Karnataka High Court directs Yediyurappa government to reconsider move to scrap Tipu Jayanti
Bengaluru, Nov 6: 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.
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.
Recently, a BJP MLA from Kodagu had demanded removal of a lesson on Tipu Sultan from school textbooks, following which the government formed a committee to look into it and submit a report.
BJP and right-wing organisations have been strongly opposing Tipu Sultan, calling the erstwhile Mysore king a "religious bigot".
Tipu Sultan was considered an implacable enemy of the British East India Company.
He was killed in May 1799 while defending his fort at Srirangapatna against the British forces.
Tipu Sultan, however, is a controversial figure in Kodagu district as the Kodavas (Coorgis), a martial race, believe thousands of their men and women were seized and held captive during his occupation and subjected to torture, death and forcible conversion to Islam.
He was also accused of execution of Mandyam Iyengars in the temple town of Melukote in Mandya district on the day of Diwali as they supported the then Maharaja of Mysuru.
However, the scale of such suppression is disputed by several historians, who see Tipu Sultan as a secular and modern ruler who took on the might of the British.
A few Kannada outfits also call Tipu Sultan "anti-Kannada", alleging that he had promoted Persian at the cost of the local language.
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Jaya Bachchan raises concern over VIP movements causing road blocks, traffic diversions
New Delhi (PTI): Rajya Sabha Samajwadi Party MP Jaya Amitabh Bachchan on Monday expressed concern over the growing menace of VIP culture affecting vehicular traffic and causing inconvenience to people.
Raising the matter during the Zero Hour in the House, she said roadblocks and traffic diversions due to the movements of VIPs, including politicians, high-ranking officials, and dignitaries, have become a major source of disruption in the daily lives of countless citizens in the country.
"One has travelled all over the world, but has never seen many VIPs and cavalcades going, but they never stop people on the street," Bachchan said.
She also narrated a recent incident when Rajya Sabha MPs, who leave from Shardula Dwar, were stopped as the main door was locked because there was VIP movement.
"We have never faced such humiliation in the last 22 years of mine in this parliament. We are not a threat to any of the VIPs, especially the political lot," she empahsised.
The SP member further said there are roads along the houses of political "big wigs" which remain blocked.
The MP highlighted that not only common citizens, even ambulances get stuck due to VIP movements.
She urged Chairman C P Radhakrishnan to take up the matter with the government.
"Sir, speak to the government. You are the Vice President of this country...this culture has to stop in order to give dignity to the taxpayers of this country who have brought us into this House," Bachchan said.
