Think of Srirangapatna and first thing which comes in mind is name great ruler of Mysore, Tipu Sultan. Simply because of his valour, talent and the way he fought the British. Known as the Tiger of Mysore, he was the de facto ruler of the Mysore kingdom for a long time.
Srirangapatna had the privilege of witnessing the great courage of Tipu Sultan during the late 1700s, just some 19 km away from Mysore City, a small town but was the capital of Mysore. It was Srirangapatna where I was going to witness the next destination of mine, Colonel Bailey’s Dungeon. From the Dungeon it was already in back of mind, a place full of torture, a sort of morbid place where prisoners would have been kept in dark and dreary cells.
Deciding to go by the road, but not the road made by the present government but by Tipu Sultan himself. Those days when Indian’s were chained and brought to death in the Jails of India as prisoner of War, Tipu Sultan had something different in mind, this jail was built by him to keep Britishers as prisoner of War, yes you got me right he did this.
Tipu had fought many battles with Britishers and it was in the battle of Pollilur he brought this jail into limelight, fought in September 1780. Tipu decisively won over Colonel Bailey and his troops. Several Europeans were captured alive while more than 3,800 sepoys suffered casualties. Tipu brought many men from the troops and Colonel Bailey to the dungeon as prisoner of war. Later, Tipu also brought Captain Baird and Rulay, Colonel Brithwhite Sampson, Frazer and Lindsay as prisoners to this dungeon in a year or two.
It was hard to see anything inside the dungeon, thanks to the clouds, yet the way the dungeon was built was appealing. Arches and it seemed as if the arches greeted me to explore it. As anyone would imagine, the dungeons was built underground – and one had to climb down a few steps to enter, and it was where we met this guide who had quite a unique pronunciation of words whenever he said Colonel Bailey’s Dungeon which he repeated atleast 5-6 times.
Built of brick and mortar, this fortress had relatively smaller measurements of 30.5m x 12.2m. The presence of many arches provided the dungeons with sufficient light to come in. And to me, Tipu had kept in mind that not to be compromised on the style of the architecture even here. The arches were symmetric, had the shape of a masjid’s tomb, bulbous on the side and converging at the ceiling.
Many things which were quite odd in their, one of them being the presence of a at least a 750 kg wrought iron cannon placed right in the middle of the Jail. On being asked Guide told me, whenever a prisoner was found useless and there was no use of keeping him chained further he was blown away using this cannon, a big hole right above the cannon is still present which occurred due to some part of bomb going up as well. Though for me this description was quite a exaggeration, but no written proof was present there, describing the reason behind the presence of that cannon there.
For me I was witnessing the first place or can say first time I ever heard that a jail was named after not the one who ordered its making, but after the one who was kept there which happen to be Colonel Bailey who breathed his last in 1782 here, giving it his name Colonel Bailey’s Dungeon.
