Introduction:

The controversy surrounding Tipu Sultan, the 18th century ruler of Mysore, has emerged in Karnataka once again. This happened over the new state government’s decision to cancel the celebrations of the ruler’s birth anniversary.

Body:

Contributions of Tipu Sultan:

• He was born in 1750 and, as a 17-year-old, fought in the first Anglo-Mysore War (1767-69) and subsequently, against the Marathas and in the Second Anglo-Mysore War (1780-84). Haider died while this war was on, and Tipu succeeded him in 1782.
• In the wider national narrative, Tipu has so far been seen as a man of imagination and courage, a brilliant military strategist who, in a short reign of 17 years, mounted the most serious challenge the Company faced in India.
• He fought Company forces four times during 1767-99, and gave Governors-General Cornwallis and Wellesley bloody noses before he was killed defending his capital Srirangapatnam in the Fourth Anglo Mysore War. With Tipu gone, Wellesley imposed the Subsidiary Alliance on the reinstated Wodeyar king, and Mysore became the Company’s client state.
• Tipu reorganised his army along European lines, using new technology, including what is considered the first war rocket. He devised a land revenue system based on detailed surveys and classification, in which the tax was imposed directly on the peasant, and collected through salaried agents in cash, widening the state’s resource base.
• He modernised agriculture, gave tax breaks for developing wasteland, built irrigation infrastructure and repaired old dams, and promoted agricultural manufacturing and sericulture. He built a navy to support trade, and commissioned a “state commercial corporation” to set up factories.
• As Mysore traded in sandalwood, silk, spices, rice and sulphur, some 30 trading outposts were established across Tipu’s dominions and overseas
• Tipu Sultan for long emblematised the valiant struggle of Mysore against the British and was the only one to die on the battlefield. All others were defeated by, collaborated or made their peace with, the emerging British power.

However, there are concerns raised against Tipu Sultan

• On nearly every historical figure, perspectives differ. Haider and Tipu had strong territorial ambitions, and invaded and annexed territories outside Mysore. Haider annexed Malabar and Kozhikode, and bloodthirsty tyrant who burnt down entire towns and villages, razed hundreds of temples and churches, and forcibly converted Hindus. The historical record has Tipu boasting about having forced “infidels” to convert to Islam, and of having destroyed their places of worship.
• The disagreement then, is between those who see the “Tiger of Mysore” as a bulwark against colonialism and a great son of Karnataka, and those who point to his destruction of temples and forced conversions of Hindus and Christians to accuse him of tyranny and fanaticism.

Conclusion:

Placing a personality in binary terms, i.e. extreme good or bad is neither rational nor progressive. Historical perspectives should be critically analysed only to study from the past so as to live in a better present and build a better tomorrow. Attempts to see such narratives in political, communal or religious lines to create divisions in society should be vehemently opposed. It is improper to judge figures of the past by canons of the present. History should be used to teach people about tolerance and brotherhood rather than dividing based on communal lines.