Historically challenged

Bengaluru: Pakistan’s high commissioner Abdul Basit was in Bengaluru a couple of weeks ago, for an event of which I was also part. I knew him from before, and asked him what he planned to do in South India (apparently he was only the first or second Pakistani envoy to be allowed to visit Bengaluru). He would see the city’s technology parks, he said, and also would go to Mysore, which is a two-hour drive from here. There he would visit Tipu Sultan’s palace in Srirangapatnam.

Mr Basit assumed that Indians would feel proud of Tipu, but of course he was wrong.

Two people have died in Karnataka last week, over the marking of Tipu’s birthday. It has become a Hindu-Muslim issue. In our part of the world, kings are seen as “good” (Ashoka, Akbar etc) and “bad” (Aurangzeb, Tipu Sultan). This is a marked characteristic of a society and a nation that sees history through emotion and not reason. It is also the sign of a mostly illiterate and neo-literate people.

The boasts of Tipu and his generals are held against them to make it out as if he was forever on jihad against Hindus. This is bogus, but there is no point in trying to show that here. It is better to read books about him than to be told.

Here, of course, the problem is that very few books are written in India, unlike in the civilised world. We have no tradition of writing memoirs. And so there are no books written by Indians on Tipu. One must read 19th century works like Haidar Ali, Tipu Sultan and the Struggle of the Mussulman Powers of the South, by Lewis Bowring (a name familiar to Bangaloreans through the Bowring Club on St Mark’s Road) to learn something about Tipu.

What interests me about Tipu are two or three things. First, that he was very difficult to defeat for the English. When we read the works of our last great historian of the period, Sir Jadunath Sarkar, it becomes clear that unlike the Marathas, Tipu was a real warrior. The embarrassing collapse of the Marathas after the defeat at Panipat stands out in contrast to the dogged resistance of Tipu. All of this happened within 40 years, between 1761 (when Ahmed Abdali won at Panipat) and 1799, when Tipu was killed. In these years the British defeated all their enemies and only Punjab remained, which would fall automatically after the death of Ranjit Singh.

It was only against Tipu that they faced real resistance. He was a terrific general and had a shrewd understanding of geo-politics (playing the French against the British). Second, it is well known that his army was among the first to deploy rockets. It took the greatest warrior in British history, Arthur Wellesley, to defeat Tipu. Wellesley (whom we know as the Duke of Wellington) later defeated Napoleon.

It is depressing to me that Tipu’s military achievements are overlooked today. All that is remembered is that he killed Hindus. Ashoka the Great did not slaughter foreigners when he conquered Kalinga. It was Oriya-speaking Hindus whom he butchered, according to the stories we are told. But Ashok is called great, and his lion emblem is the official symbol of the republic of India. The wheel in the middle of the Indian flag is called the “Ashoka chakra” because that is also his symbol. Why do we honour Ashoka and not Tipu, when both are accused of the same crime? We know the answer and it is obvious. A Muslim king cannot get away with doing the same things a Hindu can in India.

The great house of Patiala was founded by Maharaja Ala Singh. He has zero military achievements. Ala Singh became powerful because he assisted Abdali in defeating the Marathas and was rewarded by the Afghan. Does anyone see Ala Singh or his ancestors as traitors? The Patiala kings resisted Maharaja Ranjit Singh, but nobody sees them as anti-national. It is always the Muslim for whom this treatment is reserved.

We are unwilling to read about such men, but always willing to believe the worst about them and always willing to protest against things about which we know little.

Aakar Patel is a writer and columnist