THE TIMES OF TIPU SULTAN
17 October 2017
The Tipu Sultan controversies have flared up again with, on the one hand, President Ram Nath Kovind praising Tipu Sultan in his address to the Karnataka Assembly, and on the other, union minister Anantha Kumar Hegde, refusing to take part in the Tipu Sultan Jayanti celebrations.
The blatantly false propaganda being spread by the Hindutva Sangh Parivar over Tipu Sultan is reaching outlandish proportions.
The desperate attempts by illiterate fanatics, to rewrite history and whip up communal sentiments must be confronted and countered with facts.
Ravi Visvesvaraya Sharada Prasad, whose paternal ancestors were ministers in Tipu Sultan;s durbar and whose maternal ancestors were Principal Ministers in Vijaynagaram Kingdom, writes :
“Since 8 August 2017, I have been prohibited from posting
anything on my Facebook wall due to complaints from the
Hindutva Sangha Parivar troll army that my posts
constitute hate speech.”
“This post of mine of November 2015 was reported to
Facebook as hate speech, and my Facebook account was
suspended for three weeks then. I also received numerous
death threats from Bajrang Dal and Sri Ram Sene because
of this post of mine, notwithstanding that it was my own
relatives who had been massacred.”
Ravi Visvesvaraya presents a fascinating take on Tipu Sultan, whose court his ancestors worked in and on the sufferings of his other ancestors, including the loot by the "Hindu" Marathas of his family's Sringeri Shri Sharada Peetham in 1791 AD, and the massacre of his maternal ancestors after the battle of Talikota in 1565 AD, when Vijayanagaram was conquered by an alliance of the "Muslim" kingdoms of Bahmani, Bidar, Berar, Bijapur, Golconda :
“13 November 2015
A Hindutva troll, a lady, has been trying to teach me my own
family history with regard to Tipu Sultan’s patronage of Hindu
temples. She has been posting all kinds of nonsense on my fb
Timeline, disputing what I know about my own ancestors. I
Have, finally blocked her.
Almost all the wars in medieval Deccan India were over
territory, power, riches, gold. They were never in the name of
Religion.
Every Muslim king had Hindu ministers and Hindu generals.
Every Hindu king had Muslim generals and Muslim ministers.
Temples were looted because that is where gold and diamonds
were kept. Many Hindu kings looted Hindu temples in the lands
they conquered, such as the Hindu Marathas looting my family
shrine of Sringeri Shree Sharada Peetham in 1791 AD.
In 1759 AD, a military force of the Marathas occupied Tirupati,
and took over its revenue stream. The Marathas withdrew from
Tirupati only after several years, when a contingent of the East
India Company approached.
Indian history is far more complex and nuanced than the
simplistic version being propagated by the Sangh
Parivar of "Cruel Muslims massacring and raping innocent
Hindus and destroying their temples".
My father’s ancestors served in very senior positions in Tipu
Sultans court. Several of the Shankaracharyas of Sringeri have
come from this lineage.
In 1791 AD, the Hindu Marathas, led by Raghunath Rao
Patwardhan, looted our family shrine of Sringeri Shree
Sharada Peetham, and killed several priests. Ironically, the
Marathas were worshippers of Shiva. Tipu Sultan sent his army
to expel the Maratha invaders, and helped rebuild the shrines at
Sringeri Shree Sharada Peetham.
Tipu Sultan also gave several expensive gifts to the Sreekantha
temple at Nanjangud, where my fathers family members were
Priests.
The vicious Hindutva troll disputed all these on my timeline,
saying that this was false propaganda spread by "sickulars".
True that Tipu Sultan carried out brutal military conquests of
Coorg, Mangalore, North Karnataka, Kerala, etc., with cruel
Massacres.
True that Tipu Sultan tortured the Catholics of Mangalore. But
that was because he suspected them of siding with the British.
True that Tipu massacred Christians and Hindus in his
invasions of Kerala.
True Tipu Sultan massacred several hundred members of my
mother's, (Shri Vaishnava Iyengar), family, the Tatacharyas.
Even though my own maternal relatives were killed by Tipu, I do not
ascribe religious motive to these killings.
Has anyone noted how many Kerala Muslims too were
massacred by Tipu during his invasions of Kerala?
Within his own kingdom of Mysore, Tipu Sultan was greatly
revered as a just, benevolent, enlightened, and SECULAR king
who ushered in an era of prosperity, and introduced modern
agriculture, technology, and administration.
There is an even more telling example of Tipu Sultan’s secular
credentials from my maternal family's history of the
Vijayanagaram Empire.
My maternal family were the Tatacharyas, the hereditary
ministers in the court of the Vijayanagaram Empire. Almost the
entire clan was massacred after the battle of Talikota in 1565 AD,
When Vijayanagaram was conquered by the alliance of the
Kingdoms of Bahmani, Bidar, Berar, Bijapur, Golconda,
Ahmednagar, all of which were ruled by Muslim dynasties.
