India: Regarding Tipu Sultan (Chandan Gowda)

Bangalore Mirror

Regarding Tipu Sultan
Bangalore Mirror Bureau | Nov 13, 2015, 10.30 PM IST
by: Chandan Gowda

In wake of controversy around Tipu Jayanthi, it is pertinent to note that his many dimensions make it impossible for him not to be remembered

The recent controversy over Tipu Sultan's legacy showed, yet again, that deadly myths about the past can be brought alive and presented as history. These tactics are now boringly familiar.
Responsible historians never fail to counter such tactics with credible evidence even as important questions haunt them: Are bad myths better countered by good myths rather than by objective history? Are moral arguments more effective in overcoming communal propaganda than scholarly ones? How best do we tell a historical story to restore goodwill among communities?
Because the right wing offers its views as historical arguments, there cannot be any doubt about their investment in appearing historically valid. As long as this is so, scholarly refutations will continue to be necessary.
A recent thesis by Michael Soracoe, a doctoral student in history at the University of Maryland, USA, shows in detail how absolutely central the vilification of Tipu Sultan was for Britain to see itself as an imperial power in India. The large body of phobic material on Tipu that English officials, writers, painters, and cartoonists created in the last two decades of the 18th century, i.e. when Tipu challenged the English in successive military combat, cast him as a Muslim fanatic who shattered Hindu temples and converted local Hindus and Christians into Muslims. He was so ruthless, in these accounts, that it appeared only proper for the British to take over Mysore and save his subjects.
This new sense of imperial purpose replaced the earlier image of the East India Company officials, like Robert Clive and Warren Hastings, as corrupt and degenerate and not worthy of embarking on political rule in India.
Tipu continued to evoke images of cruelty and villainy in English writings all through the 19th century.
And, as we have seen, these images found ready consumers among the right wing Hindu activists. As we also saw in the recent panel discussion on TV, no one bothered to ask who wrote these books or how they were to be read.
For much of the twentieth century, most people in Karnataka saw Tipu as the Tiger of Mysore or encountered delightful stories of how he called Nanjundeshwara, the chief deity in the famous Srikanteshwara temple in Nanjangud ("The Kashi of the South"), Hakim Nanjunda, for curing his favourite elephant of an eye disease. (The emerald Shiva linga that he gifted to the temple is still worshipped). Children learnt about his bravery against the British in school. Even the 1979 comic book on Tipu Sultan in the Amar Chitra Katha, a series now known to have shared a Hindutva agenda, saw him as a brave Indian patriot, and not as a religious bigot.
The portrayal of Tipu as a patriot in Sanjay Khan's The Sword of Tipu Sultan, which was telecast on national Doordarshan in 1990, ran into opposition by communal activists. It has been a concerted campaign since, with anti-Tipu propaganda books appearing here and there.
Those protesting the Karnataka state's decisi on to commemorate November 10 as Tipu Jayanthi have accused Tipu of having destroyed life, property and temples in Coorg and converting the Coorgis and Catholic Christians in Mangalore to Islam. To this local geography the Malabar region of Kerala also came to be added.
These regions had their own rulers and were not part of Mysore kingdom. It should not surprise that Tipu, like the well loved Krishnadevaraya before him, or any other ruler, suppressed rebellions in territories he wished to annex. He is also engaged in three major wars with the British (and the Nizam and the Marathas) between 1780 and 1799. Insubordination would have been quelled in a period of tension and insecurity.
While conversions to Islam did occur in Coorg and Mangalore, there is no evidence of forced conversion to Islam anywhere in Mysore kingdom. Why did he convert them? Was it a form of political punishment? Which castes did he convert in Coorg? Why should this be a problem for the non-Muslims of Coorg? None of this is clear.
What is clear, however, is that the Wodeyar kings who became the rulers of Mysore after Tipu's death in 1799, never saw a problem in Tipu's political conduct. A Persian inscription of Tipu's, which was found during the construction work on the Krishnarajasagara Dam, was installed along with its Kannada and English translations at the entrance of the Dam when it was inaugurated in 1932. The inscription said that a part of the tax would be waived for the farmers using the irrigated water from any dam built on that site. While Tipu Sultan was not "a freedom fighter," he was not a ruler who only wanted to hold on to his kingdom, like, say, Rani Chennamma of Kittur. His letters to the Nizam reveal that he saw the British as a different kind of a political enemy against whom the rulers of the Deccan and South India had to work against.
Tipu's sense for global politics made him befriend the French as potential allies against the British. There was a nascent awareness of the British as a different kind of political enemy, which took clearer form in the nineteenth century His interest in the technological upgrade of his military equipment, which intimidated the British so much, has impressed those who value such advances in technology. Those favouring the modern state will appreciate that he also fine-tuned his revenue collection networks and was evolving a centralised bureaucracy.
Tipu's decision to fight the British and die on the battlefield - he was 49 years old then - when he could have tried to strike safe deals with the British like the several hundred other kings in the country came to do is not nothing. The many dimensions of Tipu should make it impossible for him not to be remembered.
The author is Professor of Sociology, Azim Premji University

