A Progressive King Who Promoted Use of Kannada

Tipu Sultan was a progressive king and I welcome the decision of the state government to celebrate his birthday on a grand scale. He was a hero and his birthday celebration will only help promote communal harmony and integrity.

Tipu lost his life fighting for the freedom of his people and he should be respected for it. The people should know about the sacrifices he made for his subjects and it will percolate to the masses only if the government celebrates the life of a hero like him.

Certain fringe elements, who have time and again tried to disrupt the communal harmony in the region, are trying to label Tipu, who was a great warrior, as a Muslim tyrant, which is not true. He did not hesitate to give two of his sons as hostages to the British after the Third Anglo-Mysore war to protect the interests of his subjects.

His contribution towards promoting Kannada as an administrative language should also be hailed by the people of the region. People who say that Tipu Sultan wanted Persian as his official and administrative language, replacing Kannada, have missed many pages of history.

No king was perfect and Tipu, too, had his share of follies, but that shouldn’t be selectively cited to malign the image of this great King, who was not only a good administrator but also an excellent military strategist and he was admired even by his foes.

As a king he was responsible for protecting the interest of his subjects, beyond the barriers of religion, culture and language and he did so with master precision. It is wrong to say that he was against other religions like Christianity and Hinduism.

Despite being a Muslim, Tipu Sultan had strong faith in the presiding deity of Nanjangud temple, God Nanjundeshwara, whom his called ‘Hakim Nanjundeshwara’. Tipu’s favourite elephant’s eye ailment was cured by administering the holy water (theertha) from the temple, and later he gifted a jade lingam along with an emerald necklace to the temple.

The gesture proves that he was a tolerant king and one should not jump the gun in judging a historical hero by the mistakes that he committed. The government is doing the right thing in celebrating his birthday so that the young people of the state will know about the sacrifices of Tipu Sultan.

(As told to Nitin Bandyopadhyay. Prof Arvind Malgatti is a writer)