Tipu jayanti cancelled

B.S. Yediyurappa being sworn in as Chief Minister of a BJP government in Karnataka by Governor Vajubhai Vala, in Bengaluru on July 26.

Even before appointing his Ministers, B.S. Yediyurappa, the new Chief Minister of Karnataka, announced on July 30 that Tipu Jayanti would not be celebrated from this year onwards. It was always clear that a Bharatiya Janata Party government would stop the celebration, but the haste with which Yediyurappa declared the nullification of the event demonstrates that this second stint of the BJP in the State will see the saffron party push more aggressively in the implementation of its communal agenda.

Tipu Sultan (1750-1799) was an eighteenth century ruler of Mysore who is hailed as an early freedom fighter for his martyrdom on the battlefield in the fourth Anglo-Mysore War of 1799. The earlier Congress government of Siddaramaiah had begun to mark November 10, purportedly Tipu’s birthday, as Tipu Jayanthi from 2015 onwards. Last year, when the coalition of the Congress and the Janata Dal (S) was in power, the celebrations were muted and H.D. Kumaraswamy, evidently discomfited by the controversy surrounding the event, strategically chose to miss the main event in Vidhana Soudha. More than 25 historical personalities are marked through “Jayantis” in the State but only Tipu Jayanti has run into controversies.

The BJP had opposed the celebrations for Tipu on the grounds that he had forcefully converted Hindus to Islam in various parts of his dominions, with the strongest resistance coming from Kodagu district. Disturbances marred the event in Madikeri, the headquarters of Kodagu district, in 2005, leading to two persons losing their lives. Contrary to this bigoted interpretation, there is a whole body of scholarly work that argues that Tipu was a secular ruler and benevolent in his support to Hindu religious places. His cohort of councillors consisted of several Hindus as well. Some of these allegations that Tipu was a communal ruler have been discussed in the past in Frontline (‘Contested Legacy’, December 11, 2015; ‘Tipu — Fact & Fiction’, January 6, 2017; ‘Tipu in Malabar’, January 5, 2018; ‘Striking Legacy’, November 23, 2018).

While supporters of the BJP have welcomed Yediyurappa’s announcement, senior leaders of the Congress like Siddaramaiah have lambasted the BJP. Speaking to the media, Siddaramaiah said, “Since he’s a historical man who fought against the British we had decided to celebrate him. Tipu is a man of a minority community, and the BJP is against minorities in this country. They aren’t secular. I oppose it.”