Hyderabad: Liberation or Transition from Monarchy to Democracy?

The princely state of Hyderabad had merged with India on September 17, 1948, through what is called a police action, but was actually done by the Indian Army. It was called Operation Polo and General Chaudhary led the operation.

In the memory of this operation, BJP has started celebrating the day as Hyderabad Liberation Day; while the Congress led Government of Telangana celebrated it as Praja Palan Day (Advent of Democracy day). BJP leader Kishan Reddy stated that not celebrating it as a Hyderabad Liberation Day is an insult to the people who sacrificed their lives during the merger through army action to India.

There are others who label it as Islamophobia of Nehru and Patel which led to annexation of a Muslim princely state into India. Most of these arguments are either one sided or biased in one way or the other. Can a Princely state ruled by a Muslim king be called as Muslim State (Hyderabad)?

Majority of its population was Hindu. Can a Muslim majority state ruled by a Hindu King (Kashmir) be called a Hindu state?

While some scholars see this through the eyes of religion, the core factor was geographical on one hand and a transition from feudal system towards democracy on the other. How much of that could be achieved in Kashmir is a matter of doubt as factors in that region were mired by the ambitions of neighbouring Pakistan, who de facto wanted to build a Muslim state and regarded a Muslim majority Kashmir to be in Pakistan as per Jinnah’s ‘two Nation theory” This theory was originally put forward by Savarkar anyway.

So why did Nehru take interest in Kashmir’s accession to India? Was it a mere geographical expansionism or to support the democratic movement against the feudal-kingdom towards democracy? Sheikh Abdullah with all his democratic aspirations first converted Muslim Conference into a National Conference and stood for secular values.

He looked up to Gandhi and Nehru for secular-democratic values. The problem was vitiated by Pakistan’s aggression called as tribal invasion but was led by military, and US-UK support from the back.

Then comes the issue of sovereignty. Kings and many others labeled the kingdoms through the religion of the kings while Indian nationalists regarded that sovereignty belonged to the people not to the kings. It is in this background that the complex problem of merger of Hyderabad into India has to be seen.

As India became independent, the princely states, above 600 were given the option to either merge with Pakistan or India or remain independent. Princely states, who had some autonomy during British rule, were facing a dilemma but most of them wanted to remain independent. They were advised by Lord Mountbatten preferably to merge with the neighbouring country.

With Sardar Patal overseeing most of the mergers, he had given the promise of giving the princes relative autonomy in most matters barring defense, communication and external affairs. In turn they were given the right to keep their massive properties and massive wealth.

Most of the princely states finally merged with India. Travancore, ruled by a Hindu king, after lots of hesitancy also agreed to be part of India. The raja of Kashmir, Hari Singh refused to merge with India and Nizam of Hyderabad also did not agree to merge with India.

As pointed out above, Indian leaders regarded that sovereignty belongs to the people and not with the kings. Most of these kings were loyal to the British and were having a life of luxury. Junagadh was integrated with India through military action and in the plebiscite which was held after that endorsed its merging with India.

The Nizam of Hyderabad was sitting over a large and rich state. He wanted to remain independent or merge with Pakistan. The idea of merger with Pakistan was not on religious grounds but because of the fact the Mohammad Ali Jinnah promised that Nizam’s rights will not be disturbed.

India was keen on merging Hyderabad into India for multiple reasons, Islamophobia, not being any of them. The main ground was the geographical location of the state of Hyderabad right within the center of India. A totally landlocked autonomous state or a state which was part of Pakistan would have been the source of perennial problems.

This was the core consideration for the Nehru-Patel duo. A standstill agreement (November 1947) was signed with Nizam till the final decision was to be made. The idea was that this period should be used to democratise the Hyderabad Administration, so that negotiation will be easy.

The Nizam used this time to strengthen his army by increasing the number of its irregular force called Razakars which was led by Major Gen SA El Edroos, the Arab commander in chief of the Hyderabad state forces.

The Congress meanwhile launched a Satyagrah to demand for democratisation of state administration. Twenty thousand of these Satyagrahis were jailed. Due to the state repression and Razakar atrocities against Hindus many of the people fled the state.

Also, the communists had launched the dalams (groups) against the landlords for land redistribution and for protection of the people from Razakar’s atrocities. Nizam was dragging the negotiations and the Razakars were becoming more menacing. The anti Nizam struggle had a good deal of support from some locals and number of Muslims from the whole country.

The same source tells us, Patel Joyfully wrote to Suhravardy “On the question of Hyderabad, the India Union Muslims have come out in the open on our side, and that has certainly created a good impression in the country”. It is in this background that the military action was unleashed, in which according to the Sunderlal Report, nearly 40,000 people, mainly Muslims lost their lives.

History is very interesting as to which aspects we pick up to build our narrative. The narratives by many scholars focus on religion to show that this was Islamophobia on the part of Indian leadership. The two main aspects of the whole episode are seen in its complexity.

The first one clearly shows the geographical consideration, aimed to nip the future problems. And second one was democratisation and anti landlordism aimed at by the local dalams of Communist party’s. The criticism of Indian leadership of Nehru and Patel on the issue is one sided and biased attempt to tarnish their aspiration, which might not have fully fructified.