Daijiworld Media Network - Bengaluru (MS)

Bengaluru, Jan 17: The Karnataka Textbook Society (KTBS) is going ahead and placing orders for about eight crore text books for the academic year 2020-21, which will have the lesson on Tipu Sultan. Though BJP government had said that they will look into the issue whether to retain the references made to Tipu Sultan in the textbooks, it has still not come out with any suggestion or decision. So the KTBS is going ahead and placing the order for the textbooks in a few days’ time.

As it will take four months for the books to be printed and supplied, any further delay will mean that the textbooks will not be available to the students when the academic year of 2020-21 starts in the month of June. That is why KTBS has gone ahead and has taken the decision to get the books printed with the references to Tipu Sultan intact.

In October 2019, Appacchu Ranjan, BJP MLA from Madikeri had written to the education department asking it to remove the reference of Tipu Sultan, who, according to Appacchu, is glorified as a freedom fighter. The MLA also said in his letter that Tipu has persecuted countless Kodavas in the district of Coorg and has killed thousands of Christians in Mangaluru and also converted scores of people to Islam.

According to the request of BJP MLA Appacchu Ranjan, the education department of the state formed an expert committee to look into these allegations. However, the committee said that it did not receive any concrete evidence or documents from the MLA to substantiate his claims. Accordingly, the expert committee suggested the government to continue with the references that are already there in the textbooks from years.

Tipu Jayanti celebrations were introduced by the Congress government led by Siddaramaiah in 2015 and from then on the controversy has not died down. BJP government, on the other hand, had promised to cancel the Tipu Jayanti celebrations if they came to power and kept their word by cancelling the same within weeks of assuming power in 2019.