TIPU SULTAN

TIPU SULTAN

Excerpts from Tipu's letters as researched by the distinguished Kerala historian K. M. Panicker, which he reviewed in the Bhasha Poshini magazine, August 1923:

1. Letter dated March 22, 1788, to Abdul Kadir: "Over 12,000 Hindus were honoured 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 dated 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 5000 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 (men and women) in Calicut are converted to Islam. I consider this as Jihad."

From 'A Voyage to the East Indies' by Fra Barthoelomeo, a renowned Portuguese traveller and historian, who was present in Tipu's war zone in early 1790:

"First a corps of 30,000 barbarians who butchered everybody on the way … followed by the field gun unit under the French commander, M. Lally.

 Tipu was riding on an elephant behind which another army of 30 000 soldiers followed. Most of the men and women were hanged in Calicut, first mothers were hanged with their children tied to necks of mothers.

 That barbarian Tipu Sultan tied the naked Christian and Hindus to the legs of elephants and made the elephants to move around till the bodies of the helpless victims were torn to pieces. Temples and churches were ordered to be burned down, desecrated, and destroyed. … Those Christians who refused to be honoured with Islam were ordered to be killed by hanging immediately. 

These atrocities were told to me by the victims of Tipu Sultan who escaped from the clutches of his army and reached Varapphuza, which is the centre of Carmichael Christian Mission. I myself helped many victims to cross the Varapphuza river by boats."

The letter of January 19, 1790, sent to Budruz Zuman Khan by Tipu himself says: "Don"t you know I have achieved a great victory recently in Malabar and over four lakh Hindus were converted to Islam? I am determined to march against that cursed "Raman Nair" very soon (reference is to Rama Varma Raja of Travancore). Since I am overjoyed at the prospect of converting him and his subjects to Islam, I have happily abandoned the idea of going back to Srirangapatanam now".

In the letter dated January 18, 1790, to Syed Abdul Dulai: "With the grace of muhammed and allah, almost all Hindus in Calicut are converted to Islam. Only a few are still not converted on the borders of Cochin State. I am determined to convert them also very soon. I consider this as Jehad to achieve that object."

The cruelties which Tipu Sultan committed in Coorg, has no parallel in history. On one occasion, he forcibly converted over ten thousand Hindus to Muhammadanism. On another occasion, he captured and converted to Islam more than one thousand Hindu Coorgis before imprisoning them in the Sreerangapatanam fortress. 

The atrocities committed by Tipu Sultan in Bidnur in North Karnataka during and after its capture by him, were most barbarous and beyond description. After the capture of Mangalore, along with Hindus, thousands of Christians were also forcibly sent to Sreerangapatanam where all of them were circumcised and converted to Islam. Then he marched upto Kumbla on the northern borders of Kerala, forcibly converting to Islam every Hindu on the way.

In Malabar, the main targets of Tipu Sultan"s atrocities were Hindus and Hindu temples. 

According to Lewis B. Boury, the atrocities committed by Tipu Sultan against Hindus in Malabar were worse and more barbarous than those committed against the Hindus in Hindustan by the notorious Mahmud of Ghazni, Alauddin Khalji, and Nadir Shah. According to the Malabar Manual of William Logan who was the District Collector for some time, Thrichambaram and Thalipparampu temples in Chirackal Taluqa, Thiruvangatu Temple (Brass Pagoda) in Tellicherry, and Ponmeri Temple near Badakara were all destroyed by Tipu Sultan. 

The Malabar Manual mentions that the Maniyoor mosque was once a Hindu temple. Vatakkankoor Raja Raja Varma writes- "There was no limit as to the loss the Hindu temples suffered due to the military operations of Tipu Sultan(in Kerala). Burning down the temples, destruction of the idols installed therein and also cutting the heads of cattle over the temple deities were the cruel entertainments of Tipu Sultan and his equally cruel army. It was heartrending even to imagine the destruction caused by Tipu Sultan in the famous ancient temples of Thalipparampu and Thrichambaram. The devastation caused by this new Ravana"s barbarous activities has not yet been fully rectified."