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New
Delhi, 14 September 2002
Mohan
Guruswamy's piece on the Hyderabad operation in 1948, vividly brings
out that a strong leadership with clear vision can ensure that the
Armed Forces get unambiguous orders to follow and succeed. The
Indian Army then had clear instructions and an aim. The operation
was within India, against Indians and the aim of how much force to
use was specified. The Leaders then like Sardar Patel did not
believe in vagueness.
In
1969 in Goa during operation VIJAY the voluminous OPS ORDERS were
very clear. Today we get the impression that the Army's aim in
Kashmir stands extended and diffused. The so-called Unified Command
is with the Chief Minister. On the 12th, the Unified
Command met with Defence Minister and the BSF Chief Shri Ajai Raj
Singh flying in from Delhi. The discussions, media reported, were on
conducting peaceful polls in J & K and the duties of the Army.
The
first and foremost task of the Army (at present in a state of
mobilization) is to defend India's Security on the borders. It has
also become the anti-terrorist force in Kashmir and elsewhere and
more and more in dealing with Disaster Management for the nation. TV
showed the young recruits from the Army handling dead bodies at the
Bihar Rajdhani train crash. Added to this is to carry out peaceful
polls and other extraneous duties with other Agencies.
These
tasks are too varied and each needs expertise. This begs the
question, “Can the Army fulfill all the tasks –– with
sophisticated weaponry to maintain, contain militants crossing the
border and face the Artillery fire from across the LOC? And also be
ready for war? If the answer is debatable then what are the one
million para military forces with budgets aggregating over half a
billion dollars doing? The fact is that once the Army is called in,
all other agencies whose responsibility it is to carry out these
duties tend to wash their hands off the matter.
In
fact 11 September 2002 will go down in history as three separate
Seminars took place in Delhi. The Defence Minister George Fernandes
attended two of them. One was an excellent discourse on DISASTER
MANAGEMENT, held at the IAF Auditorium. The Army Chief rightly
stated that the Army should not be used for more than 15 days at a
time in Disaster Management. The learned professor, Dr AK Gupta from
IIM Ahmedabad, who had done a remarkable job of coordinating the NGO
effort during the earthquake in Gujarat, said the Army had been used
like an over protective and indulgent mother, so everybody else had
stopped thinking of Disaster Management except on paper and
looked to the Army, to do all.
At
the other, CII–Defence Industry Seminar attended by Defence
Minister, the need to attract private firms to take part in Defence
Manufacturing was highlighted. In the third at USI –– S E Asia
was discussed.
There
are a lot of discussions but as the IIM Professor said we are good
at discussions but poor in implementation. IDC hope that some good
will come out of the Army Chief's pragmatic statement.
There
Once Was A Hyderabad!
By
Mohan Guruswamy
On
the morning of September 13, 1948 five infantry battalions and an
armored regiment of the battle hardened Indian Army under the
command of Maj Gen J N Chaudhry entered the princely state of
Hyderabad, over a year after Independence and after the patience of
the new Indian Union was tested beyond endurance. The Nizam of
Hyderabad like the Maharaja of Jammu & Kashmir too entertained
notions of an independent state and had so far managed to avoid
accession. In the meantime the Nizam sought to widen the issue by
moving the United Nations, took the advice and assistance of
Pakistan, and began stockpiling arms. The Times in London reported
on August 9, 1948 that the Hyderabad army was strengthened to 40,000
and supplies of arms were being received, presumably from Pakistan.
The Prime Minister of Hyderabad Mir Laik Ali boasted that if “the
Indian government takes any action against Hyderabad, 100,000 men
are ready to fight. We also have a hundred bombers in Saudi Arabia
ready to bomb Bombay!”
Within
the Nizam’s realm, militant Razakars led by Kasim Razvi, had
stepped up their campaign of terrorizing Hindus and whipping up
religious sentiments among the Muslims. Within five days the
“police action”, actually a military operation, was all but over
and the Hyderabad army commanded by Maj. Gen. El-Edroos formally
surrendered. The Indian Army’s “police action” was as violent
as it was swift. It killed 1373 Razakars and captured 1911. In
addition Hyderabad State Army lost 807 killed and 1647 captured. The
Indian Army’s losses were never officially revealed but a figure
of less than 10 killed is commonly accepted. It was a sudden and
crushing blow to a movement that had vowed to hoist the Asafia flag
on the Red Fort.
