Fact Check: Viral posts claiming Tipu Sultan as a jihadi are misleading
A viral post on X falsely claims that the former Karnataka High Court Chief Justice Subhro Kamal Mukherjee declared Tipu Sultan was a jihadi who fought the British to save his own kingdom.;
Tipu Sultan was a jihadi, who fought the British to save his kingdom and was not a freedom fighterExternal Affairs Minister S Jaishankar said that Mysore ruler Tipu Sultan was a complex figure, however, contemporary history writings have largely focused on his resistance to British colonial control over India. At the same time, they have underplayed certain aspects of his reign such as stitching foreign alliances and faith-based outreach to rulers in Turkey, Afghanistan, and Persia.
Even as the discussion among the political circles continues over the celebration of his birth anniversary, a social media post on X claims that, the Karnataka High Court reportedly said that “Tipu Sultan was Jihadi” and he fought the British colonial rulers to save his own kingdom. He should not be called a freedom fighter as “he massacred thousands of Hindus.”
Fact Check:
During the investigation, the Telugupost fact check team found the claim that the Karnataka High Court made this observation about the Mysore ruler to be misleading.
As we began to debunk the claim by using a customized query in Google Search, we came across a tweet by Sunanda Roy, who clarified that Justice Subhro Kamal Mukherjee of Karnataka High Court did not call Tipu Sultan “Jihadi” and advised the social media users against attributing the claim to the honourable judge. She also noted that the high court made this observation in 2016 and it is not recent.
Here’s the copy of court judgement on November 3, 2016.
Following the observation, Justice Subhro Kamal Mukherjee had to face backlash from Advocates’ Association Bangalore which accused him of making unwarranted remarks not in keeping with the dignity and decorum of court proceedings on a PIL against Tipu Sultan Jayanthi.
We did not find a single source in the public domain which indicated that the Chief Justice of the Karnataka High Court Justice Subhro Kamal Mukherjee made the ‘jihadi’ remark against Tipu Sultan, the 18th-century ruler of Mysore, who died fighting the Britishers. Hence, the claim made in the viral post is misleading.