US Prez Richard Nixon and otheresbbc.com .washingtonpost.com Water Gate,Srirangapatna,Karnataka hinkbangalore.com
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| Mysore.ind.in |
Though separated by continents, centuries, and contexts, the Water Gate of Srirangapatna and the Watergate scandal in Washington, D.C., are linked by the curious coincidence of a name and by the fact that each marked the dramatic end of a leader’s power. The Water Gate in Karnataka is a small riverside gateway in the 18th-century Srirangapatna Fort, remembered as the place near which Tipu Sultan, the “Tiger of Mysore,” was killed on 4 May 1799 while resisting British forces during the Fourth Anglo-Mysore War. Tipu, known for his administrative reforms, rocketry, and resistance to colonial expansion, refused to escape when the fort was breached. Fighting to the last, he died defending his capital, and with him ended Mysore’s challenge to British supremacy in southern India. The gate thus became a symbol of a ruler’s valor and the closing chapter of an indigenous kingdom’s independence.
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| Water gate .thinkbangalore.com |
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| Plaque on wall,Water gate .tripadvisor.in |
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| !799 Fall of Tipu Sultan against the English Company, Srirangapatna, thinkbangalore.com |
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| Sensational water gate scandal, US historybrown.blogspot.in |
Above image: The water Gate in the Srirangapatna Fort, Karnataka may remind the old timers about the sensational "Watergate" political scandal that took place in the USA during the Nixon Administration, following an illegal break-in at the Democratic National Committee (DNC) headquarters at the Watergate office complex in Washington, D.C. on June 17, 1972. Multiple abuses of power by members of the Nixon administration came to the surface that ultimately led to the exit Richard Nixon........
In striking contrast, the Watergate scandal of 1972-73 was a political drama in the heart of the world’s most powerful democracy. It began with a break-in at the Democratic National Committee’s headquarters in the Watergate office-hotel complex and grew into a vast investigation exposing abuses of power, covert surveillance, and attempts at obstruction by members of President Richard Nixon’s administration. Unlike Tipu’s story of battlefield heroism, Nixon’s downfall was a crisis of credibility and legality. Press revelations, Senate hearings, and the “smoking gun” tapes revealed presidential complicity in a cover-up. Facing certain impeachment, Nixon resigned on 9 August 1974—the only U.S. president to do so—bringing an ignominious end to a career that had included significant achievements in foreign policy and domestic affairs.
Watergates” illuminate very different pathways by which authority can collapse. Tipu Sultan’s fall was sudden and physical, the outcome of a siege in which he chose death over surrender, leaving a legacy of resistance and innovation. Nixon’s fall was gradual and institutional, shaped by checks and balances, investigative journalism, and judicial oversight, demonstrating the resilience of democratic accountability. Yet both events altered the political landscape: Mysore was absorbed into British India, while in America, new laws and norms on transparency and presidential conduct followed. The shared name is coincidental, but it underscores how places and words can acquire symbolic weight when entwined with the fate of leaders, whether on a blood-stained rampart by the Cauvery or in the corridors of power along the Potomac.
Ref:
Hasan, Mohibbul. History of Tipu Sultan. Calcutta: World Press, 1951.
Brittlebank, Kate. Tiger: The Life of Tipu Sultan. Penguin, 2016.
Henderson, J. The Fall of Srirangapatna and the Death of Tipu Sultan. Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, 1830.
“Water Gate at Srirangapatna and Tipu Sultan.” Navrang India, 2017 – https://navrangindia.blogspot.com/2017/09/watergate-at-srirangapatna-and-tipu.html
Government of Karnataka, Department of Archaeology, Museums & Heritage – Srirangapatna Fort Guidebook.
On the Watergate scandal and Nixon’s resignation
Kutler, Stanley I. The Wars of Watergate: The Last Crisis of Richard Nixon. Knopf, 1990.
Woodward, Bob & Bernstein, Carl. All the President’s Men. Simon & Schuster, 1974.
Emery, Fred. Watergate: The Corruption of American Politics and the Fall of Richard Nixon. Times Books, 1994.
U.S. National Archives – “Watergate: The Scandal That Brought Down a President.” https://www.archives.gov/exhibits/watergate
Miller Center, University of Virginia – Richard Nixon: Watergate and Resignation. https://millercenter.org/president/nixon/watergate
