Daily Times

Living in Pakistan, most of us are familiar with the historical figure of Tipu Sultan. He was the South Indian ruler of the state of Mysore who died fighting the East India Company in May 1799. But Tipu Sultan has differing legacies in India, England and Pakistan.

In November 2014, South Indian playwright Girish Karnad invited jeers when he proposed that Bengaluru airport in Bangalore be named after Tipu Sultan. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)responded with a protest of all ceremonies marking Tipu’s birth anniversary in the Indian state of Kannada. In India, Tipu Sultan is thought of as a resistance hero by a large number of Muslims and segments of other communities. But he evokes a mixed response from non-Muslims in most parts. His is a controversial image even in his hometown (now Kannada). Rightwing Hindus revile him for being anti-Hindu, anti-Kannadiga, a religious bigot, the son of an upstart who usurped the rightful Hindu prince of the Woodeyar dynasty and presented himself as a freedom fighter against the English to gain sympathies. He is often compared to the Mughal emperor Aurangzeb for his alleged persecution of non-Muslims.

The English have called Tipu a mercurial tyrant whose hatred of the East India Company and modernity reached unreasonable heights. History texts authored by English historians often relate Tipu’s cruel treatment of captured English soldiers, his forced conversion of thousands of Hindus and his frequent expansionist invasions of neighbouring territories belonging to the Marhattas, and the Nizam of Hyderabad. Some authors allege that General Matthews of the East India Company’s army was poisoned while in Tipu’s captivity. Major David Baird of Lord Macleod’s Regiment, who was to become a general later and participate in the final assault on Tipu’s fort at Seringapatam, reported having suffered torture and abuse at Tipu’s hands.

Tipu’s alleged ‘wildness’ contributed to the animal imagery that the English employed for him. Tipu liked tigers and kept many at his fort. When he was young, a particularly ferocious cub was brought to the fort. It would grow up to become majestic and untamable, earning the title ‘Tiger Royale’. Gaining sovereignty, Tipu ordered a tiger throne for his seat. He is often reported to have said: “It is better to live a day as a tiger than a century as a jackal.” This obsession with tigers was used against him. The English shot all of his tigers when they took his fort. They also launched an ingenuous literary campaign against the fallen “Tiger of Mysore”. Tipu Sultan “the tyrant” and the Indian tiger were merged to form a metaphor for beastliness. In 1886, Ralston and Cole published an illustrated short story called Tippoo: A Tale of a Tiger. In the story, an English couple tries to pet an Indian tiger, but the beast refuses to be disciplined and is killed by terrified neighbours. In artistic portrayals, an English lion was shown to be in battle with an Indian tiger. In this amusing clash, the English lion was regal and victorious, the Indian tiger vicious but cowed.

Now, the Pakistani version. In 1949, the Pakistan navy acquired a British naval destroyer called the HMS Onslow and renamed it the PNS Tipu Sultan to pay homage to the Muslim hero. Another ship, the HMS Avenger, was purchased in 1994 and renamed the PNS Tipu to preserve the legacy. In literary portrayals, Tipu has been depicted as a mythical warrior prince by novelists Naseem Hijazi and Sadiq Husain Siddique. Sa’adat Hassan Manto dramatised Tipu’s death in a moving short story that is part of the Manto Nama. Acting great Mohammad Ali portrayed Tipu in the 1977 Urdu-language film Tipu Sultan. The film was based on Hijazi’s novel and shows Tipu dying with his sword clutched firmly in his right hand. Afterwards, General Baird acknowledges his corpse with a military salute. PTV came up with a soap on Tipu in the 1990s. In Pakistan, Tipu is the consummate holy warrior who waged battle against the invading farangi and etched his name in the history of heroes. One man, three legacies. Who really was Tipu?

Many in India denounce Tipu for mixing religion with politics. But the Sultan was not the first to paint a resistance movement in religious colours. One of the earliest instances of ‘Islamic’ resistance to foreign occupation can be found in the teachings of the 14th century Islamic scholar Ibn-e-Taymiyyah (died 1328). The imam ordained holy war against the Mongols. Tipu did what had been done before him. Do politics and religion go well together? That is not the subject at present, though it is a contentious one. However, it does seem that resistance movements involving Muslims often mix religion with national identity. In South Asia, for instance, scholars associated with the Darul Uloom Deoband and the Ahl-e-Hadith movement offered, for some time, a popular and indigenous Muslim counter-narrative to the English colonial presence. People associated with these movements also fought the Sikhs in Punjab and sought help from Muslim rulers in Afghanistan, thus giving a pan-Islamic tinge to their efforts. Tipu’s religious legacy merits contextualisation.

The English campaign to present Tipu as an unstable oppressor was, in certain ways, part of the larger colonial campaign to delegitimise native rulers. Showing the native king as a tyrant was conducive to the British effort of selling their benign and modern rule to the people. It was imperative to tell the people how they had been wronged by decades of misrule. Tipu Sultan was a despot, and despotism was something primitive and peculiarly Asian. The arrangement was designed to present the English as an advanced, forward-looking civilisation that was ‘meant’ to replace the tyranny of the volatile Islamic Sultan.

The Pakistani version is not without its flaws either. It is too skewed, too mythical to endure in a rational analysis. In most cases, Pakistani studies of Tipu become eulogies from the first couple of passages. There can hardly be a disinterested analysis when the intent is to elevate someone to divine status. Tipu’s modesty and Islamic credentials are often evoked in binary opposition to the debauchery-ridden pomp of the Mughals. In our narrative, he was not defeated but betrayed to the English by his prime minister, Mir Sadiq. So, where does that leave us?

There is no simple answer to the question of who he truly was. He could have been a despot and a freedom fighter at the same time. But this is what I leave you with. Despite the divergence in his portrayal discussed above, almost all historical sources agree on one point: Tipu Sultan’s end. He fell fighting the English. We are talking about a man who grew up fighting them and questioned what they considered to be their right to colonise foreign territories and cultures. He must have felt alone in a shrinking world encircled by the Marhattas, the Nizam of Hyderabad and Governor Generals Cornwallis and Wellesley. How do you face odds like that? What do you tell your family when you know you are fighting a battle you cannot win? More importantly, what do you tell yourself? Maybe this: it is better to live a day as a tiger than a century as a jackal.

The writer is a lecturer in English Literature at Government College University, Lahore. He may be reached at sameeropinion@gmail.com