Sir: I read with great interest Sameer Ahmed’s article “Who was Tipu Sultan?” published in Daily Times on January 20, 2016. I think he is true in saying that he is a hero for the Muslims both in India as well as in Pakistan while the Hindus, Christians and English recognise his bravery but do not consider him a hero. I am not a historian and admit that I am not as learned as Sameer Ahmed but still I will share an opinion of mine. Of course we were taught about Tipu Sultan in our school days but after growing in all these years, I can say that the history taught to us is not complete. We tend to highlight our heroes as great people and never mention their mistakes. We tend to rejoice over our victories but never mention our failures. On my first visit to India, I visited Bangalore and Mysore and also Delhi. Both in Bangalore as well as in Mysore I visited museums. In the museum of Bangalore there is a section where both Haider Ali and his son Tipu Sultan are recognised as heroes and freedom fighters. In Mysore his old palace is now a museum which is all about Tipu Sultan and also a little further from this palace there is a beautiful mausoleum where his father, his mother and Tipu himself are buried side by side with Haider Ali who is in the middle. The fort of Tipu mentioned as Seringapatam is called Sirirangapatna. Here they have actually shown the place where he lived and also the place where his dead body was picked. If he was not such a great person for the Indians, they would not have maintained these museums which are visited by tourists from all over the world. From the guide and from the museum in Mysore, I learnt the following. As a Sultan, Tipu fought two main battles. In the first one, he suffered heavy losses that he was forced to surrender a large part of his sultanate and also had to pay a huge sum of money to the British. He first gave his palace. It was not worth the money they demanded. He then gave two of his sons to the British. After giving up his palace and his two sons he took residence in Sirirangapatna or Seringapatam where through his traitor Wazir Mir Sadiq, the British invaded it and killed the Sultan. Then from the internet we see that he destroyed many churches in the state of Kannada thinking that the Christians were siding with the British. These Christians were there long before the British. India was and is equally a homeland for them. What got him to kill Christians and destroy Churches? After coming to know all this I still think that he was as brave as a tiger and also a hero but not the hero as the Pakistani history puts him to be. We were never taught in our history that all this had happened to Tipu Sultan. Why did the authorities keep us ignorant about many facts? When facts are hidden from the students, it is a crime and if we are seeing terrorism one of the main reasons is that the history was taught to us wrongly. The ones who are fostering terrorism today are the most ignorant people in the world. It is a given fact that no one born into this world is a perfect person. All have made blunders and in future all will make mistakes. We must not hide the mistakes of heroes. Our children should be taught about the positive and negative and should be free to choose anyone to be a hero or a zero. ABID HABIB Mirpurkhas