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New Delhi: External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar termed History as a “complicated” subject, saying that the politics of the day often indulges in “cherry-picking facts”.
That is, according to him, what has happened in the case of Tipu Sultan, the 18th century ruler of Mysore.
Jaishankar spoke at the launch of Vikram Sampath’s book ‘Tipu Sultan: The Saga of Mysore Interregnum 1761-1799’ on Saturday. He claimed a “particular narrative” about the former ruler has been advanced over the years. He said there are some basic questions that “confront us all” today as to how much of “our past has been airbrushed”, how awkward issues have been “glossed over” and how “facts are tailored for regime convenience”.
“In the last decade, the changes in our political dispensation have encouraged the emergence of alternative perspectives and balanced accounts. We are no longer prisoners of a vote bank, nor is it politically incorrect to bring out inconvenient truths. There are many more subjects on which the same degree of objectivity is needed,” he was quoted as saying by news agency PTI.
“On one hand, he has a reputation as a key figure who resisted the imposition of British colonial control over India. It is a fact that his defeat and death can be considered a turning point when it came to the fate of peninsular India. At the same time, he evokes strong adverse sentiments, even today, in many regions, by some in Mysore itself, in Coorg and Malabar,” he said, terming Tip Sultan as a “complex figure” in Indian history.
According to the EAM, contemporary history writings at the national level have focused largely on the former aspect, “underplaying, if not neglecting,” the latter. He claimed that it wasn’t an accident.
“By highlighting the “Tipu-English binary” to the “exclusion of a more complicated reality, a particular narrative has been advanced over the years”, the minister said.
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