By P. K. Balachandran/Sunday Observer
Colombo, December 8: Secular and Hindu nationalist historians are furiously fighting over the ideology and actions of Tipu Sultan, an 18 th. Century Indian Muslim ruler of the South Indian State of Mysore.
The fight has wide political significance given the rise of aggressive Hindu nationalism in India since 2014, when the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi came to power, and the opposition Congress party retaliated by putting up arguments in favour of secularism and Hindu-Muslim unity rather than Hindu-Muslim division.
Tipu Sultan (1751-1799) is glowingly described by his admirers as the “Tiger of Mysore” because he died bravely fighting the British on the battlefield in Srirangapatnam on May 4, 1799.
In fact, Tipu was the first Indian ruler to die fighting the British. The only other Indian ruler to die fighting the British was the 19th.Century ruler Rani Lakshmibai of Jhansi in North India. She was slain on the battlefield near Gwalior in Central India in 1858 during the first Indian war of independence.
But in the eyes of British colonial and Hindu nationalist historians, Tipu was a “furious Muslim fanatic” who indulged in the forcible conversion of Hindus to Islam. Hindu nationalist historians are presently on a vigorous campaign to remove Tipu from the pantheon of Indian freedom fighters.
They have already stopped the celebration of his birthday (Tipu Jayanthi) in Karnataka State where Mysore is located. Between 2016 and 2018, the secular Congress government in Karnataka had celebrated Tipu Jayanthi with a grand procession on November 10 every year. But since the BJP saw Tipu as a ‘tyrannical, anti-Hindu ruler’, the observance of Tipu Jayanthi was stopped in 2019 after it came to power.
Hindu Nationalist view
In his recently-released book entitled: Tipu Sultan: The Saga of Mysore’s Interregnum (1760–1799), Banglaore-based historian Vikram Sampath says that in 1761, Tipu’s father, the “Machiavellian” Haidar Ali, overthrew his employer and benefactor, the Hindu Maha rajah of Mysore, and assumed power.
“In a war-scarred life, father and son led Mysore through four momentous battles against the British, termed the Anglo-Mysore Wars. The first two, led by Haidar Ali, brought the English East India Company to its knees. Chasing the enemy to the very gates of Madras, Haidar Ali made the British sign such humiliating treaties that sent shockwaves back to London,” Sampath says.
“In a diabolical war thirst, after he succeeded his father, Tipu launched lethal attacks on Malabar, Mangalore, Travancore, Coorg, and left behind a trail of death, destruction and worse, mass-conversions and the desecration of religious places of worship,” Sampath adds.
“While he was an astute administrator and a brave soldier, the strategic tact with opponents and the diplomatic balance that Haidar Ali had sought to maintain with the Hindu majority were both dangerously upset by Tipu’s foolhardiness on matters of faith.”
“The social report card of this eighteenth-century ruler was anything but clean. And yet, one simply cannot deny his position as a renowned military warrior and one of the most powerful rulers of Southern India,” Sampath concludes.
Mohibbul Hasan’s Contrary View
However, Sampth’s assessment of Tipu contrasts sharply with that of Prof. Mohibbul Hasan, who had taught history in Calcutta University and the Jamia Millia University in Delhi.
Citing original sources, Prof.Hasan shows that Tipu was in fact a secular and progressive ruler who made Mysore the most prosperous principality in 18th.Century India. According to him, the derision of Tipu now is actually based on “malicious propaganda” carried out by British chroniclers and historians.
Those observations are now being regurgitated by Hindu nationalist historians as part of a larger campaign to demolish Marxist/ Nehruvian and secularist Indian historiography.
Prof. Hasan recalls that in his 1811 publication Select Letters of Tippoo Sultan, W. Kirkpatrick, describes Tipu as an “intolerant bigot and a furious fanatic” who indulged in forcible conversions, mass circumcisions, destruction of temples and confiscation of temple lands. Kirkpatric’s views were later echoed by M. Wilks (1864), and H. H. Dodwell in his Cambridge History of India (1929).
According to Prof.Hasan, if the British chroniclers painted Tipu in dark colours, it was because he had refused to pay tribute; tried to set the Nizam of Hyderabad and the Marathas against them; and sought an alliance with their European rivals, the French.
