After several days of political drama, the Congress-JD(S) coalition government which had come to power last year has finally fallen. Kumaraswamy lost the trust vote 105-99 in favor of the BJP. Ever since, the reports of Congress and JD(S) MLAs tendering their resignations surfaced, it had become clear that the Karnataka government was not going to survive for very long. The coalition government had fallen into a political crisis after reports of 14 MLAs tendering their resignations had come up. It had become clear that once these resignations were accepted, the coalition government would lose its majority.
This post-poll coalition between Congress and JD(S) in Karnataka which was seen by many being contrary to peoples mandate as the Congress and the JD(S) had fought election opposing each other ferociously, however, later on, giving in to political greed had forged this alliance of convenience. Nonetheless, after another reality check post the dismal performance in the Lok Sabha polls, this alliance with no ideological basis finally met its fate. The fall of the Karnataka government also marks the end of the infamous Tipu Jayanti which was being celebrated under the Congress rule and lately under the coalition government.
Officially celebrated for the first time in 2015, Tipu Jayanti has been meeting strong resistance from local Kannada groups like Tipu Jayanti Virodhi Horata Samithi. BJP which has always remained critical of the radical tyrant had held several demonstrations in the past against the celebrations of Tipu Jayanti, which was ultimately being propagated on taxpayer’s money. Last year, Karnataka BJP unit had called on the Congress-JD(S) coalition to drop the idea of celebrating Tipu Jayanti calling him a “religious bigot”. While HD Kumaraswamy had not attended the ceremony held on 20th November 2018, instead of 10th November which is Tipu’s actual birth date, Congress leaders were seen rejoicing during the celebrations, again giving a shameless exposition of the idea of minority appeasement that runs deep in the grand old party.
Former Bangalore University Vice-Chancellor Thimappa Manchale Suryanarayanarao had explained Congresses decision to swap dates of celebrations, when he said, “The tyrant Tipu’s birthday falls on November 20. November 10 is the day on which he hanged 700 Iyengars in Melkote.” Another source seconds the same fact, “It’s not just the Melkote Iyengars, it’s the Coorgs, who he killed and converted, it’s the Mangalorean Catholics, whose churches he destroyed, and the Nairs of Wayanad and Malabar, who he tried to exterminate. Evidence for this comes from Tipu’s own letters and diaries.”
Tipu Sultan in 1783 during his siege of Palghat Fort had scaled new heights of savagery where “Tipu’s soldiers daily exposed the heads of many innocent Brahmins within sight from the fort for Zamorin and his Hindu followers to see. It is asserted that the Zamorin rather than witness such enormities and to avoid further killing of innocent Brahmins, chose to abandon the Palghat Fort” as documented in works of Col. Fullarton.
Some claims of Tipu Sultan being a freedom fighter is also evidently just deliberate misconception of history and mere figments of imagination. The fact remains that the second Anglo-Mysore battle in which Tipu Sultan went up in arms against the British took place way back in ‘1780’ itself even though the first struggle for independence had started in 1857. Thus, Tipu Sultan was not by any stretch of imagination a participant in the freedom movement for releasing India from the shackles of British rule. He was just a monarch who was interested in safeguarding his own sovereignty.
These blatant attempts to celebrate a murderer not only had evident overtones of minority appeasement but also insulted thousands of descendents of the people who were murdered at the whims of tyrants like Tipu. Distortion of history to suit political agenda has been a tool for Congress and their communist protégés to mislead people into hating their own culture and worshiping false ‘gods’. Nonetheless now as the unholy alliance comes to an end and BSY led BJP Government takes charge, this irreverent practice of celebrating a murderer will finally come to an end also marking the end of an ugly pseudo-secular practice.