At
the time of India’s independence, Hyderabad was the largest Indian
princely state in terms of population and GNP. Its territory of
82,698 sq miles was more than that of England and Scotland put
together. The 1941 census had estimated its population to be 16.34
million, over 85% of who were Hindus and with Muslims accounting for
about 12%. It was also a multi-lingual state consisting of peoples
speaking Telugu (48.2%), Marathi (26.4%), Kannada (12.3%) and Urdu
(10.3%). Its diversity and broad heritage could be seen in the
historical monuments at Ajanta, Ellora and Daulatabad in Marathawada,
Bijapur, Bidar, Gulbarga, Anegondi and Kampili in Karnataka, and
Warangal and Nagarjunakonda in Telangana.
Hyderabad
city’s history goes back to the 11th century when the
Kakatiya kings of Warangal built the fort that later became famous
as Golconda. Mohammed Quli Qutab Shah founded the capital city that
we now know in 1590. Quli Qutab Shah was quite a romantic fellow and
first called his city Bhagyanagar after his Hindu born Queen
Bhagmati. Bhagmati later took the name Haider Mahal and hence
Hyderabad. Haider Mahal also inspired him to pen the immortal lines:
“piya baaj pyaala piya jaaye na, piya yakthil jiya jaaye na.”
This romanticism suffused the spirit of Hyderabad through most of
its entire existence.
Hyderabad,
not only had its own Army, but also had its own Railways, Airline,
Postal Service, Radio Broadcasting network and currency. The Nizam
and his court ruled over it with the British Resident keeping a
close and watchful eye over everything. The British Army also had a
permanent garrison, just in case the “faithful ally of the King
Emperor” was found lacking in faith.
As
can be imagined it was a Muslim dominated state. Typically in 1911,
70% of the police, 55% of the army and 26% of the public
administration were Muslims. In 1941 a report on the Civil Service
revealed that of the 1765 officers, 1268 were Muslims, 421 were
Hindus, and 121 others, presumably British, Christians, Parsis and
Sikhs. Of the officials drawing a pay between Rs.600–1200 pm, 59
were Muslims, 38 were “others”, and a mere 5 were Hindus. The
Nizam and his nobles, who were mostly Muslims, owned 40% of the
total land in the kingdom. Quite clearly it was too much of a good
thing for so few and the time for its end had come.
The
Asaf Jah dynasty came into being in the waning years of the Mughal
Empire. Mir Qamruddin a Muslim general of Indian origin was first
appointed Governor of the Deccan in 1707. He was called the
Nizam-ul-Mulk. He returned to Delhi soon after as uncertainty and
turmoil overtook the house of Babar. Qamruddin after a brief stint
as the Mughal wazir returned to the Deccan in 1723 to carve
out an independent domain for himself. He was now Asaf Jah I. On his
death in 1748, his second son and a grandson, who secured the
support of the French and British respectively, contested the
succession. The French won this time, but in 1761 the French were
all but beaten by the British in the Carnatic wars. In 1798
Hyderabad came under the dominance of the English when Asaf Jah II
entered into a Subsidiary Alliance with the East India Company,
which made sure that Hyderabad remained under the Nizam’s rule,
but under their guidance.
As
can well be imagined there was absolutely no political activity in
the kingdom for most of this period. The faithful ally remained just
that while the British waged war on the Maratha’s, Sikhs and then
by introducing the doctrine of the lapse came to gobble princely
state after state. Even the 1857 war passed Hyderabad by. The first
stirrings began in 1927 when the Majlis-e-Ittihad-ul-Muslimeen was
formed to unite various Islamic sects for “the solution of their
problems within the principle of Islam”; and to protect the
economic, social and educational interests of the Muslims.
