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India's Karnataka Cancels Birth Anniversary Celebrations of 18-Century King Who Fought British Rule

CC0 / / Portrait of Tipu Sultan by an anonymous Indian artist in Mysore, ca. 1790–1800
 Portrait of Tipu Sultan by an anonymous Indian artist in Mysore, ca. 1790–1800 - Sputnik International
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New Delhi (Sputnik): The newly sworn-in Bharatiya Janata Party government in India’s southern Karnataka state has cancelled the birth anniversary celebration of Tipu Sultan, the controversial 18th-century ruler of the former Mysore kingdom.

Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and right-wing organisations were against the celebrations, calling Tipu a “religious bigot”. Tipu Sultan fought against the British rule and was killed in May 1799, while defending his fort at Srirangapatna against the British forces.

The decision to celebrate the annual event was taken by the then Congress government in the state in 2015, describing him as a “freedom fighter”. The BJP had slammed the decision as “appeasement” of minorities.

The first year of celebrations witnessed large-scale violence in the state in which two persons died. In the subsequent years, the celebrations were held under enhanced security arrangements.

 

The ruler is considered to have wiped out the martial inhabitants of Kodagu district – Kodavas. They believe Tipu Sultan was instrumental in torturing and killing thousands of their men and women and forcibly converting them to Islam.

A sect of the upper Brahmin caste in the temple town of Melkote in Mandya district also holds the king responsible for the execution of their ancestors, for their allegiance to the then King of Mysore, now Mysuru. Christians in some southern districts of Karnataka also believe he had unleashed atrocities on their communities.

Historians, however, dispute these claims. They see him as a secular and modern ruler who took on the mighty British Empire.  

 

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