There will be no government sponsored celebrations of Tipu Jayanthi but private celebrations of the occasion without the involvement of the state government will go ahead on November 10.
This, after the Karnataka High Court on Wednesday declined to grant a stay against privately held celebrations of Tipu Jayanthi in the state.
The High Court asked the Karnataka government to place on record all the government orders of decisions to celebrate various Jayantis in the state by January 20 2020.
The decision was made while hearing a petition filed by Bilal Ali Shah, a resident of Lucknow and who claims to be Tipu Sultan’s descendant, along with organisations working in favour of Tipu Sultan.
The BJP government in the state cancelled the celebrations in July this year barely days after coming to power. The state government cited protests, particularly in Kodagu district, as the reason for its decision. In 2016, protests against the occasion turned violent causing the death of two persons in Kodagu. The petitioners challenged the government order passed in July in the High Court.
The Advocate General appearing for the state government clarified that the government order barred the state sponsored celebrations of Tipu Jayanthi.
"We argued that the latest government order cited a letter from an MLA in Kodagu stating that there will be law-and order problem in the district. This has been used to extend to the entire state," Ashwini Obulesh, a lawyer appearing for the petitioners told TNM.
She added that the previous government orders announcing Tipu Jayanti celebrations in the state were detailed orders. "The orders issued earlier by the previous government laid out who Tipu Sultan was and what he did in Mysore Kingdom. The latest order only mentioned the violence that affected Kodagu", Ashwini added.
Tipu Jayanthi marks the birth anniversary of Tipu Sultan, the former ruler of Mysore Kingdom.
The celebration of Tipu's birth anniversary was held by the state government for the first time in 2015 during the tenure of former Chief Minister Siddaramaiah of the Congress.
BJP leaders in Karnataka had earlier celebrated Tipu Sultan and taken part in celebrations honouring his memory but after the state-sponsored celebrations were introduced in 2015, party leaders have steadfastly opposed the former ruler of the Mysore Kingdom.
Every year, on the days leading up to the celebration, BJP and pro-Hindu groups have run a campaign to show Tipu Sultan allegedly persecuted Kodavas and Christians during his reign in Mysore. However, the Congress government led by Siddaramaiah had continued to celebrate the occasion every year.
In October this year, Madikeri MLA Appachu Ranjan wrote to the Karnataka Education Department seeking the removal of references to Tipu Sultan from state syllabus school textbooks. The Education Department is currently preparing a report on the matter.
In the letter, Appachu argued that Tipu Sultan supported the French and persecuted Kodavas in Coorg (now Kodagu) and Christians in Mangalore (now Mangaluru).