Tipu, or no Tipu?
Time to do away with the cult of the Indian Hero
India is not a land that lacks heroes. Heroes are everywhere, from the stories we learn as children to the viragallu, or Hero Stones, of Karnataka.
Every school and government office comes with a little garlanded portrait of Mahatma Gandhi. It is rare to find a politician who does not make a reference to a hero of his religion or social group, or a villain from an opposing group. Every history textbook in any school comes with little sub-chapters on the greatness of the emperors Ashoka and Akbar, an assortment of Sultans from Delhi, perhaps a passing reference to some South Indian monarchs.
And maybe, in a poorly organised chapter on the British conquest, a passing reference will be made to a man known as Tipu Sultan.
The Tiger of Mysore?
Tipu’s fitful 200-year slumber has come to an abrupt end recently. Every year since 2015, the Sultan has been commemorated on the anniversary of his birth. While lavishly praised by national opposition parties as “India’s First Freedom Fighter”, Tipu is also attacked by the ruling BJP and the Sangh Parivar. Most recently, a BJP Minister referred to him as a “mass rapist” — prompting a descendant of Tipu to take him to court.
In India, Modernity and the Great Divergence, Kaveh Yazdani conducts an extensive analysis of Mysore under Tipu and his father, Haider Ali. His aim is to understand the socioeconomic and military situation of Mysore before and after its occupation by the British. It is quite apparent that Tipu was hardly a model for interfaith relations. That said, Tipu’s administrative and military reforms made Mysore the premier Indian power for decades. If he had been a better diplomat, and forged alliances with other Indian states, he might very well have fought off the British for much longer than he did.
There are two Tipus that we see in today’s discourse, and neither of them is anything like the real Tipu Sultan.
One camp declaims him as essentially a jihadi terrorist of the 18th century, converting and torturing hundreds of Hindus, destroying temples, raping innocents, and what not. They neglect the fact that Tipu employed considerable numbers of Hindus; that agrarian reforms under his reign made things much better for peasants; that the Sultan had patronised other temples. By blackballing Tipu, they add another member to the stereotype of the intolerant Muslim — implying that a Hindu ruler, preferably chosen from among them, would have been so much better.
The other camp, meanwhile, praises him as an Akbar of the 18th century, a great freedom fighter (Freedom from whom? Who had enslaved India in 1799?), a paragon of tolerance, and a military genius. By whitewashing Tipu, they are whitewashing his very human flaws and foibles, projecting him as a hero. A vote for them, by extension, is a vote for Tipu.
Now, Tipu was an innovative general but hardly a genius. He lost almost as many battles as he won. His military reforms focussed on expanding the infantry at the cost of cavalry, which was the opposite of what his father Haidar Ali had done. By neglecting his cavalry, Tipu turned the war into an infantry-on-infantry contest — which is not a good contest if one’s enemy are British Redcoats.
Nor do Tipu’s actions speak of a deep-seated ideological tolerance. He was not one to shy from brutal punishments. Instead, the picture that emerges of Tipu is this: of a monarch determined to retain power by any means necessary; of an aggressive moderniser; of an intelligent politician. The punishments he inflicted were cruel, yes, but were par for course in the 18th & 19th centuries. Barely 60 years later, the British would blow up mutineers by tying them to cannons.
Further, (as I’ve pointed out earlier) in India, the destruction and patronisation of temples was not just a religious act but more importantly a socio-economic one. Temples that helped the ruler were helped by him. Temples opposed to him were smashed. This applies to the ancient Cholas as much as to Tipu Sultan.
The Political Roots of Idolising
If I see Tipu as a hero, I cannot condemn his bigotry. But if I see him as a villain, I cannot admire his determination to strengthen his kingdom. I’m holding myself back from learning from both his rights and his wrongs. Considering what a complex character he was, why do contemporary narratives portray him as a caricature, either a hero or a villain?
Simply put: We like easy black/white narratives, because they make it easy to form in/out identities (or as certain enlightened souls would call it — “nation-building”). But history is not a black/white process.
Questioning narratives, then, is tantamount to questioning one’s identity. And if the narrative is centered on a Hero (or Villain) Figure, questioning the Hero (or Villain) Figure means that you aren’t just questioning him — you’re questioning the national identity.
Post-Independence, when India had just left the shadow of British rule, we had a poor sense of what the Indian nation was. We needed heroes. We needed great figures to remind us of who we were and who we could be. We needed someone to whom we could look and say — “This is what it means to be Indian.” As a young country, still aching from Partition, we needed symbols to form our identity around. That’s okay.
But now, 70 years after Independence, why do we still need heroes? When political discourse is already polarised, why do we search for black and white narratives?
When the very concept of Indian secularism and tolerance is at stake, when we desperately need to grapple with the rights and wrongs of our past — from social to religious to political atrocities — why are we searching for feel-good or feel-scared fluff?
Why do we still see our history as a clash between a few Heroes and Villains, without looking at the true beauty of India’s history, as formed by all of her peoples, as a part of the world, of the processes that catapulted us to global economic and cultural stardom?
Because introspection is hard. It’s hard to admit that our idols had clay feet, because that brings into question all that we do in their name. But admitting their mistakes is the first step in learning from them. In being better than them. If making India a better place (for all of its citizens) than it has been of late means questioning the heroes we were raised with, maybe it’s a price we should be willing to pay.
