Tipu Sultan’s Fanaticism and Cruelty

Forced conversion of Catholic Christians of  Mangalore:-

Mangalore was once ruled by Hyder Ali, but after second Mysore war  (which Hyder Ali  lost ) British gained control of this region. Tipu soon after coming to power waged battle against Britishers  and regained its control In 1784 .

Dungeon where Tipu left Mangalore Catholics to die 

What followed after conquest was barbaric atrocities against catholic Christians . Unlike his father Hyder Ali who respected other faiths. Tipu was a fanatic Muslim, he displayed  his zeal for the faith of Islam by driving out Christians of coast region, Number of people driven out vary between 30,000-80,000 based on various historical accounts.

Tipu ordered his subordinates to prepare a list of Christians who were residing in Canara region capture them and send them to SriRangaPattanam under guidance of trusty officers. Following orders Tipu’s commanders seized 60,000  Christians including women and children. Once captured all these 60K Christians were deported to SriRangapattana.  In SriRangapattanam under the command of officers Christians were forcefully converted to  Islam. These unfortunate    people   received   the    title    of ' Ahmadi” or  praiseworthy,' and the date of their forcible conversion was commemorated by the phrase, 'God is the protector of the religion of Ahmad” (source: Hyderali and Tipu Sultan By Lewin B.Bowring , 1899)

Documents suggest that about 1/3rd of the people (Around 20,000) died en rout to SriRangapattana and Due to ill treatment of Captives in Srirangapattana Dungeons around 30,000 People perished.(Source: Wiki, Barcoor Manuscripts)

Tipu’s atrocities against Catholic women in Mangalore

Tipu demanded the surrender of the daughters of some of these native (mangalorean) Christians in order to have them placed in his palace, and that, on the refusal of the parents, the latter had their noses, ears, and upper lips cut off, and were then paraded through the streets on asses, with their faces towards the tails of the animals.(source: Hyderali and Tipu Sultan By Lewin B.Bowring , 1899) .

According to a captive from Barcoor, pregnant women who were captured after Manglore conquest often gave birth en route, and their babies had to be borne bundled about them. When they rested, the infants were suspended in cradles from the branches of trees ,If anyone happened to die they were buried on the spot. (Source: Wiki , Barcoor Manuscripts )

Tipu’s crackdown against Kodavas.

Like in Mangalore Tipu committed  atrocities in Coorg .After successfully suppressing rebellion of kodavas (natives of Coorg) and conquering Coorg , Tipu marched into their territory and  He warned kodavas that if any further rebellion took place he would extinguish it by removing the population and "Islamizing" them. At a later period he actually carried this barbarous threat into execution, devastating the province, and driving the wretched inhabitants like sheep to Sri Ranga Pattanam, where they had to submit to circumcision and the sanctifying rites prescribed by the mullahs (source: Hyderali and Tipu Sultan By Lewin B.Bowring , 1899) .

Documents suggest around 500 Kodavas were killed and over 40,000 fled to the woods and concealed themselves in the mountains., and 60,000 to 80,000 Kodavas were captured and sent to SriRangaPattanam who were either forcibly converted or Murdered .

Tipu in one of his letter boasts about this Coorg Conquest :-

"We proceeded with the utmost speed, and, at once, made prisoners of 40,000 occasion-seeking and sedition-exciting Coorgis, who alarmed at the approach of our victorious army, had slunk into woods, and concealed themselves in lofty mountains, inaccessible even to birds. Then carrying them away from their native country (the native place of sedition) we raised them to the honour of Islam, and incorporated them into our Ahmedy corps."

Tipu’s Fanatisism Calicut, Forced conversion of Nairs of Malabar :-

Calicut (after Mangalore and Coorg), offered Tipu a fine field for showing his zeal for Islam by “reforming” the customs of Calicut. He issued a proclamation, denouncing the practice of polyandry, and informing the people that if they did not desist from such a pernicious usage, they would all be ' honored with Islam' . he appointed sundry religious teachers to supervise their domestic morals and teach the true faith. Local officers were also nominated to collect the revenue. Having, as he imagined, put the people in the “right path”. (source: Hyderali and Tipu Sultan By Lewin B.Bowring , 1899)

In 1788, Tipu issued a proclamation to the Nairs of Malabar, wherein he outlined his new scheme of "social reform":

"From the period of the conquest until this day, during twenty-four years, you have been a turbulent and refractory people, and in the wars waged during your rainy season, you have caused number of our warriors to taste the draught of martyrdom. Be it so. What is past is past. Hereafter you must proceed in an opposite manner, dwell quietly and pay your dues like good subjects and since it is the practice with you for one woman to associate with ten men, and you leave your mothers and sisters unconstrained in their obscene practices, and are thence all born in adultery, and are more shameless in your connections than the beasts of the fields : I hereby require you to forsake these sinful practices and be like the rest of mankind; and if you are disobedient to these commands, I have made repeated vows to honour the whole of you with Islam and to march all the chief persons to the seat of Government."

