"...all through his career, Haidar carefully calibrated his image of not assuming any external visages of royalty or denying the claims of the Hindu dynasty. It was another thing that through subterfuge, he eliminated the king himself or interfered in the succession lines. But overtly, there was no affront to the family, as he very well knew that the population, being a Hindu majority one that looked up to the dynasty with reverence, would brook no disrespect and he would be condemned as an ungrateful usurper... How much of these gestures were out of genuine respect towards another faith and how much was necessitated by realpolitik, as Kirmani suggests, for keeping Mysoreans happy, is something that we will never know. In his campaigns outside Mysore, it has already been seen how holy places were desecrated or captives circumcised and converted. This was possibly more to do with humiliation and cultural subjugation of a vanquished community, than completely theologically driven. One cannot, however, deny the theological sanction for such acts, which were committed in addition to the normal pillage and plunder that all wars and protagonists of the time casually involved themselves in when it came to enemy territory."