Tipu Sultan is a King who ruled Mysore kingdom between 1782 and 1799. He was a great freedom fighter, secular, and efficient ruler. Some may feel that each and every king in the history, since they were representing the feudal class, exploited the common people and fought with other kings either to expand and sustain their rule or to defend their own power from attacking kings; that Tipu also might, likewise, have fought the British rulers with the same cause. But, it is not at all totally true as facts unfold a different story. One thing is to be noted here that Tipu was representing the then emerging capitalist class. At that particular stage of history, it was certainly a progressive role. It was a transition period that India was passing through. There were feudal warlords in Karnataka, locally called as Palegaras, having thousands of acres of land and their own feudal armies. He attacked them with his army and distributed the land to the landless people. For the first time in the history of India, landless Dalits got land and became landowners. Due to the land reforms he made, the landlord class started to disappear and a class of peasantry having smallholdings started to emerge. Since he promoted trade and commerce some trade centers developed. Since he established some factories, on a small scale, a capitalist mode of production came into existence at its primordial stage. As a result of all these, a bourgeois social system started, in its embryonic form, to emerge in the womb of the feudal system. Tipu Sultan is the reason behind the fact that today Karnataka is in the first position in silk production. He for the first time introduced silk production by setting up 21 silk production centers. Like his father, Hyder Ali, who ruled the Mysore kingdom between 1761 and 1782, Tipu Sultan was also secular minded. Both of them, though they were considered as Muslims, never made any discrimination along the lines of religion. (In fact, Hyder Ali was the follower of no religion and Tipu followed the Sufi sect of Islam.) Many historical evidences unfold the fact that Tipu Sultan used to financially support many Hindu temples. He not only protected the big Ranganath Temple, which is situated vary close to his palace but also developed it. If he were to be a Muslim fanatic, he would have destroyed it. Many significant letters written by Tipu to Sringeri Matt were discovered in 1916 and these further justified the fact that he used to help Hindu temples. When Sringeri Matt, a Hindu religious place, was attacked and looted by the very Hindu Marathas, Tipu, considered being a Muslim king came forward to help financially and tried his best to make good the losses inflicted by the Marathas. But in the eyes of the Sangh Parivar Tipu is still a Muslim fanatic and Marathas who looted Hindu Matts and never fought against the Britishers but against their own countrymen for their selfish ends, are patriots! Stay with Muslims and india for more
Posted on: Mon, 19 Aug 2013 21:42:22 +0000
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