Note: Tipu’s contempt towards polyandry was not due to concern towards society but his fanaticism towards Islam .  Tipu himself had many wives and consorts and Many of his consorts were forcefully captured during conquest. 

Tipu sent detachments about the country to hunt down the rebellious Nairs. Here, two thousand Nairs defended themselves and their families with resolution, but were soon obliged to surrender. This gave an opportunity to Tipu to show his fanaticism . Orders were issued that the whole of the captured should be offered the alternative of becoming good Muslims , or, in case of non-compliance, that they should be banished to SriRangapattanam. Nairs reluctantly agreed in the former alternative, knowing very well what the deportation meant. The  next day, accordingly, all the males were circumcised, while both sexes were compelled to eat beef, as a proof of their conversion. One of the principal victims of Tipu's revenge was the Raja of Chirakkal, who, having been falsely accused of conspiring, was attacked and killed, and his body hung up after his death. In this raid the Mysore sovereign is said to have carried off large treasures plundered from the temples in Malabar. He crowned his achievements by compelling the princess of Cannanore to marry her daughter to his son, Abdul-Khalik.Travancore The Mysore army, flushed with success now began to lay waste the country with fire and sword, desecrating and robbing temples, and burning towns and villages, whose wretched inhabitants fled to the hills, where many were seized and made prisoners. The ruins to be seen at the present day testify to the ferocity of the invaders, while all the records of antiquity and the archives of the Travancore State were consumed in the burning pagodas, public offices, and houses. These atrocities were perpetrated with the express sanction of Tipu Sultan (source: Hyderali and Tipu Sultan By Lewin B.Bowring , 1899)

In his letter to the Governor of Bekal, Budruz Zaman Khan, dated 13 February 1756, Tipu approved of forced conversions of Nairs:

"Your two letters, with the enclosed memorandums of the Nâimâ (Nair) captives, have been received. You did right in causing a hundred and thirty-five of them to be circumcised, and in putting eleven of the youngest of these into the Usud Ilhye band, and the remaining ninety-four into the Ahmedy troops, consigning the whole, at the same time, to the charge of the Kiladar of Nugr (Bednore)."

In May of the same year, an order was sent to the Faujdar of Calicut, Arshad Ali Baig, pertaining to the treatment of a Nair dissident:

"Getting possession of the villain, Goorkul, and of his wife and children, you must forcibly make Mussalmans out of them, and then dispatch the whole under a guard to Seringapatam.(Srirangapattanam)"

Tipu the “reformer “:-

Tipu had a rage for innovations, and was constantly changing the names of places, and altering well-established customs. The fanciful innovations of Tipu were the effect of mere fancy. He must needs alter the territorial divisions of his dominions, calling the coast districts the ' Yam Suba’  the ancient Malnad the 'Taran Suba’ and the plain country the ' Ghabra Suba’. In like manner innumerable changes were made in the names of places, the town of Devanhalli, where he was .born, being called Yusafabad,. Chitaldrug was changed to Farukh-ydb Hisar,

Measures of distance too were amended, the kos or Indian two-miles being now defined as consisting of so many yards of twice twenty-four thumb-breadths, because the creed (Kalmah) contains twenty-four letters. The kos thus fixed was miles, and if the letter-carriers did not travel this distance in 33 minutes they were to be flogged. All the names of weights and measures were altered. But the most wonderful of his “improvements”  was his new method of calculating time. As is well known, the Hindus counted time in cycles of 60 years, each year having a separate name. Tipu founded a new calendar on this basis, giving however fantastic names to the years, and equally strange ones to the lunar months. The year, according to his arrangement, only contained 354 days!!, and each month was called by some name in alphabetical order. From the year 1784, all his letters were dated according to the day of one or other of the months in this new nomenclature (source :Hyderali and Tipu Sultan By Lewin B.Bowring , 1899)

