Reconsider decision to cancel Tipu Sultan’s birth anniversary celebrations: Karnataka HC to state govt

The state government told the court that it had not banned private celebrations. Noting this, the court directed the government to provide protection to such celebrations and ensure peace.

The Karnataka high court on Wednesday directed the state government to reconsider its decision to cancel the birth anniversary celebrations of Tipu Sultan, the controversial 18th century ruler of the erstwhile Mysore kingdom, but declined to stay the order.

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A division bench, comprising Chief Justice Abhay Shreeniwas Oka and Justice S R Krishna Kumar, issued the order while hearing a PIL challenging the government’s decision to cancel the November 10 Tipu Jayanti celebrations as a state event.

It directed the government to reconsider its decision in two months.“It should not look like the decision was taken arbitrarily,” the bench observed, adding that it felt that the state took the decision without considering the reasons mentioned in the previous decisions to celebrate Tipu Jayanti.

The state government told the court that it had not banned private celebrations. Noting this, the court directed the government to provide protection to such celebrations and ensure peace.

Soon after coming to power in Karnataka, the BJP government had in July scrapped the celebration of Tipu Sultan’s birth anniversary. The party had been opposing the annual event since it was started by the Siddaramaiah-led Congress government in 2015.

BJP and right-wing organisations have been strongly opposing Tipu Sultan, calling the erstwhile Mysore king a “religious bigot”. Tipu Sultan,who was killed in May 1799 while defending his fort at Srirangapatna against the British forces, is a controversial figure in Kodagu district. A few Kannada outfits also call Tipu Sultan “anti-Kannada”, alleging that he had promoted Persian at the cost of the local language.