Why Tipu Sultan must be remembered as a tyrant and not celebrated

The Christians in Mangaluru too have narrated some horror tales about Tipu Sultan, who according to many is seen as a freedom fighter.

Tipu Sultan is back in the narrative ahead of the Karnataka Assembly elections scheduled to be held in May.

BJP's national general secretary, C T Ravi said on Friday that Tipu Sultan wanted to name Hassan as Karimabad.

"If Tipu's ideology was alive, then Hassan would have been named Karimabad today. Does JD(S) leader, H D Kumaraswamy also want to call it that? Uri Gowda and Nanje Gowda were historical persons, and the truth is that they killed Tipu Sultan," Ravi said.

Uri Gowda and Nanje Gowda were apparently soldiers who fought Tipu Sultan.

Likewise, state minister, Dr. C N Ashwathnarayan too had raised the issue of Tipu Sultan in February.

The BJP has been accusing the Congress of promoting Tipu's ideology. During the reign of Siddaramaiah there were violent clashes in Kodagu district in which two persons lost their lives over the Tipu Sultan issue.

Ashwathnarayan had said that Siddaramaiah will come to the place of Tipu Sultan.

"Do you want Veer Savarkar or Tipu Sultan? You have to decide. You know what Uri Gowda and Nanje Gowda did to Tipu Sultan," the minister also had said.

While many have described Tipu Sultan as a brave soldier who fought the Britishers, the Kodavas do not subscribe to that view. In Kodagu district, he will always be remained as a back-stabbing tyrant.

In most parts of the state, he is known as a brutal tyrant whose atrocities against Hindus, Christians and Kodavas will never be forgotten.

The BJP has been attacking the Congress on this issue ever since 2015, when the Congress government decided to celebrate Tipu Jayanti.

There are a set of analysts who feel that Tipu has been raked up by the BJP to divert attention from its own failures in Karnataka. However others say that the BJP has raised it since 2015. Tipu was not a major issue in the state until the Siddaramaiah led Congress government decided to celebrate Tipu Jayanti.

Tipu the tyrant:

Kodagu is a small district and hill station in Karnataka from where Field Marshal K M Cariappa and General K S Thimaya hailed. Ask anyone in Kodagu about Tipu and the opinion is negative. Not to mention, you would not find one Tipu supporter in the district.

Noted Indian novelist, S L Bhyrappa had described Tipu Sultan as a rabid fanatic who could be compared to Aurangzeb. He killed over 1 lakh people in Malabar for refusing to convert to Islam. Tipu had even invited Zayan Shah of Afghanistan to invade India from the north, while assuring him that he would invade from the south. Bhyrappa noted that the plan was to cover India into Islam. He is also accused of massacring Vaishnava devotees in Karnataka's Melukote on Deepavali.

Sentiments against Tipu are high in Kodagu and Mangaluru. Both the Kodavas and the Christians in these areas refer to Tipu as a religious bigot.

Tipu has very often tried to capture Kodagu, but has been beaten down despite the Kodavas being outnumbered 1:3. The Kodavas have on one occasion, driven him back to Mysuru.

The Kodavas however fell prey to Tipu's strategy, when he offered his hand of friendship. They were caught completely off guard when Tipu's men attacked the Kodavas when they were unarmed. He then took many and locked them in a jail in Srirangapatana. Historians suggest that nearly 80,000 were forcibly converted to Islam.

Tipu is also accused of destroying the Milagres Church in Mangaluru. He also imprisoned scores of Christians and then made them walk to Mysuru, during which 4,000 lost their lives.

To make him a pride of Karnataka, would not be exactly the right thing to do. What was his stand on Kannada as a language? His court language was Persian.

The question that needs to be asked was whether Tipu was fighting the British to secure India's independence or was he doing so to safeguard his own kingdom?