Both Panchjanya and Organiser have an article each on Tipu Sultan.
The Panchjanya article begins with claim that Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah’s move to “glorify” a barbaric ruler like Tipu Sultan only shows the Congress party’s malice towards Hindus. The article lauds Anant Kumar Hegde, a Kannadiga legislator, for distancing himself from an event hosted by the state government on Tipu Sultan. The writer lists out several alleged orders by Tipu Sultan to forcefully convert tens of thousands of Hindus to Islam. The author claims that the country’s “Marxist” historians, under the garb of “secularism”, have projected Tipu as a brave and a patriotic man. “But the truth is, Tipu never had (a) relationship with this nation, with this soil, which was his home. He was just a Muslim ruler of a Hindu land.” The writer claims that Tipu fought the British to protect his crown and not to rid the country of foreign rule.
The article narrates the conditions Hindus had lived in under Muslims rulers across the country before the British came. Hindus could not sport a tilak or wear the sacred thread, they could not sing kirtans openly, or build and repair temples, their universities were destroyed, Hindu women were publicly raped and “Hindus being sold into slavery was a common event”, according to the article. It was only after Muslim kings lost to the British, the article claims, that Hindus were able to celebrate Durga Pooja in Kolkata. The article argues that rulers like the Lodhis, Khiljis, Tughlaqs, Sayyids, and Mughals should be called “attacking infiltrators, barbaric killers, and abhorrent fundamentalists, which they really were”, and not rulers.
The editorial in Organiser talks about “past personalities” like Tipu. Eminent historians have “wasted their entire life” to prove that Akbar and Aurangzeb were “great” kings like Maharana Pratap and Chhatrapati Shivaji, the editorial says. “It is beyond doubt that celebrating ‘Tipu’ as a great warrior is another ploy of the Congress government to appease fundamentalist sections of Muslims, who consider themselves the rightful heirs of the Mughal sultanate and their agents like Tipu”.
Historical figures can’t solely be judged on the basis of their religion, the editorial says. Many religions, it says, have “blossomed” in Bharat and someone cannot be “demonised” for being a Muslim just as someone is not a “great” king for being Hindu. Some of the qualities of a great ruler include “impeccable character” and respecting all religions. Tipu, it says, fails on these parameters, because in his fight against the British he invited various armies, including the French and Afghan, but to “save his kingdom and not to save Bharat as nation”. The article talks about his alleged mass conversion of Hindus and asks if “such a tyrant be considered a noble king?”
China and Communism
The cover story of Organiser is on the Communist Party of China and Xi Jinping’s re-election as the supreme leader of the country. It argues that “Leninism to Jinpingism, all forms of the evolutionary ideology actually thrived on State monopoly and hyper-nationalism” and defeated the idea of “Global Communism”.
An article in Organiser says that “nothing could be far from truth” than calling Friedrich Engels and Karl Marx “philosophers”. It claims “the hidden agenda” of the founders of communism was to “capture and consolidate power and wealth at any cost and to foist hand-picked dictators over the entire world to benefit the already powerful clique behind the scenes, which included international bankers, their friends and lackeys.” This facade, the writer claims, was in contrast to the society established on “dharmic values by self-less rishis in Bharat which has sustained the nation for thousands of years.” The article lists “lack of sound theoretical basis”, “false doctrine” and lack of values and violence among the reasons for the fall of Soviet Communism.
Panchjanya has carried an article that says the CPC erected an invisible wall between the common man and the VIPs. The article says the “pitiful” conditions of the poor were prevented from being exposed to the international community while the luxuries of the important people were exaggerated. Though the average Chinese is much better of today than she was under Mao Zedong, political restrictions continue in China. The article says Buddhist sites in China were destroyed earlier, but now the country is trying to claim that it was the prime defender of Buddhist values.
Defending GST
An Organiser article defends GST and says the Congress, which has been consulted throughout the process to implement GST, can’t take credit for passing it in the Rajya Sabha and then criticise, calling it the “Gabbar Singh Tax”, as Rahul Gandhi termed it at a rally in Gujarat recently.
GST law, it says “is still evolving and the government is taking adequate steps to address the concerns raised by the industry”. Three months is too short a period to judge such a “massive” reform. On the criticism, “it may be highlighted that all the decisions relating to GST, be it the constitutional amendment or drafting of law/rules were taken unanimously and the Congress was part of all these deliberations. If they had any apprehension then the floor of Parliament was the appropriate place to raise their objection.”
