A Tableau Of Feelings

“I have come to the conclusion that everyone should write history based upon his own sel­ection of sources that appear significant to him, but that no one should read it except to obtain general information in areas of per­ipheral concern. Oddly, only an amateur can be so detached.”

—Cyril Stanley Smith, 1981

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It was with this quote by the famous British metallurgist and science historian that Prof Roddam Narasimha began his 1985 lecture on ‘Rockets in Mys­ore and Britain, 1750-1850 AD’ in Bangalore. Prof Narasimha, who was then director of the National Aero­nau­tical Laboratory, had long been study­ing the rocket technology employed by Hyder Ali and his son Tipu. Their military wea­pon was sufficiently sophisticated for the time, comprising a metal casing holding the combustion powder, tied to a long bamboo pole. Much like a Diwali rocket.

Ironically, the fireworks this Diwali week in the old Mysore region where Tipu Sultan once ruled had less to do with rockets and more with the man himself. The fact is that everything about the Tiger of Mysore has come to be controversial. And this wasn’t lost on Karnataka’s Congress government when it organised an event to commemorate his 265th birth anniversary—falling, inc­identally, on November 10, the first day of Diwali. But things turned ugly—three people were killed in violence in Coorg—and the government has been forced on the backfoot because the narrative shifted bey­ond Tipu Sultan and boomeranged, thanks to a remark by play­wright Girish Karnad, long a Tipu admirer.

The noise over Tipu’s birthday had been brewing for a while but the Siddaramaiah government had stuck to its guns in holding the celebrations which the BJP boycotted. Tipu was a freedom-fighter, an important ruler and a secular one at that, went the CM (who hails from Mysore), brushing aside the protests which he said were part of the BJP agenda to give it a communal colour (the BJP in turn called it the height of votebank politics). Karnad, an invitee to the event at the Vidhana Soudha, was of the opinion that Tipu had not received enough recognition because of his religion. “I feel that had Tipu Sultan been Hindu, not Mus­lim, he would have attained the position in Karnataka that Shivaji Maharaj enj­oys in Maharashtra,” he was quoted as saying.

It’s a debate that rears its head periodically because there’s enough ammunition in this fascinating yet complex figure from history to fuel endless debate. Actor Sanjay Khan’s 1989 teleserial Sword of Tipu Sultan faced court cases before it was allowed to be aired with a disclaimer. About a decade ago, when the BJP first shared power in Kar­nataka in a coalition government, an education minister said that references to the ruler ought to be struck out from textbooks because he was “anti-Kannada” (though he is said to have co-promoted Kannada, and Persian was used even by the Marathas for administration). There were also reservations over naming the 11.15 am sup­erfast train between Mysore and Bangalore after him. And the UPA wasn’t able to do much with a proposal for a university named after Tipu in Srirangapattinam (where he ruled from) some years ago.

“There is no dearth of icons in the Muslim community,” Pratap Simha, Lok Sabha MP from Mysore, told Outlook. “If the government wanted, it could have chosen to celebrate the birthday of Sir Mirza Ism­ail, an equally famous Diwan of Mysore.” Or former minister Abdul Nazeer Sab, better known as ‘Neer Sab’ in Karnataka because he promoted the installation of hand pumps in every village. Or the saint poet Shishunala Sharief, revered by all commun­ities. “Instead they chose Tipu whose hands are blood-stained. In a demo­cracy we have every right to oppose it and it was a peaceful opposition,” he says. Also, why should the entire state cele­brate a historical figure who is a hero only in Srirang­apattinam, he asks. (Oblivi­ous perhaps to Tipu’s national icon status.)

Well-known Kannada rese­archer  Chidananda Murthy has been a vocal critic of any move to lionise Tipu. “Tipu was a valiant man. But he was as much a Muslim fanatic. There is evidence of this,” he says, pointing to some 15-16 letters (now preserved in a British museum) that Tipu wrote to his generals, where he talks about forced conversions, besides the Persian inscription on his sword of his motto to destroy all ‘kafirs’. “The move to commemo­rate him was foolish,” he says.

The ‘pro’ argument merits a brief recap too. Tipu is the last Indian ruler to dictate terms to the British (Treaty of Man­galore, 1784). He kept up cor­res­pon­dence with the seer of the Sri­ngeri math, whom he held in great esteem. (It was the Marathas, in fact, who once plundered the math.) His faith in Nanjundeswara, and other facts that complicate a lazy demonology. Plus, the semi­nal role he played in anti-British rule str­ugg­les—the mutiny involving his sons at Vell­ore in 1806 was a near-blueprint for 1857.