After 450 years, I am objective enough not to claim
that my maternal family was massacred by Muslims.
Although the Bahmani, Bidar, Berar, Bijapur, Golconda,
Ahmednagar kingdoms were all ruled by Muslim dynasties, all
their armies were led by Hindu generals, and they all had
Hindu dewans and Hindu ministers. The Ghorpades and
Sardesais fought on behalf of the Sultanate alliance.
And while the Vijayanagaram emperors were devout Hindus,
they had Muslim generals and Muslim administrators in senior
positions. Rama Raya always carried a copy of the Holy Quran
with him.
The commander-in-chief of the Golconda army was a Maratha
Brahmin, Murahari Rao. He personally looted the temple at
Ahobilam in 1579 AD.
In those days, it was brutal realpolitik.
The Wodeyar queen, Lakshmammanni, hated Haider Ali and
Tipu Sultan. She had made numerous attempts to overthrow
both of them. Her principal advisors were Thirumalai Rao and
his brother Narayana Rao. They were from my mother's Shri
Vaishnava Iyengar family, the Tatacharyas. They derived their
authority from their direct descendancy from the Rajgurus of
the Vijayanagaram Emperors.
Several hundred Iyengar Brahmins, including Thirumalai Rao
and Narayana Rao held middle to senior positions under the
Wodeyars. The Rao brothers were senior officials in the
finance ministry and the posts ministry. After Haider Ali seized
power, they continued to work for a few years in his regime, but
migrated to the Maratha Court at Thanjavur, where they
became ministers.
The Wodeyar queen Lakshmammanni asked Thirumalai Rao
and Narayana Rao to organize a coup to overthrow Tipu Sultan.
She promised to make Thirumalai Rao her Dewan, and offered
him ten percent of the revenues of her Kingdom.
Consequently, the Raos sent messages to their fellow kinsmen
to overthrow Tipu Sultan. Lakshmammanni and her henchmen,
the Iyengars, however, made the blunder of seeking British
help, in their effort to overthrow Tipu Sultan.
As the British forces, encouraged by the Wodeyar Queen
Lakshmammanni and the Iyengars, closed in, a furious Tipu
Sultan arrested all these brahmins in Mandyam and Melkote,
and had them brutally put to death in Srirangapattinam.
Even though it was my own maternal relatives who were
massacred by Tipu Sultan, I view the episode as the fate of
conspirators against the State, rather that a case of massacre of
Brahmins by Muslims.
Indian history of those days, is much more complex and
nuanced than the simplistic version of, "Evil Muslims
massacring and raping innocent Hindus and destroying Hindu
temples", being pedaled by the Sangh Parivar.
In those days, the conqueror, irrespective of caste, creed,
race or religion, took all and the conquered were
decimated. It was Kingdom vs Kingdom.
The Army of Emperor Krishna Deva Raya of
Vijayanagaram, looted temples when they conquered
Udayagiri and Pandharpur, and brought back the temple loot
to be displayed at Hampi.
Krishna Deva Raya's Army also carried out mass massacres in
the territories they conquered. My direct maternal ancestor,
Thirumalai Tatacharya, was Krishna Deva Raya's Rajguru and
principal minister.
The Cholas had destroyed the Chera empire temples at
Thiruvanchikulam, even though both were Shiva worshippers.”
Similarly, the Pandyas destroyed the Chola temples at
Ganga kondaicholapuram,
The Rashtrakutas had destroyed the temples of the Pratiharas.
A large part of the stereotype of Tipu Sultan as a persecutor of
Hindus and Christians comes from an influential textbook
written in the 1920s by professor Harprasad Shastri, professor
and head of the department of Sanskrit at Calcutta University.
Harprasad Shastri's source was entirely hearsay, and not on
any verification of facts from Mysore. Eminent historians
from the University of Mysore, and the editors of the Mysore
Gazetteer had pointed out the falsehoods in the textbook
written by Harprasad Shastri in the 1930s itself.
Sir Dr Brijendra Nath Seal, (Samuel’s note : A classmate and
early colleague of Swami Vivekananda; first Chancellor of
Bharati and Vice Chancellor of Mysore University), had his
suspicions about Shastri's book, and ordered an inquiry.
Ashutosh Mukherjee, (The then VC of Calcutta University),
had Shastri's textbook withdrawn from Calcutta University.
Despite the above, unfortunately, both Allahabad and Benares
Hindu Universities prescribed Shastri's book as a textbook.
In one of his books, the eminent historian, Dr Bishambhar Nath
Pande, long time MP and governor of Odisha, (Samuel’s note :
My फूफ़ाजी), in an article, pointed out the falsehoods in
Harprasad Shastri's textbook.
Shastri had mentioned numerous references. He confessed to
Dr Pande that he had not actually read any of the sources which
he had cited as references in his textbook.
The tragedy, however, is that generations of students
have grown up on Harprasad Shastri's textbook.
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