 "Tipu spat underlines Karnataka's growing radicalisation")
After a bath at his Lal Bagh palace on May 4, 1799, Tipu Sultan distributed to Brahmins in his kingdom of Seringapatam (modern-day Sriringapatna) an elephant, a bag of sesame seeds, Rs 290, a black bullock, a milch buffalo, a male buffalo, a she-goat, a jacket and cap, and an iron pot filled with oil.
Before he gave away the iron pot, Tipu, who was born in 1750, held it to see his reflection in the oil, a Hindu custom to avoid misfortune. After all, his Brahmin astrologers had repeatedly warned him of how inauspicious the day was for him, and had asked him to give alms.
Sriringapatna's defence weighed on him so much that he left the palace immediately after the ritual, and was met by his men who warned him of the impending danger, but Tipu, the Tiger of Mysore, dismissed the idea of a daytime attack by the forces of the East India Company. Sriringapatna fell soon after, by 2 pm, and Tipu's body was discovered among the bodies of his faithful men.
The riots that have broken out in many of Karnataka's districts are both politically motivated and a reflection of what people feel, says Coorg-based author C P Belliappa.
"The Jayanti was a political move because its purpose was appeasement. The people of Coorg had strongly protested against this ill-conceived celebration, but the government went ahead with it even though a bandh was declared," he says.
What he finds perplexing is that the S Siddaramaiah government decided to observe the Jayanti, though it was aware that sentiments would be hurt.
"Atrocities committed by Tipu are in our collective memory passed down over generations. To call a person who desecrated temples, and forcibly converted and massacred people, a great patriot who was secular and tolerant - that's the oxymoron of the century," says Belliappa.
Shades of grey
Some historians see Tipu in a different light. William Dalrymple says that it is important to recognise that pre-modern rulers exercised power and waged war according to pre-modern rules. "There's no question that Tipu performed atrocities in war, but what is equally true is that he protected the Hindus and their temples within his domain," he says.
According to Dalrymple, Tipu wasn't patriotic in the modern sense, but he was an ambitious ruler. "He was certainly no angel - as my ancestor James Dalrymple, who spent four years as his prisoner, would attest - and if people regard him as a demon, they sometimes had very good reasons for that," says Dalrymple, but he adds that Tipu's tactics were not very different from what others were doing in the 18th century.
The British, Dalrymple adds, in order to legitimise their own revenge on the ruler of Mysore, painted a picture of Tipu as a tyrannical and fanatical despot. The picture is a complicated one, and this can be dangerous, believes the historian, "because we have a very simplified view of history where some see Tipu as a patriotic hero, and others see him as a fanatical Muslim zealot".
Neither of these, he explains, is a nuanced picture of Tipu, who was a complicated and contradictory man: at once brutal and refined, violent and generous, while being always an ambitious, successful and economically visionary leader.
Muzaffar H Assadi, who is chairman of the department of political science at University of Mysore, believes that history has been unkind to the "anti-colonial empire builder and social reformer" who carried out conversions to build a "loyal" base. The phrase "vote bank politics" floats in as Assadi talks about the politicisation of Tipu Sultan Jayanti. "What we see today is mainly politics of sentiments; the state is trying to cull out icons of different communities."
When the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government in Karnataka declared a holiday for Valmiki Jayanti in 2011, Assadi asserts it was as political a move as the current government's stunt with Tipu Sultan Jayanti. "It's all about appeasing communities, and not just Muslim ones," Assadi adds.
The political hand
Opinion on Tipu will always be up for debate, but most agree that the current events are steeped in political motivations. "The Congress government seems to be deliberately fanning communal disharmony and that too by spending public money. This entire episode is one of the most irresponsible acts by an elected government," declares Belliappa.
Dalrymple adds to this narrative: "The rise of the BJP has unleashed a whole range of voices from the spectrum of Hindu nationalism and people have been emboldened to speak up in ways they didn't before. But that can be problematic when Girish Karnad gets a death threat for defending Tipu." (Karnad had suggested that the Kempegowda International Airport in Bengaluru could be renamed after Tipu.)
The disquiet over the Tipu affair has brought to light the growing communal chasm in Karnataka. There has been a spate of incidents in the southern state in the last few years that show that there is growing mistrust between the different communities. According to news reports, in 2014 alone, Karnataka had 73 cases of riots in which six people lost their lives and 177 were injured.
