Bangalore, Nov. 10: The first ever state-sponsored birthday celebrations of Tipu Sultan today were followed by clashes between protesters and supporters of the event in the southern Karnataka district of Coorg, leading to the death of a Vishwa Hindu Parishad official.
Two accounts emerged of how Kuttappa, the local VHP organising secretary, suffered his fatal head injuries.
The BJP and its Sangh cousins, opposing the celebrations on the ground of the 18th-century Mysore ruler's alleged atrocities on Hindus, blamed stoning by a rival group.
But Coorg police said the 60-year-old retired government employee suffered his injuries when he fell while trying to scale a hospital wall to escape a police baton charge.
Tipu, who died fighting the British, is widely seen as a patriot whose introduction of iron-cased rockets in warfare drew the admiration of Napoleon Bonaparte.
Karnataka's Congress government celebrated his 266th birth anniversary with a gala function at the banquet hall of the state legislature building as well as smaller events at every district and taluka headquarters.
Heavy rain derailed the BJP-VHP-Bajrang Dal protests in Bangalore. In most other places, the police easily broke up the demonstrations. But things turned violent in Coorg, where the VHP had called a bandh.
Stones flew as bandh supporters and Tipu fans came face to face at the General Thimmiah Circle in Madikeri town in Coorg.
Kuttappa, three others and a couple of policemen were injured before the cops used tear gas and batons to disperse the several hundred men from each side, state police chief Om Prakash said.
Coorg superintendent of police Varthika Katiyar said Kuttappa tried to scale the wall of the district government hospital, "slipped and fell, hitting his head". A post-mortem report is awaited.
Local police had earlier denied the Tipu Abhimanigala Sangha (Tipu Fans Association) permission for a rally in defiance of the bandh call, but vanloads still arrived at the General Thimmiah Circle. It was unclear whether all those defying the bandh were from the Sangha.
Assemblies have been banned in Coorg and additional armed reserve police deployed.
Chief minister P.C. Siddaramaiah said: "Those who organised the protest, and not the government, should be held responsible for the violence."
State BJP president Prahlad Joshi condemned the "government-sponsored murder" of Kuttappa and demanded a judicial inquiry.
Karnad row
Jnanpith awardee Girish Karnad triggered controversy at the Bangalore celebrations by saying the Kempegowda International Airport in Bangalore should have been named after Tipu Sultan.
"I know this would lead to controversy. But naming the Bangalore airport after Tipu Sultan would have been appropriate," Karnad said.
Bangalore International Airport had been renamed after Kempegowda by the Congress government in December 2013 despite demands from some groups to name it after Tipu.
Kempegowda was a 16th-century feudal chieftain from the Vokkaliga community who lived within the Vijayanagara empire and is believed to have founded Bangalore.
Karnad's statement received loud cheers at the Tipu Jayanti celebrations but angered Vokkaliga groups, which have called for protests tomorrow in their stronghold of Mandya town, 80km from Bangalore, and nearby areas. The state BJP too will demonstrate against Karnad's statement in Bangalore tomorrow.
Karnad, a Tipu admirer, had written a fictional account of his last days in his Kannada play Tippuvina Kanasugalu (Dreams of Tipu).
"If he (Tipu) were a Hindu, he would have received the same respect that Shivaji gets in Maharashtra," he said today.
Tipu is accused of forced conversions and large-scale temple destruction in southern Karnataka and northern Kerala. But some liberal historians say there's no evidence of this and, instead, credit him with financially supporting Hindu temples.
