Karnataka govt considering proposal to remove Tipu Sultan's name from school textbooks, says BS Yediyurappa

Bengaluru: Karnataka chief minister BS Yediyurappa on Wednesday said that the government is considering a proposal to remove Tipu Sultan’s name from school textbooks. “About Tipu Jayanti, we are going to drop everything. We are also thinking about dropping everything in the textbooks about him. I do not agree with people who say that Tipu Sultan was a freedom fighter,” Yediyurappa said. [caption id=“attachment_7574741” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Karnataka chief minister BS Yediyurappa speaking to the media on Wednesday. ANI[/caption] Earlier, on 28 October, State Education Minister Suresh Kumar wrote to the Managing Director of Karnataka Textbook Society, directing him to submit a report in three days on BJP MLA Appachu Ranjan’s proposal to strike off references to Tipu Sultan from history textbooks. This happened after Ranjan wrote a letter to Kumar in which he stated that Tipu has been portrayed as a freedom fighter in textbooks and history should not be written with false facts. “Tipu came to Kodagu, Mangaluru and other parts of the state to expand his territory. He came here just to convert people to his religion and to boost his kingdom,” he had said. Ranjan had further said that Tipu had no respect for Kannada as his administrative language was Persian. “He changed names of places - Madikeri to Jafarabad and Mangaluru to Jalalabad. He looted many temples and Christian churches as well. In Kodagu, he converted 30,000 Kodavas,” Ranjan had said. Responding to this, Md Shahid Alam, a descendant of Tipu Sultan, said that it is “shameful” that the former ruler is being targeted for vote bank politics.