Evidence of Tipu’s cruelty and fanaticism by his own account :-

In 1786 he issued a remarkable proclamation, calling upon all true believers (very much like current generation Zakir naiks, wahabis and Salafis call themselves true believers)  to

“extract the cotton of negligence from the ears of their understanding” and, quitting the territories of apostates and un-believers, to take refuge in his dominions, where, by the Divine blessing, they would be better provided for than before, and their lives, honor, and property remain under the protection of God. He was resolved that the worthless and stiff-necked infidels, who had turned aside their heads from obedience to the true faith, and openly raised the standard of unbelief, should be chastised by the hands of the faithful, and made either to acknowledge the true religion or to pay tribute. As, owing to the imbecility of the princes of Hind, that insolent race (presumably the English) had conceived the futile opinion that true believers had become weak, mean, and contemptible, and had overrun and laid waste the territories of Musalmans, extending the hand of violence and injustice on the property and honor of the faithful, he had resolved to prosecute a holy war against them.    This virulent tirade, although its dissemination was at first confined to his own dominions, was afterwards transmitted by his orders to various places in the Nizams territory, with the object of inducing all true believers to join his standard, and to aid him in exterminating the English from India.

In writing to the Mughal Emperor in the previous year he said:

 “ This steadfast believer, with a view to the support of the firm religion of Muhammad, undertook the chastisement of the Nazarene tribe, who, unable to maintain the war I waged against them, solicited peace in the most abject manner. With the divine aid and blessing of God, it is now again my steady determination to set about the total extermination and destruction of the enemies of the faith.”

Note: Tipu apparently considered Britis as his prime enemies , though his contempt towards them was because they were “Enemies of Faith(Islam)”.

 The Sultan in his memoirs gives the following account of his proceedings at Zaffrabad (Tipu had renamed capital of Coorg Madikeri as Zaffrabad ),

 ' It is the custom with you for the eldest of five brothers to marry, and for the wife of such brother to be common to all five: hence there cannot be the slightest doubt of your all being bastards. This is about the seventh time that you have acted treacherously towards the Government, and plundered our armies. I have now vowed to the true God that if you ever again conduct yourselves traitorously or wickedly, I will not scorn or molest a single individual among you, but making Ahmadis (Musalmans) of the whole of you, transplant you all from this country to some other by which means, from being illegitimate, your progeny or descendants may become legitimate, and the epithet of " sons of sinful mothers " may no longer belong to your tribe .

A letter to Burhn-ud-din in 1786, in which he directs Burhn to cross the Tungabhadra from Anavatti, runs thus:” You must leave the women and other rubbish, together with the superfluous baggage of your army, behind. In fact, the Sultan, though he left a dozen sons behind him, does not appear to have been, like his father, very susceptible to the charms of the fair sex. He believed women is of little account

In one letter, written during the progress of the siege of Nargund, he says:

” In the event of your being obliged to assault the place, every living creature in it, whether man or woman, old or young, child, dog, cat, or anything, must be put to the sword, with the single exception of Kala Pandit (the commandant)

'In another letter, addressed to an officer in Coorg, here remarks:                                                      

“ You are to make a general attack on the, Coorgs, and, having put to the sword or made prisoners take whole of them, both the slain and the prisoners, with the women and children, are to be made Muslims”  

Again, alluding to a rising at Supa in Kanara, he writes to Badr-uz-zamdn Khfin :

' Ten years ago, from ten to fifteen thousand men were hung upon the trees of that district; since which time the aforesaid trees have been waiting for more men. You must therefore hang upon trees all such of the inhabitants of that district as have taken a lead in these rebellious proceedings.'

In another letter, despatched to Arshad Baig Khfinat Calicut respecting he says:

” Such of the authors of this rebellion and flagrant conduct as have been already killed, are killed. But why should the remainder of them, on being made prisoners, be put to death. Their proper punishment is this : Let the dogs, both black(supposedly hindus) and white(supposedly Christians), be regularly dispatched to Seringapatam(SriRangaPattanam) (This is significant of what imprisonment at Seringapatam foreshadowed.   The word ' white' is supposed to apply to the Christianportion of these people.)

Again he writes regarding some of the Nizam's cavalry, of whom six had been taken prisoners at Kadapa:

'Let the prisoners be strangled, and the horses, after being valued, be taken into Government service “

Reference:

1. Hyderali and Tipu Sultan By Lewin B.Bowring , 1899 (blog is excerpts and based on this book)

2.Wiki (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Captivity_of_Nairs_at_Seringapatam)