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Postcolonial Prisms: Tipu Sultan at the Lahore Museum

Abstract Focusing on the representation of Tipu Sultan at the Lahore Museum, this article examines how the 18th-century legend of the Mysore sovereign has been emplotted in the larger narrative of Pakistan’s version of its past, simultaneously noting how the legend itself provides impetus to the nation’s foundational discourse. I trace the ideological mainstays of this “origin story” in Pakistan’s Independence Movement and through its subsequent political trajectory. If “who is Tipu in Pakistan?” is taken as a broad avenue of inquiry, related questions that this study is directed by and responds to are “why is Tipu important to Pakistan’s image of itself?,” and “what is this image?” as reflected and disseminated at important sites of public instruction such as the museum. An important insight this study utilizes is that despite attempts to shape the interpretative experiences of museum visitors, displays cannot always be controlled and often speak in spite of themselves. I conclude this study by proposing that the intensity of Pakistan’s appropriation of the Tipu legend – as witnessed in its brand of postcolonial museology – sits in a relationship of discordant ambivalence with other galleries at the same site, necessitating a reappraisal of master narratives of singular belonging.