Who was Dewan Purnaiya? Purnaiya (1746-1812), a poor Madhwa Brahmin boy hailing from a village near Coimbatore (Tamil Nadu) who learnt to fend for himself & take responsibility on his shoulder, after losing his father at a tender age. He was a self-taught scholar & linguist with sharp and agile brain & extraordinary administrative & accounting skills with perfect handwriting. As a shrewd strategist blessed with prodigious memory, one of the most enigmatic & influential characters was considered as the Chanakya of Karnataka, served as a Diwan under Hyder Ali, Tipu & the Wodeyars. Even though some reports suggest that wounded Tippu was killed in the battle ground for his jewelry, during my college days I learnt that Purnaiya was loyal to Tipu until the devil named Tipu struck his own home… it is said that Tippu once had gone to Purnaiya’s home to meet him on some urgent work. Purniah was away & his beautiful daughter treated the guest with honour (atithi devobhava). Tippu smitten by her beauty offered to marry her. When she refused, he raped her. When Purnaiya confronted him, he offered to take her to his Heram…. {Some suggests that the soldiers did it (knowing her father it is highly unlikely that soldiers would dare do it) & laughed at Purnaiya & told him to convert too… Eventually the daughter killed herself. In any case a few seconds of pleasure cost Tippu his life along with his dream, becoming one of the most expensive rapes to this day!!!
When his loyalty clashed with thinly stretched royalty, hitting the home ground … Purnaiya woke up with a jolt… till then it was someone else’s daughter now it’s mine. It’s ironic that the very instrument (sorry guys) he used to brand people brought him the death too. Guess he ran out of luck or finally God got tired of his wickedness!! Poorna means complete… no wonder he managed to complete the task & gotten rid of a monster out of this beautiful earth. May 4th what a glorious day for Kannadiagas!
Purnaiya plotted with the help of Mir Sadak, a good Muslim who was fed up of Tipu’s barbarianism & misuse of his religion. Also for Mir Sadak it was the chance of a life times as he had already negotiated through Nizam for a hefty reward & good books of British!! The plot was simple nothing to attract attention from any quarters including Tippu. Operation was smooth as silk… Just send all Tipu’s guards to collect their salary at the same time!! Without much resistance, it was a cake walk for Sherbrooke & Dunlop to capture the breach & fann out. Even the fort commander Mir Nadim was taken into confidence who had managed to close the water gate & blocked to prevent Tipu from escaping from fort. No wonder he was a great strategist! Modern media may call Purnaiya & Mir Sadak as traitors but logically they were the little windows, God opened to the prayers of millions of innocent people. Their descendants should be proud of their forefathers for helping get rid of an evil from mother earth. On the other hand I am ashamed of the ones who cover things for personal gains just like Tippu’s guise though in a minor way. What goes up always comes down; it’s the law of the nature. So did Tippu. But the saddest part is the misinterpretation of his action & glorification of this monster in disguise.
Tipu’s death is explained in many ways. The sequence of death could have been manipulated in anyway by the then ruling British wanted & no one would want to wash their laundry in public. Letting the world know of treason…. would have been an insult to their very imperialism… & bring shame. Purnaiya, Mir Sadak & the rest loyalists involved never wanted to be called traitors.
Nothing much is known about the life of Mir Sadiq other than that he held the post of a minister in the cabinet of Tipu as well as a General in the Mysorean Army. In the 4th Anglo-Mysore War, he collaborated with Purnaiya to get rid of Tipu, the evil from earth, the monolithic block of cruelty without a second. (Thank god for that & instead of terming him cunning & betrayal, he needs medal for his bravery!) Hyderabad Nizam was the mediator between them & the British. During the siege of Seringapata, he reshuffled the most trusted palace guards like Laxman Rao, etc., & sent the new appointees to collect their salaries paving the way for British to kill Tippu. Ahmad Khan a henchman of British-Nizam killed Sadiq before he reached his palace. Ring a bell 1963 – President John Kennedy’s assassination by Lee Harvey Oswald & Jack Ruby killing Oswald when he was under police custody?
