| Sunday , December 28 , 2014 |
A lapse in memory politics- If only Mamata had remembered Tipu before Sidda did | ||
| K.M. RAKESH | ||
Bangalore, Dec. 27: The puzzling question is why Mamata Banerjee did not think about it before a Congress counterpart did so down south. Homage politics — a defining feature of the Narendra Modi government — has found a new front line in Karnataka with the Congress government in the state deciding to celebrate the birth anniversary of Tipu Sultan, and the BJP opposing it. The Karnataka decision was made public a few days before the Modi government announced the name of Madan Mohan Malaviya, along with that of Atal Bihari Vajpayee, for the Bharat Ratna. If the BJP dipped into the Independence movement, the Congress went two centuries back and found Tipu Sultan from the 18th century. The legacy of Tipu Sultan, the “Tiger of Mysore”, is a polarising force. For some, Tipu Sultan was a patriot beyond compare and one of the biggest tormentors of the British in history, introducing iron-cased Mysorean rockets in warfare and drawing the admiration of Napoleon Bonaparte. Legend has it that Tipu Sultan, faced with near-certain death on the battlefield, had declared: “One day of life as a tiger is far better than thousand years of living as a jackal.” For others, such as the BJP, Tipu Sultan was a proselytiser — a label that has a contemporary ring in the time of “re-conversions”. Some are seeing in Karnataka chief minister P.C. Siddaramaiah’s plan an attempt to get back at the Sangh parivar, whose “re-conversion” campaign has been a matter of concern for his government. “Come what may, we shall celebrate Tipu Sultan’s birthday as he was not just any king but a secular ruler who carried with him all sections of society,” the chief minister has said. The controversy comes at a time the state government has been unable to find any legal measure to prevent the Vishwa Hindu Parishad’s planned conversion programmes in south Karnataka, whose dates haven’t been revealed. That perhaps explains the urgency of Siddaramaiah, who appears to have taken some liberties with the calendar. Tipu (1750-99) was born on November 20. Since it is too late this year and the next birth anniversary is almost a year away, the Karnataka chief minister is planning to hold the celebrations sometime early next year. BJP leaders are incensed by the secular label on Tipu. Party leaders have been citing purported instances of “forced conversions and demolition of temples” in Coorg and Mangalore in Karnataka, and Malabar in north Kerala. G. Madhusudhan, senior BJP leader and member of the state legislative council (upper House), said Tipu was “neither secular nor a patriot”. “We will not allow the government to waste public money to honour a bigot like Tipu who had even invited kings from Afghanistan and Turkey to fight with him and convert everyone,” Madhusudhan said. “These Congress leaders should ask the people of Coorg, Mangalore or Malabar why they hate him (Tipu).” But Siddaramaiah, a socialist who follows the ideology of Ram Manohar Lohia and hails from Mysore, has said: “Those who oppose (the celebrations) should go and read the history books. These people are peddling lies about a great king of Mysore.” Calcutta does not have to read history books to recall its connection with the descendants of Tipu Sultan. As many as 300-odd survivors of the family, including crown prince Ghulam Muhammad Anwar Ali Shah, were sent to Calcutta in 1807. The family was given an official pension and plots to settle down at what is now known as Tollygunge. Parts of the land where Tollygunge Club is situated now were used by Prince Ghulam Muhammad. Calcutta has several landmarks commemorating Tipu, including the two grand mosques in Esplanade and Tollygunge. Roads named after Tipu’s survivors — such as Prince Anwar Shah Road — are familiar to most Calcuttans, although some of the descendants are now living in penury. Which brings up Mamata, a chief minister who has institutionalised the art of paying tribute to legends. From renaming Metro Rail stations to showering flowers on portraits — at Writers’ Buildings once and Nabanna now — Mamata has made homage an indelible part of her governance. (There is another Calcutta connection but few would want to flaunt it now. It was Vijay Mallya, who studied in Calcutta before embarking on flamboyant ventures that eventually landed him in ignominy, who had aggressively bid for and bought the sword of Tipu Sultan in 2003.) Given the historical background, it would not have been out of place had Mamata taken the first step to commemorate Tipu — an initiative that cannot be ruled out yet. For the time being, however, Siddaramaiah has the upper hand. Former Congress minister B.K. Chandrashekar, a writer who has researched Tipu for nearly four decades, described him as “a remarkable king”. “It’s fitting that at last the government of Karnataka has decided to celebrate this great king’s birthday. To me his (Tipu’s) war against the British was the first war of independence,” Chandrashekar said. “I have interacted with thousands of people in Srirangapatna (Tipu’s capital, near Mysore) and all around the place. No one speaks ill of Tipu.” Chandrashekar said Tipu had never compromised “his nationalistic ideology and fought the British when Hindu kings in the north were stabbing each other in the back”. B. Sheikh Ali, a historian from Mysore, said Tipu was “a very modern and astute administrator”. “He took the positives even from the British, whom he otherwise hated and never lost an opportunity to fight against,” he said. It was at the recent launch of Ali’s book, Tipu Sultan: A Crusader for Change, that Siddaramaiah announced the decision to celebrate what the chief minister described as “Tipu Jayanti”. The BJP has had a thorny past on Tipu. When the UPA cleared a proposal to establish a Tipu Sultan University in Srirangapatna, the de facto capital of the Tiger of Mysore, the BJP had opposed the plan. With the NDA taking over at the Centre, the fate of the varsity plan is hanging fire. Ali conceded that people in Coorg, Mangalore and large parts of Kerala hated Tipu but said this was for a reason different from the one the BJP was propagating. “Tipu was very harsh on them since they never stopped backing the British, whom he hated,” Ali said. “Otherwise, Tipu was a secular king who was much ahead of his time and very modern in his outlook.” | ||
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