But what do the original sources tell us about Tipu? Here are some excerpts from Tipu's letters as researched by the distinguished Kerala historian K. M. Panicker, which he reviewed in the Bhasha Poshini magazine, August 1923:

1. Letter dated March 22, 1788, to Abdul Kadir: "Over 12,000 Hindus were honoured with Islam. There were many Namboodri Brahmins among them. This achievement should be widely publicised among the Hindus. Then the local Hindus should be brought before you and converted to Islam. No Namboodri Brahmin should be spared."

2. Letter dated December 14, 1788, to his army chief in Calicut: "I am sending two of my followers with Mir Hussain Ali. With their assistance, you should capture and kill all Hindus. Those below 20 may be kept in prison and 5000 from the rest should be killed from the tree-tops. These are my orders."

3. Letter dated January 18, 1790, to Syed Abdul Dulai: " ...almost all Hindus in Calicut are converted to Islam. I consider this as Jehad."

In 'A Voyage to the East Indies'  Fra Barthoelomeo, a renowned Portuguese traveller and historian, who was present in Tipu's war zone in early 1790 wrote:

"First a corps of 30,000 barbarians who butchered everybody on the way ... followed by the field gun unit under the French commander, M. Lally. Tipu was riding on an elephant behind which another army of 30,000 soldiers followed. Most of the men and women were hanged in Calicut, first mothers were hanged with their children tied to necks of mothers. That barbarian Tipu Sultan tied the naked Christian and Hindus to the legs of elephants and made the elephants to move around till the bodies of the helpless victims were torn to pieces. Temples and churches were ordered to be burned down, desecrated, and destroyed. ... Those Christians who refused to be honoured with Islam were ordered to be killed by hanging immediately. These atrocities were told to me by the victims of Tipu Sultan who escaped from the clutches of his army and reached Varapphuza, which is the centre of Carmichael Christian Mission. I myself helped many victims to cross the Varapphuza river by boats."

Moreover, evidence of Tipu's atrocities abounds in many contemporary church records in Mangalore, Calicut, and Varapphuza.

In the words of writer Ravi Varma : "It was Tipu Sultan and his fanatic Muslim army who converted thousands of Hindus to Islam all along the invasion route and occupied areas in North Kerala, Coorg, Mangalore, and other parts of Karnataka. Besides over 8,000 Hindu temples were desecrated and/or destroyed by his Muslim army. Even today, one can see large concentrations of Muslims and ruins of hundreds of destroyed temples in North Kerala as standing evidence of the Islamic brutalities committed by Tipu Sultan ... He was, all through, waging a cruel Islamic war against the Hindu population of Kerala, with a large Muslim army and ably assisted by the French with powerful field guns and European troops. ...In spite of all this, historical documents and records are being suppressed, distorted, and falsified in order to project this fanatic Tipu Sultan of Mysore as a national hero like Chhatrapati Shivaji, Maharaja Ranjit Singh, Rana Pratap Singh, and Pazhassi Raja of Kerala. It is an insult to our national pride and also to the Hindus of Kerala by our 'secular' government and the motivated Muslim and Marxist historians of Jawaharlal Nehru, Aligarh, and Islamia universities."

Does the Doordarshan serial's characterization of Tipu in "The Sword of Tipu Sultan" as a patron of Hindu temples have any historical basis at all? Yes, says C. Nandagopal Menon, the convenor of the Bombay Malayalee Samajam: "Tipu had immense faith in astrology. It was at the appeal of his Hindu astrologer and his own mother that Tipu spared two temples out of 12 within Sriangapatnam Fort. Moreover, by the end of 1790, Tipu was facing enemies from all sides. He was also defeated at the Travancore Defence Lines. It was only then, in order to appease the Hindus of Mysore, that he gave some land-grants to Hindu temples."

As to Tipu's struggle against the British, it was to maintain his usurped kingdom, not as a nationalist fight for freedom. This is clear from the historical documents in which he invited the French to join him to defeat the British and then divide South India between himself and the French.

Dr. P.C.C. Raja, a direct descendent of the Zamorin of Calicut, writes : "Tipu Sultan was one of the worst fanatics, and more inhuman than even the Nazis." 

Historical evidence has clearly established that Tipu Sultan was, to put it mildly, no multicultural hero. Indian State TV's promotion of the serial's pseudo-history, in the name of secularism no less, was a flagrant exercise of pseudo-secularism.