So the major event of the century simply went with fiction. {Just like, in the recent history if during the Operation Red Dawn, the Americans really found Saddam Husain hiding on his own in the ditch or whether the Kurds captured & put him there to be found, will always be a mystery. When Saddam was caught, many said that Kurds had captured him to avenge the rape of their daughters & put in there}. After all everything is fair in Love & War…
coorgstories 
The problem of Coorgis is that they are Kurds from Iraq and Turkey and even today have not realised their origins. While their distant cousins have embraced Islam and practise the religion in their own way but still have stuck to their habits and cultures akin to the Coorgis of Karnataka. The Kurds who landed in Mangalore a coastal hilly place could not bear the heat and migrated to cooler environment. They had nothing of value with them and the king of Coorg at that time would make them run and kill them for pleasure. It was in present day Kushal nagar that the mother of Tipu Sultan showed the Coorgi women how to wear the long sleeved blouse which many Coorgi women still wear. When the King of Coorg was defeated by Tipu Sultan, he aligned himself with the East India Company and the fun loving Coorgis became tools in the Company’s hands getting provisions of liquor in abundance.The pig became a dietary accomplice in every function of the everyday life of Coorgis and the East India Company alias the British exploited the situation by influence of liquor to put into the minds of Coorgis that Tipu Sultan is a tyrant and they are the good guys just like the Sith who becomes a godfather to Darth Vader.Unfortunately, many Coorgis still believe this history from the British point of view just like the Mangalore Catholics without realising that the Farangipet Father’s sided with the British which was disliked by Tipu Sultan and became traitors to the cause of betraying the Country. Many Catholics still are not aware that it was Tipu Sultan who invited the Catholic priests to Serangapatnam and one of them built the Basilica at Shivaji nagar or Blackpalli in Bangalore. With such a created background of lies and deceit the Coorgis who had taken to tribal ways were totally brainwashed by the British and became their bonded slaves. If any Coorgi would like to dispute that they are not anyway connected to Kurds let them compare the DNA with Kurds. If course if they have British blood due to inter marriages or otherwise there may be slight difference, otherwise the results would be fascinating. The Coorgis have carved a place in Indian Society today and have become a name to be proud of in the army aka Field Marshal Carriappa!. It is however time that they shun their wrong beliefs of history and place Tipu Sultan in proper perspective. After all, it was Tipu Sultan who gave them 10 acres of land to each Coorgi family and the mother of Tipu taught the Coorgi women to dress in long blouses which is even now a symbolic dress of Coorgis.
Dear Mr. Sayed
Thank you for reading my blog and taking time to write a long view of your own, which seems to be your presumption, assumption and mere speculations.
My father taught me a simple lesson, don’t get into argument and if you do pick up with a person who is more learned than you, so that you could learn something from it. however I would like to make an exception not in argument but in replying you to:
You said: The problem of Coorgis is that they are Kurds from Iraq and Turkey and even today have not realised their origins. The Kurds who landed in Mangalore a coastal hilly place could not bear the heat and migrated to cooler environment.
My response: Firstly, I don’t know why you call it a problem? There’s no problem here at all. Secondly, the origins of our people is something which has not been concluded, and its really presumptuous of you to stake claim to having concluded this much debated and lightly evidenced topic. And finally, making Mangalore as their landing point and shift into Coorg for “cooler environment” is by far one of the most unintelligent theory I heard. Imagine, in order to escape the heat, you claim that an entire peoples (yes no one was left behind?) left the rich cultivated and abundant lands of mangalore, climbed through high mountains, hacked through leech/tiger/elephant/leopard/poisonous reptile / amphibians infested lands, so they could start afresh in an untamed and inhospitable land?
You said: They had nothing of value with them and the king of Coorg at that time would make them run and kill them for pleasure.
My response: Your claiming the “king of Coorg” was in Coorg before the Coorgs? Go read up on the self documented history of the Haleri Dynasty, and understand how they came about by “consolidating power over the EXISTING Kodava nayaks, before making such statements.
You said: The pig became a dietary accomplice in every function of the everyday life of Coorgis
My response: Even to this day, it’s the “wild boar” which is the delicacy, not the pig. The wild boar is abundant in the region, and was a staple diet probably from the very beginning, and nothing to do with the british.
You said: ..the East India Company alias the British exploited the situation by influence of liquor to put into the minds of Coorgis that Tipu Sultan is a tyrant
My response: Another funny one. Lets not speculate with anyone else’s writing, and instead focus on that of the man himself, Tippu. If you read his diary’s and letters send to vassals / dignitaries, you will see enough mention of why he did what he did, and to whom he did it: Religion and to the Coorgs. Dealing with his mongering and rampaging army was enough reason for the Coorgs to know who the tyrant was, and didn’t need any British help with understanding that!
You said: After all, it was Tipu Sultan who gave them 10 acres of land to each Coorgi family and the mother of Tipu taught the Coorgi women to dress in long blouses which is even now a symbolic\
My response: Again, baseless banter from you. Simple question to you: In your story, what did the Coorg do “before” tippu gave them 10 acres of land each? Did they twiddle their thumbs and grow rice and vegetables in the air? Did my people discover floating gardens before the grace of tippu showered down on them 10 acres each? Lol, you’re funny. I won’t even ask or respond to this “tippu’s mother teaching the saree” claim.
Shows why one should not serve a wicked person. Poornaiah’s life makes a good example.