Tipu Sultan - the Glorified Butcher?

Indian culture has faced many enemies - both internal and external; but it has always survived. Of the single men who tried their best to destroy it, perhaps none can match the Tipu Sultan. But now, since we have these notions of political correctness and trying to prove "how much these muslim rulers have contrubuted to us", he has been glorified as a national hero. But in reality, he was only a religious fanatic who believed in converting as many Hindus to Islam, and killing those who didn't fall in line.

Living in Kerala, one does not have to read historical books to know about Tipu's oppression. It was just a few generations back and Tipu's cruelty is a part of the folk-lore. Temples relocated, idols (some of them even made of gold) buried (some of them recently recovered) and people resettled, in the wake of Tipu's military campaign ('padayottam' as it is locally known). Below, I give parts from the review of a book on this subject, which I found very interesting. I have given a link to the full review towards the end

In 1989, the national Indian TV, Doordarshan, ran a serial on Tipu Sultan, ruler of Mysore from 1782 to 1799 A.D. With the lofty objective of national integration and communal harmony, the national TV presented Tipu Sultan as a hero of Hindu-Muslim amity and a staunch freedom fighter against the British. [But this is quite contarary to reality]

Tipu Sultan: Villain or Hero? originally published by the Bombay Malayalee Samajam, is an anthology of essays that excoriates Doordarshan's depiction of Tipu Sultan and criticizes the peculiar "secularism" practised by the contemporary Indian State.

In the words of Ravi Varma, one of the contributors to the anthology: "It was Tipu Sultan and his fanatic Muslim army who converted thousands of Hindus to Islam all along the invasion route and occupied areas in North Kerala, Coorg, Mangalore, and other parts of Karnataka. Besides over 8,000 Hindu temples were desecrated and/or destroyed by his Muslim army. Even today, one can see large concentrations of Muslims and ruins of hundreds of destroyed temples in North Kerala as standing evidence of the Islamic brutalities committed by Tipu Sultan ... He was, all through, waging a cruel Islamic war against the Hindu population of Kerala, with a large Muslim army and ably assisted by the French with powerful field guns and European troops. ...In spite of all this, historical documents and records are being suppressed, distorted, and falsified in order to project this fanatic Tipu Sultan of Mysore as a national hero like Chhatrapati Shivaji, Maharaja Ranjit Singh, Rana Pratap Singh, and Pazhassi Raja of Kerala. It is an insult to our national pride and also to the Hindus of Kerala by our 'secular' government and the motivated Muslim and Marxist historians of Jawaharlal Nehru, Aligarh, and Islamia universities."

Tippu's letters

So what do the original sources tell us about Tipu? Excerpts from Tipu's letters as researched by the distinguished Kerala historian K. M. Panicker, which he reviewed in the Bhasha Poshini magazine, August 1923:

1. Letter dated March 22, 1788, to Abdul Kadir: "Over 12,000 Hindus were honoured with Islam. There were many Namboodri Brahmins among them. This achievement should be widely publicised among the Hindus. Then the local Hindus should be brought before you and converted to Islam. No Namboodri Brahmin should be spared. "

2. Letter dated December 14, 1988, to his army chief in Calicut: " I am sending two of my followers with Mir Hussain Ali. With their assistance, you should capture and kill all Hindus. Those below 20 may be kept in prison and 5000 from the rest should be killed from the tree-tops. These are my orders."

3. Letter dated January 18, 1790, to Syed Abdul Dulai: " ...almost all Hindus in Calicut are converted to Islam. I consider this as Jehad."

From 'A Voyage to the East Indies' by Fra Barthoelomeo, a renowned Portuguese traveller and historian, who was present in Tipu's war zone in early 1790:

"First a corps of 30,000 barbarians who butchered everybody on the way ... followed by the field gun unit under the French commander, M. Lally. Tipu was riding on an elephant behind which another army of 30,000 soldiers followed. Most of the men and women were hanged in Calicut, first mothers were hanged with their children tied to necks of mothers. That barbarian Tipu Sultan tied the naked Christian and Hindus to the legs of elephants and made the elephants to move around till the bodies of the helpless victims were torn to pieces. Temples and churches were ordered to be burned down, desecrated, and destroyed. ... Those Christians who refused to be honoured with Islam were ordered to be killed by hanging immediately. These atrocities were told to me by the victims of Tipu Sultan who escaped from the clutches of his army and reached Varapphuza, which is the centre of Carmichael Christian Mission. I myself helped many victims to cross the Varapphuza river by boats."

For more on this, read the book:
Tipu Sultan:Villain or Hero?
edited by Sita Ram Goel
New Dehli: Voice of India, 1995