In
1933 an association of mulki’s or local born Hindus and Muslims
called the Nizam’s Subjects League was formed as a reaction to the
continued domination of non-mulki’s in government, even though
most of them were Muslims. This was soon to be known as the Mulki
League. It was the Mulki League that first mooted the idea of a
responsible government in Hyderabad. In 1937 the Mulki League split
between the more radical elements that were mostly Hindus and the
more status quo inclined. This led to the formation of the Hyderabad
Peoples Convention in 1937, a prelude to the establishment of the
Hyderabad State Congress the following year. With this the movement
for political and constitutional reform picked up momentum.
The
Hyderabad State Congress agitation coincided with a parallel
agitation led by the Arya Samaj and Hindu Mahasabha of VD Savarkar
on Hindu civil rights. To a large extent the interests of the
Congress and Hindu organizations coincided. This put them squarely
against the Majlis who were now led by Bahadur Yar Jung who was also
the founder of the Anjuman-i-Tabligh-i-Islam, a proselytizing Muslim
organization whose prime activity was the conversion of Hindus.
Bahadur Yar Jung was a charismatic figure became popular among the
Muslims. He also had the ear of the Nizam, Osman Ali. The main
thrust of Bahadur Yar Jung was to establish that Hyderabad was
separate from the rest of India and that it should be declared a
Muslim state. The Majlis also considered British style parliamentary
democracy as unsuitable to India in general and Hyderabad in
particular. Bahadur Yar Jung summed this up very succinctly: “The
Majlis policy is to keep the sovereignty of His Exalted Highness
intact and to prevent Hindus from establishing supremacy over
Muslims.”
The
leadership of the Congress took more nationalist overtones after the
arrival of Swami Ramanand Tirtha on the scene. Tirtha hailed from
Gulbarga and as a young man became a sadhu. He became
President of the Hyderabad Congress in 1946 and attracted around him
several young men who rose to prominence in independent India.
Foremost among these was PV Narasimha Rao. Others were former Home
Minister and Maharashtra Chief Minister, SB Chavan, former Karnataka
Chief Minister Veerendra Patil, and former Andhra Chief Minister M
Channa Reddy. In doing so Tirtha transformed the Congress from a
party dominated by Marathi speakers and Arya Samajis into a
broad-based organization representing the diversity of Hyderabad.
While
the Congress was gaining strength, the Communists were also active
in the Telugu speaking areas. They captured the Andhra Mahasabha
that was formed in 1921 to represent the interests of the Telugu
speaking people in 1942. Unlike the Hyderabad Congress, which took
the cue from Mahatma Gandhi and launched a movement for democratic
rights in the state to run parallel to the Quit India movement, the
Communists joined hands with the Majlis to support the Nizam, who
being a faithful ally of the British was fully immersed in the war
effort. When WWII ended the Communists, now following the militant
line of BT Ranadive took the path of armed revolution. It is said
that when they went to Stalin for help in 1948, he took one look at
the map and decided that armed insurrection was impossible to
sustain in landlocked Telangana. The CPI was accordingly advised to
seek other ways of coming to political power.
The
advent of the Indian Army brought in its wake great changes that
were sought ever since political activity began in the state. The
Muslim elite soon found themselves marginalized and many migrated to
Pakistan. Others like Ali Yavar Jung made a smooth transition into
the new order. A new bureaucratic elite was quickly installed even
as the communist insurrection was being quelled. The Nizam quickly
came to terms with the new circumstances and became the Rajpramukh
of the newest state of the Indian Union. Nothing reflected the
handing over of the baton better than the transition in the
Secunderabad Club seen in its picture gallery of past Presidents.
The Club was for long the citadel of power, prestige and privilege
in the state and always had a senior Britisher as its President. Maj
Gen El-Edroos C-in-C of the Hyderabad State Army became its first
non-British President in 1947. In March 1949 he made way for Maj Gen
J N Chaudhry, Military Governor. The times still keep changing and
the pictures truly reflect this!
The
story of Hyderabad doesn’t end here. The States Re-Organization
Bill of 1956 saw its end. The Marathi speaking areas went to
Maharashtra, Kannada speaking areas to Karnataka, and Hyderabad city
and Telangana were absorbed into Andhra Pradesh. Like all the other
princely states that were absorbed into one or the other
state.
But
the Jammu & Kashmir problem still festers and that makes one
wonder if we missed an opportunity?
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