Making a secular hero out of Tipu Sultan

• Making a secular hero out of Tipu Sultan

  tags: no_tag

  
  •  

    CJ: Nithin Sridhar
  • However if one goes through the letters and edicts issued by Tipu Sultan to his principal military commanders, the governors of forts and provinces, their argument falls apart. The letter of January 19, 1790, sent to Budruz Zuman Khan by Tipu himself says: "Don't you know I have achieved a great victory recently in Malabar and over four lakh Hindus were converted to Islam? I am determined to march against that cursed 'Raman Nair' very soon (reference is to Rama Varma Raja of Travancore). Since I am overjoyed at the prospect of converting him and his subjects to Islam, I have happily abandoned the idea of going back to Srirangapatanam now."

     

    Previously, a letter dated March 22, 1788, to Abdul Kadir reads: "Over 12,000 Hindus were 'honoured' with Islam. There were many Namboodiris (Brahmins) among them. This achievement should be widely publicised among the Hindus. There the local Hindus should be brought before you and then converted to Islam. No Namboodiri (Brahmin) should be spared.” A letter dated January 18, 1790, to Syed Abdul Dulai says: "With the grace of Prophet Muhammed and Allah, almost all Hindus in Calicut are converted to Islam. Only a few are still not converted on the borders of Cochin State. I am determined to convert them also very soon. I consider this as Jehad to achieve that object."

     

    The above clearly, shows the ‘secularism’ of Tipu Sultan. Further, these historians try to portray Tipu as a nationalist as he fought against the British. But the renowned historian, Dr. I.M. Muthanna, says in his ‘Tipu Sultan X-Rayed’ that Tipu was a traitor as he invited the French to invade India.
  • "It was not only against the Brahmins who were thus put in a state of terror of forcible circumcision and conversion; but against all sections of Hindus.

     

    In August, 1788, a Raja of the Kshatriya family of Parappanad and also Trichera Thiruppad, a chieftain of Nilamboor, and many other Hindu nobles who had been carried away earlier to Coimbatore by Tipu Sultan, were forcibly circumcised and forced to eat beef.”

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.