Karnataka Edu Min rubbishes media reports on dropping Tipu lessons

Bengaluru: Karnataka Education Minister on Tuesday said that no chapters on Tipu Sultan will be dropped from school textbooks, rather, the neglected historical facts about him could be included in the books, after discussions with experts.

“As I have told the media earlier, the government’s only objective is to include those historical facts that have been neglected due to some political reasons. We don’t have any plan to drop any chapter on Tipu Sultan from textbooks. Some reports appearing in media are mere imagination. Some vested interests are spreading rumours,” he told reporters here.

Next week, the government will share information on the topic through a press conference. “We want our students to know true historical facts instead of wrong information. This is a step in the direction of building a strong country,” he said.

On Appachu Ranjan’s letter on the topic, Nagesh said the BJP MLA has asked for the dropping of distorted historical facts on Tipu Sultan from school textbooks.

“He has asked us to either drop the wrong facts from the textbooks, or include the bad and good things he did to the society,” added the Minister.

Nagesh said the historical facts presented in the letter by Ranjan were elicited from the British Library, not from the books written by Indian historians.

The facts Ranjan has brought out in the letter, were based on the letters written by Tipu Sultan himself to the British authorities, noted the Minister, adding that the letter would be placed before the school textbook committee for consideration.

In the letter, Ranjan claimed there were records available to show that Tipu Sultan was an iconoclast and plundered many Hindu temples. He also alleged that the controversial 18th century ruler of erstwhile Mysore kingdom was not a freedom fighter.

Tipu Sultan had converted more than 20,000 Christians and 10,000 Kodagu residents, Ranjan said, adding that he was also an anti-Kannada as he changed names of many towns and localities and gave them Persian names.

The BJP government in Karnataka in July, 2019 cancelled the annual birth anniversary celebrations of Tipu Sultan, which had been organised since 2015.

The Siddaramaiah-led Congress government had been celebrating November 10 as Tipu Jayanti, since 2015

The celebration continued by the Congress-JDS coalition government headed by HD Kumaraswamy last year, despite opposition from BJP and others.

JDS also was averse to celebrating the jayanti. Not a single JDS leader, including former chief minister HD Kumaraswamy, attended the event, turning it into a fiasco.