In hilly Coorg, about 100 km west of Mysore, Tipu is an emotive issue that draws from the Kodavas’ history of resisting his invasions and his subsequent massacres in the region. Simha claims Tuesday’s viole­nce—an elderly VHP functionary died after falling off a wall while trying to escape it—began when those celebrating Tipu’s birth anniversary brought in people from nei­ghbouring districts for a procession. State home minister G. Parameshwara says the incident wouldn’t have taken place had the BJP cooperated with the government and not called for a bandh in Madikeri. “It’s a needless controversy. You cannot change history and Tipu is a part of history,” says veteran Congressman C.K. Jaffer Sharief. “There is a section of people who are proud of Tipu and who celebrate on their own, whether the government celebrates or not.”

R-Day Regalia Tipu spearheads Karnataka tableaux at R-Day parade

The Tipu episode, many senior politicians say in private, was a bit ill-advised. But they also point out that governments have all along introduced several new holidays and events to commemorate iconic figures from various communities. Ram­­achandra Guha, historian, thinks an official celebration of a monarch by any government is anachronistic. “He may have been a benign monarch to some, a brutal monarch to others. But he was a monarch. The polity he ruled over was not a democracy. A repu­blic or a democracy such as ours has no business recognising monarchs or emperors, whether Hindu or Muslim,” Guha told  a TV channel. “It’s anachronistic, anti-democratic for a republican democratic state to celebrate kings, queens, emperors.”

But what really brought the knives out was Karnad’s comment that it would have been apt had the Bangalore International Air­port been named after Tipu, considering the airports at Mumbai and Calcutta bear the names of Shivaji and Bose. The Kempe­gowda International Airport in Bangalore was christened after the city’s founder, a 16th-century chieftain. Tipu’s name too had been in the reckoning when the government was considering one for the new airport because he was born in Devanahalli, the town 36 km north of Bangalore where the airport is located. Karnad’s remarks were perceived as an insult to Kempegowda. The playwright later offered an apology, which he was advised to do by the government, “What do I have to gain by hurting people’s feelings by talking about Kempegowda?” Karnad told reporters at his home the next day. But the comment had stirred up a hornet’s nest and they came straight for Siddaramaiah who, it was noted, didn’t set the record straight though he was presiding over the function (Sidda­ra­maiah later distanced himself from Kar­nad’s remarks saying it was his personal view). “The words used by Kar­nad...had the CM given a suitable reply, it wouldn’t have created so many probl­ems,” says Janata Dal (Secular) president H.D. Kumara­swamy, a Vokkaliga leader.

The Congress can ill-afford to antagonise the Vokkaligas, the state’s second largest as an electo­ral bloc, who already feel sidelined by the CM, and the BJP was quick to jump at the opportunity by taking out protest demonstrations. Diwali is over for now but will return in a year. Will Tipu make ano­ther jaunt out of little-understood pages of history?

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Tipunama: A History Of Troubles

• Sept 2003 Eyebrows are raised when liquor baron Vijay Mallya buys Tipu Sultan’s sword at a Christie’s auction in London for Rs 1.5 crore. The British had taken the 42-inch-long sword as a battle trophy after the 1799 battle of Srirangapattinam.

• Jul 2012 The Indian Union Muslim League (IUML) urges the then PM Manmohan Singh to rename either the Bangalore or Mangalore airport after Tipu. The memorandum mentions that the site of the Bangalore airport, Devanahalli, is Tipu’s birthplace.

• Nov 2012 Close to three years ago, Srirangapattinam was chosen as one of the five sites by the minority affairs ministry for a central univ, with half its seats dedicated to minorities. Its name again incites controversy.

• Sept 2015 Furore after Kannada producer Ashok Kheny says he wants to make a film on Tipu and rope in Tamil superstar Rajnikanth. Tipu was anti-Tamil, says Hindu Munnani leader Rama Gopalan.

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• Bitter Rivalry Forever: Kodavas were captured and many of them converted to Islam. They are called Kodava Mapilas.

• Battle Of Madikeri: BJP called for a bandh in Madikeri, which Tipu had once captured and renamed Zafarabad

• Capital Run: Kempegowda is said to have founded Bangalore in 1537, as the capital of his erstwhile kingdom

By Ajay Sukumaran in Bangalore