Tipu Sultan: a secular internationalist, not a bigot

The recent offer made by a film producer to Tamil superstar Rajinikanth to act in a movie on the ‘ >Tiger of Mysore ’, Tipu Sultan, has yet again opened up a Pandora’s Box. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and some Hindutva groups have demanded that Rajinikanth refuse the offer. This argument is made on the grounds that Tipu, the 18th century ruler of Mysore state, was a “tyrant” who killed thousands of Hindus as they refused to convert to Islam. 

This is not the first time that Tipu’s name has been dragged into a controversy. It began some years back when Sanjay Khan made a tele-serial based on Bhagwan S. Gidwani’s book, The Sword of Tipu Sultan. His name was once again dragged into a controversy when the Congress government intended to celebrate his birth anniversary in 2014. There was opposition when a proposal was made to establish a university named after him.

Photo credit: The Hindu Muzaffar Assadi

Tipu’s very name has become contentious for two reasons: first, his controversial steps in dealing with different communities and people who rose against him. Second, different perspectives through which history was constructed and his image built. 

Colonial historians have projected Tipu as a “religious bigot”, who was instrumental in killing and converting to Islam thousands of Nayars of Kerala, Catholics of Dakshina Kannada and Coorgis of Kodagu. Even Kannada chauvinists have projected him as anti-Kannadiga as he was instrumental in changing the local names of places and introducing Persian vocabulary into administration. Marxist historians, on the other hand, have viewed him as “one of the foremost commanders of independence struggle” and a “harbinger of new productive forces”.