Non-communal
That Tipu was non-communal is evident in the fact that a number of top officials in his government were Hindus. Purnaiya was the Mir Asaf (in charge of Revenue and Finance). Krishna Rao was his Treasurer. Shamaiya Iyengar was Minister of Police and Postal Department. Subba Rao was his chief Peshkar (Chief Secretary). Srinivas Rao and Appaji Ram were his close confidantes.
His agents in the Moghul Court in Delhi were Mool Chand and Sujan Rai. The Faujdar of Coorg was Nagappayya, a Brahmin. The Asafs (revenue officers) at Coimbatore and Palghat were Brahmins. The chief of Tipu’s irregular cavalry was Hari Singh. Rama Rao and Sivaji, a Maratha, commanded his regular cavalry. Tipu sent one of his Hindu Generals, Sripat Rao, to quell the Nair rebellion in Malabar.
Aided Hindu Temples
In 1916, the Mysore government’s Director of Archaeology, K. Narasimhachar, discovered a bunch of letters in the Sringeri Sankara Math (monastery), which showed that Tipu had greatly helped the monastery and its head the Sringeri Sankaracharya.
In 1791, the monastery was raided and pillaged by a Maratha chieftain, Raghunath Rao Patwardan, and the Sankaracharya had asked Tipu for help to restore it. Deeply grieved, Tipu wrote back saying: “People who have sinned against such a holy place are sure to suffer the consequences of their misdeeds at no distant date” and asked his officials to send cash and grain so that the idol of Goddess Sarada could be consecrated. He also donated a palanquin to the Sankaracharya and requested him to pray for the prosperity of his domain.
Tipu had contributed to the Lakshmikanta Temple at Kalale in Nanjangud taluk; the Narayanaswami Temple at Melkote; the Srikantheswara Temple at Nanjangud and to the Ranganathaswami Temple at Srirangapatnam all in Karnataka. The greenish Shivalinga at the Nanjandeswara temple is known as Padshalinga because it was donated by Tipu, the Padshah or ‘ruler’.
According to a Sanad, Tipu “ordered” the continuation of worship at the Tirupathi Venkatachalapathi Temple. Biographer Hasan wonders if Tipu would have allowed the Ranganatha, Narasimha and Gangadhareswara temples to function in the Srirangapatnam Fort if he was an Islamic bigot.
Tipu was also an ardent believer in astrology and consulted astrologers daily, first thing in the morning.
On Forcible Conversions
Tipu is widely accused of indulging in forcible conversions in Kerala and Coorg. But according to Prof. Hasan, Tipu told his French General, Cossigny, that he ordered the forcible conversion of Nairs and Coorgis because these communities had staged rebellions repeatedly. It was reported that 70,000 were converted in Coorg, but this could not be true because the total population of Coorg was not that much, Hasan points out. Punganuri Ramachandra Rao, in his Memoirs of Hyder and Tippoo (1849) says that only 500 were converted in Coorg.
Hasan admits that Catholics in Kanara were converted forcibly, but this was because they had helped the British defeat Tipu at Mangalore. Tipu never tried to convert loyal subjects, Hasan asserts.
Administrative Innovations
Hasan says that Tipu gave Mysore a progressive administration. He points out that J. Mill in his History of British India (1848), acknowledged that as a ruler, Tipu sustained an “advantageous comparison with the greatest princes of the East”. Tipu’s country was “the best cultivated and the most flourishing in India,” Mill adds.
Tipu rationalized the administrative system; got rid of private middlemen; encouraged local industries; sought French industrial technology and tried to send one of his sons to France for a modern education.
He set up a rocket regiment in his army. After his defeat in 1799, the British discovered as many as 600 launchers, 700 serviceable rockets and 9,000 empty rockets at Tipu’s fort, some of which were shipped to Britain to replicate them. The Royal Artillery Museum in Woolwich in the UK houses some of them.
Tipu sought military aid from Afghanistan and Iran to fight the British in South India. He was also the first Indian ruler in the 18 th.Century to promote international trade, having sent trade delegations to Afghanistan, Iran, Turkey and Myanmar.
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