Whoever said Telangana’s “non-natives” have never had their indigeneity questioned should revisit the history of the 1952 Mulki Agitation.
Four years after Hyderabad, the Nizam-ruled princely kingdom, which Telangana was once a part of, acceded to the Indian Union in 1948, students in Warrangal voiced their frustration against “outsiders.” They weren’t going to stay silent as Telugus from Madras Presidency monopolised government jobs.
The Telugu speakers from another state might have been more educated and qualified compared to the Telanganite population, but the protestors were Mulkis (natives). After being disempowered for the most part under princely rule, they were at loggerheads with those whom they saw as neo-colonisers.
“Idly Sambar! Go Back!” “Non-Mulki! Go back!” shouted the students.
Now, the more “local” Telangana traders are directing a similar ire at the ever-enterprising Marwaris. The latter’s go-getting tendencies are aptly encapsulated by the saying, “Jahaan na pohonche gaadi, wahaan pohonche Marwari (However far-flung or inaccessible a destination, a Marwari will find his way there).”
A lot of Marwaris in the state made their way to the Asaf Jahi dominions as early as the eighteenth century. During the late 1700s, Begum Bazar became a bastion for them. Their other strongholds were Puraana Kabootar Khana and Nur Khan Bazar.
Also read: The Kayasthas of Hyderabad—why they were a key part of every Nizam’s administration
Financiers and jewellers
Despite having internal autonomy over its affairs, the British loomed large over princely Hyderabad. Establishing the Hyderabad Contingent, a military force led by English officers but bankrolled by Nizam III Sikandar Jah, was a means to tighten the empire’s grip as a paramount power over the kingdom. With the third Nizam unable to make payments, the East India Company became creditors to the Hyderabad government.
Marwaris, on the other hand, served as more trustworthy alternatives for both Nizam III and his successor to finance the army. This support, as bankers and revenue contractors, didn’t just extend to helping with military expenses. Small businessmen, monarchs, and even nobles short on funds for irregular troops within their private armies looked to this trader community as financiers.
And for the finer things in life, “valued customers” is too small a description for the Asaf Jahi elite’s links to the city’s renowned Marwari jewellers. Look no further than the websites of stores like Totaram and Sons. The pride in their clientele that once included Hyderabad’s royal and aristocratic strata since the mid-1800s is apparent in the About Us section.
A senior journalist once narrated a story to me about how jewellers set up shop on the Kali Kaman Road and Charminar Kaman Road with Nizam VII Mir Osman Ali Khan’s blessing. A delegation, in which the forefathers of all those jewellers had folded their hands in obeisance toward Alaa-Hazrat (His Exalted Highness), made the following request.
“Sarkar! Jab bhi ap sheher mein aaye aur yahaan se guzre, ap ki nazar sone aur gehne pe padhna (Your lordship! Whenever you come to the city and pass through here, gold and jewels should grace your sight).”
The munificent monarch happily obliged each of them with makeshift shops. About a century later, a lot of those shops from the 1920s now stand tall as full-fledged retail stores.
But be it before or after the Asaf Jahi rule, the Hyderabadi Marwari wasn’t without political inclinations.
Also read: Stop telling South Indians to learn Hindi. In Hyderabad, languages coexist without imposition
More than just traders
The name Badrivishal Pitti still evokes respect among older Hyderabadi communists. Born to a business family with ties to the Nizam, he took to the Marxist ideals catching steam in the city and the Telangana region during the 1930s. He remained a Lohia socialist well into the 1960s.
Another scion of a prominent business family was Srinivas Lahoti.
City historians Sajjad Shahid and Oudesh Rani-Bawa mention how Lahoti’s mother had prayed for a son during the holy month of Muharram. She was blessed with a boy months after vowing to bring her baby out to pay respects to the elephant that carries the alam (flagpoles topped with metal finials) every Ashura (tenth day of Muharram) procession. As an adult, Lahoti would always be clad in black during this month of mourning.
Hence his moniker, “Shia Marwari.”
An active participant during the Telangana Armed Rebellion (1946-1951), he also remained a lifelong patron of the Urdu language.
Like many Hyderabadis, Marwaris came to terms with the new Congress dispensation after the princely state’s integration into India. However, the post-Independence political backdrop saw further polarisation along religious lines.
Under Abdul Wahid Owaisi, the Majlis-Ittehad-ul-Muslimeen (MIM) began reviving itself within the mainstream political landscape of the late 1950s. This was after Owaisi’s predecessor Qasim Razvi, who had pushed for an independent Hyderabad prior to the state’s accession, left for Pakistan. According to scholar Muneer Ahmed Khan’s thesis Muslim Politics in Hyderabad, the MIM consolidated its base in Old City and its surrounding localities. They did this by playing upon the insecurities of Hyderabadi Muslims as minorities in spite of the Leftist endeavours to bridge communal divides between the late 1940s and 1970s. While fomenting a more incendiary, religious brand of politics, Owaisi also capitalised on the sentiment through which Old City Muslims mourned the loss of their aristocratic grandeur.
Some mercantile Marwaris, who once imbibed certain traits of the Hyderabadi feudal class, began patronising another firebrand politician—the Bharatiya Janata Party’s Ale “Tiger” Narendra.
Also read: Afzalgunj to Begum Bazar—Hyderabad’s markets don’t look ‘nawabi’. Marwaris, Gujjus built them
Protectors of faith
In his memoir, Recollections and Reflections, communist KL Mahendra recalled how Marwari businessmen funded Ganpati processions that only began to be taken out zealously in Hyderabad city during the 1970s. That newfound, aggressive fervour of the Ganesh Chaturthi celebrations helped with BJP’s political posturing.
Thus, the statements by Telangana BJP figures Bandi Sanjay Kumar and Gosha Mahal MLA Raja Singh against the anti-Marwari campaign aren’t surprising. The former, who currently serves as Union Minister of State—Home, deemed the agitation a conspiracy against the community due to their support for the BJP and their role as defenders of the Hindu faith.
Of course, there remain exceptions to any community’s overall, as well as specific, political leanings. This includes Marwaris, who have called the state home for generations. Their presence in the healthcare, education and textile industries can’t be denied.
However, this rhetoric against Marwaris in Telangana isn’t new. In 2021, the rallying cry “Marwari Hatao, Toopran Bachao” had delegates from the community requesting then BRS Home Minister Mahmood Ali to act against such sloganeering.
Hyderabad might not be afflicted with the “son of the soil” vs. outsider syndrome to the extent of other cities. But even throughout the era of the city’s founding Qutub Shahi dynasty, the “indigenous” Deccani population was at odds with the Afaqis from various parts of the Islamic world.
Clearly, the more things change, the more they stay the same.
Daneesh Majid is a Hyderabad-based writer with a Masters in South Asian Area Studies from the School of Oriental and African Studies in London, He is also the author of the HarperCollins-published book The Hyderabadis: From 1947 to the Present-Day. Views are personal.
(Edited by Theres Sudeep)