Controversy over naming a garden after Tipu sultan

In news

Tipu Sultan, king of erstwhile state of Mysore is at the centre of controversy in the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation(BMC) over attempts to name a garden after him in Govandi, a suburb in Eastern Mumbai.

A brief note on the issue

The revamp of the two-acre garden, plagued by encroachment and anti-social activities, at Saahi Naka, near Deonar Dumping ground is about to complete in December.
The BMC is spending around Rs 2 crore on the project .
According to the proposal, in January 2021, Rukhsana Siddique from the Samajwadi Party had written a letter to the Markets and Garden Committee to name the garden after Tipu Sultan as he was a freedom fighter.
Many right-wing organisations and BJP leaders have met the Mumbai mayor to change the garden’s name.

Note: the name of Tipu Sultan was also in news as the state government of Karnataka had cancelled the annual event of Tipu Jayanti celebrations observed in Karnataka.

About Tipu sultan(1750-1799)

He was the ruler of the Kingdom of Mysore in southern India.
He was born in 1750, Devanahalli, Karnataka.
Tipu resisted the East India Company’s conquest of southern India.
He had inherited the throne from his father Haidar Ali, who had driven out the previous Hindu dynasty.
In 1767 Tippu commanded a corps of cavalry against the Marathas in the Carnatic (Karnataka) region of western India, and he fought against the Marathas on several occasions between 1775 and 1779.
War between Mysore and Maratha ended with the treaty of Gajendragad.
He was the pioneer of rocket artillery.
He introduced sericulture in Mysore on a large scale and maintained records about the cultivation of sericulture.
Tipu established banking networks and cooperatives, where capital was raised from the public (similar to banks inviting deposits), the principal held on an annual basis and returned with interest (or `nafa’).
He established trading houses for Mysore products worldwide, including places like Puducherry , Kutch, Karachi, Oman, Baghdad and Constantinople.

His fight against the British

Both Tipu Sultan and his father used their French-trained army in alliance with the French in their struggle with the British.
At the age of 15, Tipu Sultan supported his father in the first battle of Mysore against the British in 1766.
During the second Anglo-Mysore War he defeated Col. John Brathwaite.
He succeeded his father in December 1782 and in 1784 concluded peace with the British and assumed the title of sultan of Mysore.
In 1789, however, he provoked British invasion by attacking their ally, the raja of Travancore led to the third Anglo- Mysore war.
The war ended by the signing of Treaty of Srirangapatna, between Tipu Sultan and Lord Cornwallis.
In this treaty, Tipu ceded half of his territories and two of his son’s as a hostage of war.
The governor-general, Lord Mornington (later the marquess of Wellesley), launched the fourth Mysore War.
Shrirangapattana, Tippu’s capital, was stormed by British-led forces on May 4, 1799, and Tippu died leading his troops in the breach.