The video of the bike rally is making rounds on social media in which they can be seen honoring the posters of Tipu Sultan, Begum Hazrat Mahal, Hussain Ahmad Madani, an Islamic scholar who has served as the principal of Darul Uloom Deoband, Socialist leader Yusuf Mehar Ali, Congress’ Jawaharlal Nehru, Dr BR Ambedkar and MK Gandhi. However, they could also be seen arguing with the state police who stopped the rally for creating chaos on the streets.
SDPI brought Hindu’s Kawad Yatra into argument, Police slammed
The Mumbai Police happened to take cognizance of the bike rally organized by the SDPI members and stopped them for congestion of the traffic. “You people are blocking the traffic, you’ve even employed small kids in the rally. You people need to follow the discipline,” the police could be heard saying.
To this, the SDPI leaders argued saying if kids are allowed on the streets to go shopping with their parents, why can’t they be allowed to participate in the rally? The police then ordered the SDPI members to remove the kids from the rally and allowed the rally in two rows directing two persons on one bike. But this too happened to enrage the Islamists who began comparing the Kawad Yatra performed by Hindus to the Islamist rally.
“Sir you have always been opposing us. Have you seen the Kawad Yatra? How many people travel together? They are never questioned,” one of the leading SDPI members said. The Police then slammed the SDPI for escalating the argument by bringing the Hindu yatra into the picture. The police stated that those (Kawad) Yatras are conducted only after obtaining police permission. The police further indicated that they (SDPI) should restrict their communication to the current rally.
Mumbra, Maharashtra: SDPI's 78th Independence Day rally faced a dispute with police over posters of Tipu Sultan and other freedom fighters. After a heated exchange, the rally was allowed, with participants displaying various freedom fighter images pic.twitter.com/MxiHuloOtn
— IANS (@ians_india) August 15, 2024
However, later the rally was allowed by the police as the SDPI members agreed to remove the kids from the rally and move in two columns throughout the area. It seems that no prior police permission was obtained by the SDPI members for the rally in which Islamists yelled slogans of ‘Tipu Sultan Zindabad’.
Tipu Sultan’s atrocities on Hindus and tribals
It is important to note that Tipu Sultan is often credited in our history textbooks as a ‘secular’ ruler of Mysore who fought against the British in the late 1700s. But he was one of the most ruthless Islamic invaders in South India. There have been several recorded instances of Tipu’s army forcefully converting, raping, and kidnapping Hindus on his orders. Many temples are recorded to have been demolished under his reign. Several historians and researchers like Khan Hussain Ali Kirmani have recorded that Tipu Sultan had animosity toward the local Hindus and tribals in the area.
According to historian Lewis B. Boury, the devastation Tipu Sultan inflicted on the southern part of India was harsher and more barbaric than the atrocities performed against the Hindu inhabitants in India by the infamous Mahmud of Ghazni, Alauddin Khalji, and Nadir Shah.
According to Sandeep Balakrishna, author of ‘Tipu Sultan: The Tyrant of Mysore,’ Tipu Sultan’s 17-year reign represented a united image of military, economic, and religious anguish for the Hindu population. He had openly announced that he would launch a Jihad against Hindus. He carried out the majority of his crimes and anti-Hindu activities in Malabar. Malabar was both Tipu’s wealthiest and most turbulent territory. However, he and his Moplah companions caused chaos throughout the region.
He invaded Kodagu in 1788, destroying numerous towns and villages. Mir Hussein Kirmani, Tipu’s courtier and biographer, describes how the raid destroyed hundreds of villages in Kushalapura (now Kushalnagar), Talakaveri, Madikeri, and other areas. He brags in a letter to Kurnool’s Nawab, Runmust Khan, about imprisoning 40,000 Coorgis, forcing them to convert to Islam, and enrolling them into the Ahmadi army.
Letters by Tipu Sultan to army commanders ordering them to kill Hindus
In one of the letters dated March 22, 1788, to Abdul Kadir, Tipu Sultan says, “Over 12,000 Hindus were honored with Islam. There were many Namboodri Brahmins among them. This achievement should be widely publicized among the Hindus. Then the local Hindus should be brought before you and converted to Islam. No Namboodri Brahmin should be spared.”
The letter set a precedent and it followed several other orders by Tipu Sultan, calling for violence against Hindus. One of his letters to an army commander in Calicut on 14th December 1788 says, “I am sending two of my followers with Mir Hussain Ali. Along with them you should capture and kill all Hindus. Those below 20 years may be kept in prison and 5000 from the rest should be killed by hanging from tree tops. These are my orders.”
In a letter dated January 18, 1790, to Syed Abdul Dulai, Tipu Sultan openly condones the killing and forced conversions of Hindus, and proclaims this as a ‘Jihad’. The letter reads, “… almost all Hindus in Calicut are converted to Islam. I consider this as jihad.”
Ordering of destruction of Hindu temples
Tipu Sultan’s military activities caused extensive damage to Hindu temples on an unprecedented scale. He and his ruthless warriors enjoyed demolishing temples, smashing idols placed within, and chopping the heads of animals over the temple deity.
As reported earlier, he demolished the Thrichambaram and Thalipparampu temples at Chirackal Taluqa, the Thiruvangatu Temple (Brass Pagoda) in Tellicherry, and the Ponmeri Temple in Badakara, as per William Logan’s Malabar Manual. According to the Malabar Manual, the Maniyoor mosque was previously a Hindu temple. According to locals, it was transformed into a mosque during Tipu Sultan’s reign.
Tipu Sultan’s forces further demolished at least three temples in South India, including the Harihareswara temple at Harihar, the Varahaswami temple in Srirangapatnam, and the Odakaraya temple in Hospet. In 1793, historian Roderick Mackenzie wrote of Tipu’s campaign to Trinomaly, describing the cruelty and violence unleashed on the Hindu population in the places he passed through.
“Here neither respect, for the grandeur and antiquity of their temples, nor veneration for the sacred rites of a religion whose origin no time records, proved any protection for the persons or property, even of the first Brahmins. Their pagodas, breached with sacrilegious cannon, were forcibly entered, their altars defiled, their valuables seized, their dwellings reduced to ashes, and the devastation was rendered still more horrible by the scattered remains of men, women, and children, mangled beneath a murderous sword,” records by historian Roderick Mackenzie read.
The Voyage to the East Indies by Portuguese missionary Fr Bartholomew further gives us a basic sight of Tipu Sultan’s catastrophic attacks. “First a corps of 30,000 barbarians who butchered everybody on the way… followed by the field-gun unit… 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 their necks. That barbarian Tipu Sultan tied the naked Christians and Hindus to the legs of elephants and made the elephants move around till the bodies of the helpless victims were torn to pieces… These atrocities were told to me by the victims of Tipu Sultan who escaped from the clutches of his army and reached Varappuzha..” it recalls.
Tipu Sultan, like other Islamic invaders in India, was notorious for brutally suppressing the native Hindu community and forcibly converting many Hindus. Tipu was known throughout Tamil Nadu and Malabar as the ‘Killer of Brahmins and Demolisher of Temples’. However, he is still celebrated as a freedom fighter by Islamists who want to see India as an Islamic nation by 2047.
