The same principle is today being used in Kashmir by the Pakistani supporters to gather support against India.Yes there have been some incidents of human rights violation by some Indian troops also,but many many a times,terrorists clad in Indian army outfits(or act to be sent by India) attack and destroy houses and this blame goes to India.

Similarly in the case of Tipu Sultan,it was a false propaganda.It is a fact that soldiers try to plunder and loot all what they can after a war,women are abused,people tortured.But Tipu Sultan did not support such attrocities.

In his early teens while just acting as an observer,while his father was at war with one of their neighbours.Tipu by chance while travelling through the forest encountered the women quarters of the enemy king,it was captured.One of Tipu’s generals,Makbool Khan was attempting a rape on one of the women members of the enemy camp,Makbool faced the wrath of Tipu Sultan and was shot to death by Tipu himself.

Similarly rare incidents of individual military-personnel atrocities may have been committed without coming into Tipu Sultan’s notice(had they come into his notice the criminals would be punished as it was done in any of the similar cases),these were blown out of proportion by the anti-Tipu propagandists and so he was demonised.

Plus the many traitors of all he had were muslims and not hindus,his hindu ministers had been loyalists to him till his martyrdom.

Why on earth did they be loyal to this ‘anti-hindu muslim fanatic’ if he were truly so?

Many argue that his death was accidental and not as a martyr,they(anti-Tipu scholars)say that he was killed at night whilst trying to escape the humiliating defeat and British wrath.While on the other hand we have records of his death as a martyr.

If at all Tipu Sultan wanted to save his life,he’d have peacefully surrendered to the British and we know that throught history,no matter how cruel the English were with the people of the captured teritory/enemy soldiers……etc. they treated the defeated king with respect and wouldn’t punish him to death {as many Indian kings(Tipu Sultan included) did sometimes}.Thus Tipu had the option of surrendering to the British but he choose to be a soldier and met the fate of one.The British generals who were responsible for his death at that spot did not recognise that who he was and hence a through search was done and then his body was found.

“Many of the problems with interpreting history result from our tendency to either idolize or demonize historical figures, rather than analysing them”

I agree but then all are not educated or rational enough to question everything they see. How many of us question the religion of the family we are born in? Our opinions are baised, for life, towards things we are exposed to as a child. And people generally follow the mass without even pomdering over their act……thats how this world is!
Its upto us to analyze them. Its a very good point you have brought up for discussion. But the main aim of the post was to prove something else

Adnan bhai,
I was ignorant of the Scindias being traitors. Aise hi hota hai..jinke paas paise hai woh apne bolte man waate hai…aur jo sahi me deserving hote hai..unka haal bad se battar ho jata hai…aise hi duniya hai

Sharique: no lecture for u this time:) and I did post a reply to the Islam-peaceful debate @ desipundit

Adnan: for every example there is going to be a counter example. The problem is these examples shift from the focus of debate and get personal. Dont u think the voice should be more against tarnishing of History, than against suppression of only Muslim-related History (which without doubt has been underplayed). what I am saying is that your cynicism is not unjust or wasted on me either. I understand your angst but wouldn’t questioning the bigger picture help more in the longer run?

On one hand a ‘shaheed’ is disrespected while traitors like Scindias have not only been forgiven but their scions have placed themselves well in all political parties (Congress and BJP) and have been appropriated for siding with British

Lot could be learnt from the likes of Vasundhara, Yashodhara, Jyotiraditya, all Scindias, and similar families. The fate of Tipu Sultan’s descendants is known to everybody.

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Tipu was a great warrior against the British colonialists. But at the same time, he aligned himself with the French, who were not in India with noble intentions either.

He was very well-read in multiple languages and knew Kannada, Urdu and Marathi fluently besides of course Persian. But he did change the court language to Persian despite the fact that a majority of his own officials did not know the language.

He gave a lot of money for the development and maintenance of the Sri Ranganatha temple inside his fort city of Srirangapatnam. Yet, in the Malabar, he also destroyed many prominent temples for the mere reason that they were Hindu temples.

He banned many practices in Mysore based on blind superstition rather than any religious philosophy. Yet, he also promoted acts of blind superstition.

He was generally fair towards his non-Muslim subjects. But he also arranged several forced conversions of thousands of people to Islam at the threat of death.

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The point is that he, like many other great historical figures, was a complex person, with many facets to his personality. We do injustice not just to history but also to ourselves by looking unilaterally at only one aspect of his character and ignoring the others. On the one hand, those who idolize Tipu tend to gloss over many of the negative aspects of his character, that are historically well-recorded. On the other hand, others like the BJP minister in Karnataka, ignore all the positive aspects while highlighting the negative aspects. An opposite situation exists in the analysis of a figure like Shivaji – another great historical character who is either idolized or demonized, but not analyzed in all his complexity.

By not analyzing these figures and idolizing/demonizing them, we not just open ourselves to legitimate charges of hypocrisy. But we also ensure that we will never learn from history. We seem to be happy in living in a world of fantasy. It may provide momentary gratification. But it works against our interests in the long term.