India: HistoriansChallenge BJP opposition to Tipu Sultan Birthday celebrations in Karnataka

The Times of India
Historians hit out at BJP for calling Tipu anti-national
by Manimugdha S Sharma
TNN | Nov 7, 2015, 10.45PM IST

The Karnataka government's decision to observe Tipu Sultan's birthday has stirred a debate with the Right, led by the Sangh Parivar, slamming it and those on the other side of the ideological spectrum supporting it.

As reported by TOI on Saturday, BJP dismissed the legendary Mysore ruler, who has inspired generations of patriots, as an anti-national. Its Mysuru legislator, Go Madhusudan, decried the move to set up a university in Tipu's name and explained the logic behind branding him an anti-national: "Let's not forget the recorded fact that he invited Afghan king Ahmad Shah Abdali to wage a war against India. This shows he was an anti-national and doesn't deserve to be venerated."

The BJP, in its zeal to paint Tipu in anti-national colours, didn't realise the fallacy of its claim. The first time Abdali invaded India in 1748, Tipu was not even born. When Abdali defeated the Marathas at Panipat in 1761, Tipu was only a 10-year-old child and a hostage of Khande Rao, the Mysorean general who had hatched a plot with the Wodeyar queen mother to oust Hyder Ali, then the subedar of Dindigul and jagirdar of Bangalore. In fact, it was the Maratha defeat at Panipat that had helped Tipu's beleaguered father to seize power in 1761.

Tipu Sultan did, however, seek an international alliance with Abdali's grandson, Zaman Shah Durrani, Revolutionary France, Iran and the Ottoman Empire to throw out the British. Now, if he could be called anti-national for this, then we have to imagine the British as the rightful rulers of this country.

Historian Dilip Menon was aghast by this portrayal of Tipu Sultan. "Why does the BJP oppose the celebration of Tipu Sultan's birthday by the Karnataka government? Historically, Tipu is a complex figure: supporter of the French revolution; anti-colonial warrior dying in battle against the East India Company forces at Seringapatam; enlightened monarch and supporter of scholarship. In short, one of the best of the 18th-century monarchs in India. However, amidst his campaigns, there were also stories of forced conversions of Hindus and destruction of temples which to modern eyes fit too well into a Muslim monarch in a Hindu society frame. In the 18th century, the Marathas were depredators of temples from east to south India, stationing troops in the garbha-griha (sanctum sanctorum) of major temples, melting temple metal for ammunition and so on. This was a period of war and normal rules didn't apply, and marauders were no respecters of religious differences. Interestingly, the ideal monarch, Ashoka, ancient exemplar for modern India, self-confessedly killed hundreds of thousands of Hindus in war before converting to Buddhism. So will the BJP reject Ashoka? History means knowing context and not subscribing to polarising myths," Menon said.