Even before clashes began for and against Tipu Sultan Jayanti, in late October, riots had broken out near Mangalore when a Muslim barber refused to shut shop on Tuesday, a day when some Hindus don't get haircuts. A little later, tension escalated in areas of Karnataka when Ganesh Chaturthi and Eid fell back to back and at least five cases of communal clashes were reported.
A BJP leader threatened to "behead" Siddaramaiah and "play football with his severed head" after the chief minister said that no one could prevent him from eating "beef, pork or any other meat". A foreigner was rounded up for sporting the tattoo of a goddess on his shin in Bengaluru - India's own Silicon Valley.
Hall of shame
Sriram Sene's Pramod Mutalik, of the infamous Mangalore pub incident of 2009, has been banned from entering the Khanapur taluk of Belagavi and Mudhol town in Bagalkot for a month, fearing communal tension.
The names Iqbal and Riyaz Ismail Shabandri may not ring any bells, but call them the Bhatkal brothers and you've scored. A coastal town, Bhatkal has been high on the extremist radar since Pune's German Bakery blast in 2010. The Bhatkal brothers, from a community that traces its roots to Yemen, are known to have co-founded the Indian Mujahideen, which was responsible for the blast that killed 17.
Even before the brothers took charge, Bhatkal had the makings of a strife-prone town with riots in 1991, when Uma Bharati delivered a fiery speech in front of a mosque. Then came in the right-wing organisations - all trying to assert themselves.
Much like Bhatkal, Tipu's name has always been shrouded in controversy. There were protests even when a producer wanted actor Rajinikanth to play Tipu in his film. And why the state government would celebrate November 10 - the day Tipu hanged 700 Melkote Iyengars, as some reports suggest - as Tipu Sultan Jayanti, instead of November 20, his date of birth, has left everyone flummoxed.
Shimoga-based businessman Nidhin G Olikara, who collects coins and manuscripts from the 18th century and hosts a detailed blog to share Tipu's history ("The Serigapatnam Times"), believes we should remember Tipu's contributions, and his valour. "There is an Indian way of writing history and then there is a western one. In Indian history, we try to see the good in our villains too. Even in the Ramayana, Valmiki refers to Ravana as a philosopher," he says.
"We should celebrate what our icons stand for. Instead of Tipu Sultan Jayanti, we should celebrate the day as the anti-colonial day," says Assadi.
Before he gave away the iron pot, Tipu, who was born in 1750, held it to see his reflection in the oil, a Hindu custom to avoid misfortune. After all, his Brahmin astrologers had repeatedly warned him of how inauspicious the day was for him, and had asked him to give alms.
Sriringapatna's defence weighed on him so much that he left the palace immediately after the ritual, and was met by his men who warned him of the impending danger, but Tipu, the Tiger of Mysore, dismissed the idea of a daytime attack by the forces of the East India Company. Sriringapatna fell soon after, by 2 pm, and Tipu's body was discovered among the bodies of his faithful men.
More From This Section
Yet, more than 200 years after that fateful day, Tipu's name evokes great communal passion among people, enough for them to threaten, riot and get killed. In the past one week, two people have died and several have been injured in Hindu-Muslim clashes stemming from the Congress-led state government's decision to celebrate November 10 as Tipu Sultan Jayanti.
The riots that have broken out in many of Karnataka's districts are both politically motivated and a reflection of what people feel, says Coorg-based author C P Belliappa.
"The Jayanti was a political move because its purpose was appeasement. The people of Coorg had strongly protested against this ill-conceived celebration, but the government went ahead with it even though a bandh was declared," he says.
What he finds perplexing is that the S Siddaramaiah government decided to observe the Jayanti, though it was aware that sentiments would be hurt.
"Atrocities committed by Tipu are in our collective memory passed down over generations. To call a person who desecrated temples, and forcibly converted and massacred people, a great patriot who was secular and tolerant - that's the oxymoron of the century," says Belliappa.
Shades of grey
Some historians see Tipu in a different light. William Dalrymple says that it is important to recognise that pre-modern rulers exercised power and waged war according to pre-modern rules. "There's no question that Tipu performed atrocities in war, but what is equally true is that he protected the Hindus and their temples within his domain," he says.
According to Dalrymple, Tipu wasn't patriotic in the modern sense, but he was an ambitious ruler. "He was certainly no angel - as my ancestor James Dalrymple, who spent four years as his prisoner, would attest - and if people regard him as a demon, they sometimes had very good reasons for that," says Dalrymple, but he adds that Tipu's tactics were not very different from what others were doing in the 18th century.
