‘Tipu Sultan Not a Freedom Fighter’: Yediyurappa on Syllabus Row

BJP MLA Apachu Ranjan wrote to the Karnataka Education department to remove Tipu’s references from school syllabus.

BJP’s BS Yeddyurappa flashes the victory sign.

(Photo: AP)

Karnataka Chief Minister BS Yediyurappa on Wednesday, 30 October, said that he disagrees with people who call Tipu Sultan, the erstwhile ruler of Mysore, a “freedom fighter.”

“Tipu Sultan is not a freedom fighter and he doesn’t deserve a place in the textbooks,” said Yediyurappa, while talking to ANI.

“About Tipu Jayanti, we are going to remove it and we are also thinking to drop everything about him in the textbooks,” he further said,

This comes two days after Karnataka Education Minister Suresh Kumar wrote to Managing Director of Karnataka Textbook Society to submit report in three days on BJP MLA Appachu Ranjan's proposal to strike off references to Tipu Sultan from history textbooks.

Kumar also mentioned in the letter to organise a meeting with History Textbook Drafting Committee and invite MLA Appachu Ranjan to discuss about the necessity of the lesson and whether to keep it or to remove it.

BJP MLA from Madikeri, Apachu Ranjan had earlier written to the Karnataka Education department to strike off references to Tipu Sultan from state syllabus school textbooks.

Speaking to The News Minute, Apachu had said that Tipu Sultan has been glorified as a freedom fighter, while not being one. “He is not a freedom fighter and this is something that the textbooks have said. This information is wrong and we want an expert committee to look into this. Tipu has converted many people in our area and looted temples in Kodagu,” Apachu told the website last week.

The letter, according to TNM also urges the education department to stop glorifying Tipu Sultan in textbooks. The letter was quoted by TNM as saying that Tipu Sultan was concerned about expanding his kingdom and religion, hence he can not be called a freedom fighter.

Critics, however, say that Tipu Sultan has to be remembered in history. 

“This demand (of not having him in textbooks at all) is absurd since Tipu made contributions across many fields and they cannot be erased,” Chandan Gowda, a professor of Sociology at Azim Premji University was quoted by TNM as saying.

Tipu Sultan had ruled the erstwhile Kingdom of Mysore from 1782 to 1799 and was involved in multiple battles against the British East India Company for territory in modern-day South India.

This controversy comes three months after the BJP government decided to cancel Tipu Jayanti celebrations this year. 

BJP and pro-Hindu groups have ran a campaign claiming that Tipu Sultan had persecuted Kodavas and Christians, in order to put an end to Tipu Jayanti celebrations in the state.

Karnataka is set to go to bypolls on 5 December, and Yediyurappa said that he is confident that the BJP will win all the 15 seats in the state.

(With inputs from ANI and The News Minute)