(This article has been written in the context of Union Home Minister Amit Shah's recent statement in Parliament, in which he attacked Jawaharlal Nehru and said that "Kashmir suffered due to two blunders" by him.)
In the wake of the formation of the new government and the Partition of India in the late 1940s, both Jawaharlal Nehru and Sardar Patel were eager to integrate most princely states into the Union government.
Patel, however, took a keen interest in Hyderabad.
During the early phase of government formation, Nehru and Patel had opposing viewpoints when it came to the Muslim question. These personal and ideological disparities impacted their debates and decisions on what to do with the princely states.
In the case of Hyderabad, however, Patel was successful in imposing his viewpoints and almost forced Nehru to initiate the military invasion of Hyderabad State between 13 and 18 September 1948.
'How Can the Belly Breathe if It is Cut Off From the Main Body'
In right-wing political imagination, Sardar Patel has become an embodiment of Hindutva and the savior of Indian nationalism, glorifying his acts as a counter-narrative to Nehruvian nationalism. In the process of projecting Patel as this savior, the new generation of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) blames Nehru for many pitfalls in the early days of the nation-state.
Of many such issues, Kashmir and Hyderabad have come to the forefront again.
Nevertheless, when we examine the developments and the lengthy conversations between Nehru, Patel, and other officials, we learn that Patel’s actions were prodded by the immediate concerns caused by the Partition.
On 11 June 1947, exactly eight days after the announcement of the Partition, the Nizam of Hyderabad issued a firman declaring the independence of his state by using the term 'Azad Hyderabad' (independent Hyderabad). When this discourse was gaining momentum, Patel openly said, “When we accepted division, it was like our agreeing to have a diseased limb amputated so that the remaining may live in a sound condition.”
According to Patel, “Hyderabad was situated in India’s belly. How can the belly breathe if it is cut off from the main body?!” During the same time, Bhopal and Travancore were making similar arguments and the Kashmir issue was being debated extensively. Here, we notice a contradiction in the policies of the Indian government that approached the United Nations to intervene in Kashmir.
On the other hand, despite the appeal made by Hyderabad State, the government wanted to treat Hyderabad as a “purely domestic issue.”
Nehru Perceived the Kashmir as a Border Issue
Nehru and Patel represented two different viewpoints. But, as evident from many letters and reports, Patel was forever disappointed by Nehru’s policies and politics.
Nehru, a liberal, was more interested in Kashmir rather than Hyderabad. In addition, he also had the pride of actually being a Kashmiri.
Unlike Patel, whose ideology was shaped by the framework of Hindu-Muslim dichotomy, Nehru remained in a liminal space throughout his dealings with Kashmir. Nehru had perceived the entirety of the Kashmir issue as a border issue which made him turn to the UN for a resolution. Patel had a different take and wanted to resolve it as a domestic matter by invading Pakistan.
Looking back at the history of "Police Action," each event and debate explicitly demonstrates Patel’s impatience in resolving the Hyderabad issue.
Along with the Nizam’s persistent efforts to create Azad Hyderabad, and the rise of the Razakar militarism, Patel was greatly concerned about two more developments:
Hyderabad’s constantly growing Islamic networks
The historical peasant rebellion in Telangana which was described as “nothing short of a revolution”
Patel Saw Hyderabad as the 'Heart' of India
Towards the early 1940s, Hyderabad State was extremely successful in creating a global Islamic network beyond South Asia.
Due to many migrations, patronage systems, and alliances, Hyderabad by then had become a cosmopolitan state as Muslims from several nations made it their home. After the Partition, the new government of India started treating them as "foreigners," thus endangering their rights as citizens.
The idea of Azad Hyderabad further complicated this issue, causing great anxiety for nationalist leaders including Patel. For him, this entire situation became about a “pan-Islamic bloc,” and he strongly felt the need to break apart these networks, his master plan was to strengthen the nation by protecting the “heart” (Hyderabad) of India.
Despite its gruesome violence and consequent trauma, this military invasion was called “Police Action,” thus undermining the atrocities of the Union military throughout the Deccan. The nationalist government desired to cover it as a “purely domestic issue” in the official vocabulary.
On 21 August, the Hyderabad State sent a cablegram to the Security Council about the “grave dispute” that was “likely to endanger the maintenance of international peace and security.”
While the Security Council took up the issue on 16 September, the military had already invaded the Hyderabad state. Disguising under national security, the Union government buried every piece of information about the military invasion.
According to the government-appointed Sunder Lal Commission’s report: "We can say at a very conservative estimate that in the whole state, at least 27,000 to 40,0000 people lost their lives during and after the police action...only three of 16 districts in Hyderabad state were free of communal trouble."
'Police Action' in Telangana
The Telangana Rebellion (1946-1951) was another major factor for both Nehru and Patel to invade Hyderabad.
As I have discussed in my recent book, Remaking History: 1948 Police Action and the Muslims of Hyderabad (Cambridge, 2023), many of my interlocutors during my field research between 2006 and 2020 explained to me, “more than anything else, Patel and Nehru were scared of the revolutionary effect of the Telangana armed rebellion. In the name of controlling the Nizam, the military killed as many leftists as possible in South India.”
A confrontation between the villagers and the landlords in the village of Kadivendi on 4 July 1946, led to the killing of the village leader Doddi Komaraiah. Setting fire to the house of the landlord, the villagers declared the formation of the Sangham which led to the early phase of peasant rebellion in Telangana.
Within no time, this activism spread far and wide in Telangana, thus amounting to a “revolution.” At that moment, Nehru thought Telangana was a center of Communist activity which he described as “the degradation of the human spirit, murder, terrorism and violence.” Patel’s militarism provided a framework for his vision of state sovereignty and state-sponsored nationalism.
Then, “Police Action” became an excuse to suppress the communists throughout Telangana.
Amit Shah’s recent statements about the liberation of Telangana and the Police Action show a similar tendency in contemporary politics. In many ways, he is repeating whatever Patel said in the late 1940s. The recurring images of describing Hyderabad State as a “cancer in the belly” and the idea of “Telangana liberation” deliberately mask the history of the Hyderabad massacre.
Since the beginning of the so-called “Police Action,” the BJP has been exceptionally careful in its choice of words and the descriptions of Hyderabad State. Recent statements, however, showcase ideological manipulations and efforts to project a nationalist, and in this case, a Hindu nationalist discourse.
(Afsar Mohammad is an internationally acclaimed and award-winning South Asian scholar working on Hindu-Muslim interactions in India. He also focuses on Muslim writing and Telugu studies. He teaches at the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia. This is an opinion piece and the views expressed above are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for the same.)
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