HYDER ALI or HAIDAR 'ALI (c. 1722-1782), Indian ruler and commander. This Mohammedan soldier-adventurer, who, followed by his son Tippoo, became the most formidable Asiatic rival the British ever encountered in India, was the great grandson of a fakir or wandering ascetic of Islam, who came from the Punjab to Gulburga in the Deccan, and the second son of a naik or chief constable at Budikota, near Kolar in Mysore. An elder brother rose to command a brigade in the Mysore army, while Hyder acquired a useful familiarity with the tactics of the French under Dupleix. He is said to have induced his brother to employ a Parsee to purchase artillery and small arms from the Bombay government, and to enroll some 3o sailors of different European nations as gunners, and is thus credited with having been "the first Indian who formed a corps of sepoys armed with fire-locks and bayonets, and who had a train of artillery served by Europeans." After the siege of Devanhalli (1749) Hyder received an inde pendent command in Mysore; within the next I2 years his energy and ability had made him master of minister and raja alike. In everything but in name he was ruler of the kingdom. In 1763 the conquest of Kanara gave him the treasures of Bednor, which he resolved to make the most splendid capital in India, under his own name, thenceforth changed from Hyder Naik into Hyder Ali Khan Bahadur; and in 1765 he retrieved previous defeat by the Mahrattas by destroying the Nairs or military caste of the Malabar coast, and the conquest of Calicut.
Hyder Ali now occupied the serious attention of the Madras government, which in 1766 agreed with the nizam to furnish him with troops to be used against the common foe. But a secret arrangement was come to between the two Indian powers, the result of which was that Colonel Smith's small force was met with a united army of 8o,000 men and I oo guns. British dash and sepoy fidelity, however, prevailed, first in the battle of Chengam (Sept. 3, 1767), and again still more remarkably in that of Tiruvannamalai (Trinomalai). On the loss of his recently made fleet and forts on the western coast, Hyder Ali offered peace overtures; on their rejection, bringing all his resources and strategy into play, he forced Colonel Smith to raise the siege of Bangalore, and brought his army within five m. of Madras. The result was the treaty of April 1769, providing for the mutual restitution of all conquests, and for mutual aid and alliance in defensive war; it was followed by a commercial treaty in 1770 with the authorities of Bombay. Under these arrangements Hyder Ali, when defeated by the Mahrattas in 1772, claimed British assistance, but in vain ; this breach of faith aroused a desire for vengeance.
His time came when in 1778 the British, on the declaration of war with France, resolved to drive the French out of India. The capture of Mahe on the Malabar coast in 1779, followed by the annexation of lands belonging to a dependent of his own, gave him a pretext. Again master of all that the Mahrattas had taken from him, and with empire extended to the Kistna, he descended through the passes of the Ghats amid burning villages, reaching Conjeeveram, only 45 m. from Madras, unopposed. Not till the smoke was seen from St. Thomas's Mount, where Sir Hector Munro commanded 5,200 troops, was any movement made; then, however, the British general sought to join a smaller body under Colonel Baillie recalled from Guntur. The incapacity of the officers resulted in the destruction of Baillie's force of 2,800 (Sept. Io, 1780). Warren Hastings sent from Bengal Sir Eyre Coote, who, though repulsed at Chidambaram, defeated Hyder thrice successively in the battles of Porto Novo, Pollilur and Sholingarh, while Tippoo was forced to raise the siege of Wandi wash, and Vellore was provisioned. On the arrival of Lord Macartney as governor of Madras, the British fleet captured Negapatam, and forced Hyder Ali to confess that he could never ruin a power which had command of the sea. He had sent his son Tippoo to the west coast, to seek the assistance of the French fleet, when his death took place at Chittur in Dec. 1782.
See L. B. Bowring, Haidar All and Tipu Sultan, "Rulers of India" series (1893) . For the personal character and administration of Hyder Ali see the History of Hyder Naik, written by Mir Hussein Ali Khan Kirmani (translated from the Persian by Colonel Miles, and published by the Oriental Translation Fund), and the curious work written by M. Le Maitre de La Tour, commandant of his artillery (Histoire d'Hayder-Ali Khan, Paris, 1783) . For the whole life and times see Wilks, Historical Sketches of the South of India (1810-17) ; Aitchison's Treaties, vol. v. (2nd ed., 1876) ; and Pearson, Memoirs of Schwartz (1834).