Military historian Mandeep Singh Bajwa was plain angry at this "lack of understanding" of Tipu. "Instead of making these empty noises, they should be studying the administration and warfare of Hyder Ali and Tipu Sultan. Today, you have a hostile China and Pakistan as neighbours and a new violent order in the form of Islamic State is rising. Both Hyder Ali and Tipu Sultan managed to stay independent for decades fighting the alliance of the British, the Marathas and the Nizam. Ultimately, the more experienced and professional British prevailed. Yet wasn't it a great achievement to keep your head up even when facing insurmountable odds?" Bajwa said.

Tipu was both feared and hated by the British for being a strong adversary. The hatred found vent in propaganda, which, centuries later, has inspired canards about Tipu that pop-up in social media every now and then. Yet today, the British place Tipu along with Napoleon among the greatest adversaries they ever faced in history.

One of the greatest tributes to Tipu came from Sir Walter Scott, who commented on the abdication of Napoleon Bonaparte in 1814 thus: "Although I never supposed that he (Napoleon) possessed, allowing for some difference of education, the liberality of conduct and political views which were sometimes exhibited by old Haidar Ally, yet I did think he (Napoleon) might have shown the same resolved and dogged spirit of resolution which induced Tippoo Saib to die manfully upon the breach of his capital city with his sabre clenched in his hand."



http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Historians-hit-out-at-BJP-for-calling-Tipu-anti-national/articleshow/49704907.cms

Whose culture is it anyway? (Suresh Menon)

Deccan Herald - July 25, 2004 | Articulations
URL: http://www.deccanherald.com/deccanherald/july252004/artic2.asp

Whose culture is it anyway?
by Suresh Menon

It took courage for Girish Karnad to proclaim publicly that Tipu Sultan is the greatest son of Karnataka. Given the level of intolerance and the artificially cultured thin skins all around, he was inviting trouble both from the Kannada chauvinists and the right wing fanatics. When someone asked him at a function – I think it was the writer Sashi Deshpande – if he wasn’t worried about how the those who view history through a saffron haze would react to this, Karnad was both forthright enough to admit that it was a chance that creative writers had to take, and practical enough to see the effect it would have on the sale of his book containing the play based on Tipu’s dreams.

Five years ago, when The Dreams of Tipu Sultan was being staged on the bicentenary of Tipu’s death, Karnad had to deal with the Bajrang Dal whose notion of history he had upset. Gandhi called Tipu the embodiment of Hindu-Muslim unity, and G S Sardesai, in his New History of the Marathas, wrote: “Tipu expended large amounts of money to set up new idols in Hindu shrines. Forty thousand Brahmins received alms and rations. Thus he announced to the world how, though a Muslim, he served the interests of the Hindus...” But the forced conversions negated everything.

It is true that Tipu forced conversions, but he also donated generously to the Hindu shrines at Sringeri, Melkote, Nanjangud, and Srirangapatna. But opposition to acknowledging one of the earliest Indians to fight colonialism, is seldom based on facts. Tipu is one of the most fascinating characters in our history, a soldier (“he spent half his life on horseback”), and administrator of rare ability. Extremists are boringly similar, and it doesn’t matter what their religious, ethnic or political leanings are. They settle on a ‘cause’ – it could be a movie about lesbianism, a historical work that doesn’t give enough lines to their hero, an art show that is perceived as an insult or a newspaper editorial they don’t like – and then go about hacking at it with energy and assumed hurt. There is something almost existential in their choice. It is as if they are saying, like the existentialists in another context, that since all paths are meaningless anyway, it only remains to choose one and then throw all your weight behind it. For the existentialist, it could be sex, mysticism, or physical hardship.

It is not necessary that foot soldiers should understand what they are fighting for. When a local newspaper welcomed the millennium with a piece quoting Dante, it irked some of these elements who stormed into the office asking for the writer. When told he was not available, they asked, “Then let us meet Dante.” What they would have told the 13th century Italian poet has not been recorded.

While the fanatics have been pulling in one direction or the other, Indianness has been left undefined. I remember when the artist M F Husain’s work was vandalized at a Mumbai gallery because he was “besmirching the culture of our country.” The artist said then, “But this is my culture too.” Yes, regardless of religious, ethnic, political, sexual preferences, the culture of our country is the common heritage of all Indians. Karnad is reminding us of this, both through his play and his pronouncements.