Thread on #TipuSultan

1. Letter dated March 22, 1788, to Abdul Kadir: 'Over 12,000 Hindus were honored with Islam. There were many Namboodri Brahmins among them. This achievement should be widely publicised among the Hindus.

Then the local Hindus should be brought before you and converted to Islam. No Namboodri Brahmin should be spared.'
2. Letter December 14, 1788, to his army chief in Calicut: 'I am sending two of my followers with Mir Hussain Ali.

With their assistance, you should capture and kill all Hindus. Those below 20 may be kept in prison and 5,000 from the rest should be killed from the tree-tops. These are my orders.'

3. Letter dated January 18, 1790, to Syed Abdul Dulai: '... almost all Hindus in Calicut are converted to Islam. I consider this as jihad.'

These excerpts indicate a brutality that is unpardonable; they cannot be wished away as reminiscent of the times especially when it involves the killing of such a large number of people.

'His raid wasn't that of an emperor intent on expanding his empire. It was a cultural and religious invasion... He followed the policy of Islam or death... Tipu targeted and assaulted temples...

Some historians claim that he killed about 40,000 Coorgis and converted an equal number...' (I M Muthanna, Tipu Sultan X-Rayed, Usha Press, Mysore 1980).

Christians too were the victims of his religious xenophobia.

Fra Bartolomeo, a Portuguese traveller who happened to be in the vicinity of Tipu's campaign in 1790 writes (in A Voyage to the East Indies): 'Tipu was riding on an elephant behind which another army of 30,000 soldiers followed.

Most of them were hanged in Calicut, first mothers were hanged with their children tied to necks of mothers.'
'That barbarian sultan tied the naked Hindus to the legs of elephants and made the elephants to move around till the bodies of the helpless victims were torn to pieces.'

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