SHIVAMOGGA: A dedicated gallery housing metal cased rockets used during Tipu Sultan period (18th century) has been opened in Shivamogga city. However, it was thrown open to the public without a formal inauguration by people’s representatives, which according to sources, is due to the recent controversy surrounding the ruler.
The gallery was opened to the public on the first day of the Heritage Week on November 21.
The gallery has been set up at the Shivappa Nayaka Palace which is also a museum. It is the first and largest gallery having the "Tipu rockets" or "Mysore rockets" in the world.
While the Royal Artillery Museum, Woolwich Arsenal in London, is home to a collection of two such rockets, three pieces are at the government museum in Bengaluru. There was no dedicated gallery for the rockets until the one in Shivamogga opened.
The museum has a large cache of 1,700 such rockets that were recovered from an old well at Nagara village in Hosanagar taluk last year. However, only 15 are kept in the gallery owing to lack of space.
The length of the rockets now housed at Shivappa Nayaka Museum ranges from 190 mm to 260 mm and the diameter ranges from 33 mm to 65 mm. While the lightest specimen weighs 372 g, the highest one weighs 1.75 kg.
History buffs throng museum to see 'rockets'
Sources in the Archeology, Museums and Heritage Department told TNIE that a formal inauguration was not done to "avoid any further controversy." Earlier, the BJP State government had decided not to celebrate Tipu Jayanti at the government level and is thinking of removing lessons related to the ruler from textbooks.
History enthusiast Ajay Kumar Sharma said, "The department also avoided naming the gallery as Tipu Rockets Gallery but played safe by naming it as Mysore Rockets Gallery. There is also an argument that similar rockets were used by the Marathas. However, thorough carbon dating needs to be done to determine the period. Though it is not clear who invented these rockets, it is said that they were used during the period of Hyder Ali and his son Tipu Sultan."
'World’s first metal cased rockets'
Information put up at the gallery states that Mysore in the 18th century was the greatest threat to the development of the British colonial enterprise in India. The British fought them at every step. It was in this series of wars that England and the wider world was introduced to a new weapon of war - The Mysore metal cased rocket. The instant bamboo stick or sword blade attached to the rocket passed through a man’s body.
It resumed its initial speed and destroyed 10 or 20 men until the combustible matter with which it was charged was spent.
"Mysore was the first state in the world to have moved to the next stage of rocket development from wooden firework rockets to metal war rockets successfully," the information reads. Though there was no formal inauguration, the gallery has already attracted history buffs who are visiting the gallery each day.