The British, Dalrymple adds, in order to legitimise their own revenge on the ruler of Mysore, painted a picture of Tipu as a tyrannical and fanatical despot. The picture is a complicated one, and this can be dangerous, believes the historian, "because we have a very simplified view of history where some see Tipu as a patriotic hero, and others see him as a fanatical Muslim zealot".
Neither of these, he explains, is a nuanced picture of Tipu, who was a complicated and contradictory man: at once brutal and refined, violent and generous, while being always an ambitious, successful and economically visionary leader.
Muzaffar H Assadi, who is chairman of the department of political science at University of Mysore, believes that history has been unkind to the "anti-colonial empire builder and social reformer" who carried out conversions to build a "loyal" base. The phrase "vote bank politics" floats in as Assadi talks about the politicisation of Tipu Sultan Jayanti. "What we see today is mainly politics of sentiments; the state is trying to cull out icons of different communities."
When the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government in Karnataka declared a holiday for Valmiki Jayanti in 2011, Assadi asserts it was as political a move as the current government's stunt with Tipu Sultan Jayanti. "It's all about appeasing communities, and not just Muslim ones," Assadi adds.
The political hand
Opinion on Tipu will always be up for debate, but most agree that the current events are steeped in political motivations. "The Congress government seems to be deliberately fanning communal disharmony and that too by spending public money. This entire episode is one of the most irresponsible acts by an elected government," declares Belliappa.
Dalrymple adds to this narrative: "The rise of the BJP has unleashed a whole range of voices from the spectrum of Hindu nationalism and people have been emboldened to speak up in ways they didn't before. But that can be problematic when Girish Karnad gets a death threat for defending Tipu." (Karnad had suggested that the Kempegowda International Airport in Bengaluru could be renamed after Tipu.)
The disquiet over the Tipu affair has brought to light the growing communal chasm in Karnataka. There has been a spate of incidents in the southern state in the last few years that show that there is growing mistrust between the different communities. According to news reports, in 2014 alone, Karnataka had 73 cases of riots in which six people lost their lives and 177 were injured.
Even before clashes began for and against Tipu Sultan Jayanti, in late October, riots had broken out near Mangalore when a Muslim barber refused to shut shop on Tuesday, a day when some Hindus don't get haircuts. A little later, tension escalated in areas of Karnataka when Ganesh Chaturthi and Eid fell back to back and at least five cases of communal clashes were reported.
A BJP leader threatened to "behead" Siddaramaiah and "play football with his severed head" after the chief minister said that no one could prevent him from eating "beef, pork or any other meat". A foreigner was rounded up for sporting the tattoo of a goddess on his shin in Bengaluru - India's own Silicon Valley.
Hall of shame
Sriram Sene's Pramod Mutalik, of the infamous Mangalore pub incident of 2009, has been banned from entering the Khanapur taluk of Belagavi and Mudhol town in Bagalkot for a month, fearing communal tension.
The names Iqbal and Riyaz Ismail Shabandri may not ring any bells, but call them the Bhatkal brothers and you've scored. A coastal town, Bhatkal has been high on the extremist radar since Pune's German Bakery blast in 2010. The Bhatkal brothers, from a community that traces its roots to Yemen, are known to have co-founded the Indian Mujahideen, which was responsible for the blast that killed 17.
Even before the brothers took charge, Bhatkal had the makings of a strife-prone town with riots in 1991, when Uma Bharati delivered a fiery speech in front of a mosque. Then came in the right-wing organisations - all trying to assert themselves.
Much like Bhatkal, Tipu's name has always been shrouded in controversy. There were protests even when a producer wanted actor Rajinikanth to play Tipu in his film. And why the state government would celebrate November 10 - the day Tipu hanged 700 Melkote Iyengars, as some reports suggest - as Tipu Sultan Jayanti, instead of November 20, his date of birth, has left everyone flummoxed.
Shimoga-based businessman Nidhin G Olikara, who collects coins and manuscripts from the 18th century and hosts a detailed blog to share Tipu's history ("The Serigapatnam Times"), believes we should remember Tipu's contributions, and his valour. "There is an Indian way of writing history and then there is a western one. In Indian history, we try to see the good in our villains too. Even in the Ramayana, Valmiki refers to Ravana as a philosopher," he says.
"We should celebrate what our icons stand for. Instead of Tipu Sultan Jayanti, we should celebrate the day as the anti-colonial day," says Assadi.