “Tiger of Mysore.” But this popular myth obscures a historical irony: neither Hyder nor Tipu ever won a major war against the Marathas. In fact, Tipu was soundly defeated in the Mysore-Maratha Wars of 1785–87, culminating in the Treaty of Gajendragad (April 1787), which compelled him to pay an annual tribute of Rs. 12 lakhs to the Marathas.
Why, then, does history remember Hyder and Tipu with such reverence, while the Marathas—arguably more consistent in military success—are often overlooked in this context? Perhaps it is because Hyder and Tipu, facing the British directly in later years, became convenient symbols of resistance. Yet, if one assesses the record of their southern campaigns, particularly against the Marathas, the verdict is clear: their reputations exceed their victories.
By 1799, the Mysore kingdom of Hyder and Tipu was gone—annexed by the British following Tipu’s death in the Fourth Anglo-Mysore War. The Marathas, for all their military brilliance, never managed to assert full control over Karnataka, largely due to internal divisions and a failure to follow up their battlefield dominance with political decisiveness.
Note: This article focuses solely on the direct military confrontations between the Marathas and Hyder Ali. The broader context of eighteenth-century Karnataka included a complex web of rivalries involving the Nizam, the British East India Company, and various regional powers. In these wider conflicts too, Hyder and Tipu performed erratically—frequently violating treaties, betraying allies, and often ending up on the losing side of key battles.
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