Hyderabad: A key leg of the BJP’s thrust for fresh southern turf was kicked off Tuesday, the 71st anniversary of Hyderabad’s annexation by India.
The BJP wants the state to officially observe 17 September as “Hyderabad Vimochan Diwas” or “Hyderabad Liberation Day”, as it hopes to play the communal contours of the annexation to its advantage — Hyderabad was a Hindu-majority princely state under Muslim nizams before it joined India.
However, the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) considers statehood day, 2 June 2014, the official “liberation day”.
While there were no official celebrations, the TRS hoisted the national flag at their party head office in Hyderabad Tuesday. Meanwhile, BJP leaders and cadres led celebrations across the state, hoisting the Tricolour and even barging into government offices.
Flanked by union ministers Pralhad Joshi and Kishan Reddy at the BJP Hyderabad office, state president K. Laxman told the media, “The BJP has taken it on its shoulders today the duty of honouring Telangana’s self-respect.”
The BJP accuses Chief Minister K. Chandrashekar Rao and his TRS of refusing to honour the “martyrs” of 1948 in order “to appease his Muslim friends (read AIMIM, political ally)”.
The AIMIM, led by Hyderabad MP Asaduddin Owaisi, is a successor outfit to the Majlis-e-Ittehadul Mujahideen (MIM), a body led by Qasim Rizvi, who was the leader of the nizam’s private militia, the Razakars, accused of terrorising Hindus.
While the BJP seeks to draw a connection between the Razakars and the AIMIM, Owaisi has studiously denied the claim, pointing out that the Razakars left for Pakistan after the annexation.
“Hyderabad was the seat of nizam rule but the government here would not commemorate the event for fear of the AIMIM,” Reddy, the union minister of state for home affairs, said. “The Telangana liberation episode should be made part of the school textbooks.”
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The annexation
One of pre-Independent India’s over 500 princely states, the Hyderabad of yore, a Hindu-majority territory ruled by Muslim nizams, covered the whole of modern-day Telangana and parts of Karnataka and Maharashtra.
When India got independence and Pakistan was formed, the nizam refused accession to either nation. However, Hyderabad was annexed into India on 17 September 1948, on then home minister Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel’s watch.
In the preceding days, the Razakars, a volunteer militia, were accused of terrorising Hindus, and the Union government called in the Army. While it is said that Rizvi dissuaded the nizam from joining India, the prevailing anarchy triggered a people’s uprising headed by the communists, famously known as the Telangana armed struggle.
Although the nizam’s rule was largely free of communal tensions, the carnage unleashed by the Razakars during 1947-48 added an infamous chapter to the princely state’s history.
The annexation itself involved violence as the Army eliminated the Razakars, and was followed by bloodshed as well, amid alleged attacks on Muslims in “liberated” Hyderabad.
These communal contours of Hyderabad’s annexation form the backdrop to the BJP’s efforts to carve a presence here — efforts that have continued for two decades.
The Kashmir angle
Like many other parts of the country, Telangana has witnessed a groundswell of support for the Modi government’s 5 August move to abrogate Article 370, which granted special status to Jammu & Kashmir.
Both Jammu & Kashmir and Hyderabad came to India amid similar circumstances. Their leaders wanted to stay independent but were forced to join India amid different compulsions: J&K because of the invasion by Pakistan tribals, and Hyderabad, after the Army stepped in following Razakar assaults on Hindus.
It was on the fifth day of the Army operation — Operation Polo — and a few hundred deaths that the nizam agreed to join India on 17 September 1948.
Patel forms a pivot of the BJP’s efforts to galvanise public sentiment in Telangana on this subject in its favour, by projecting him as the saviour of the state’s residents — his intervention, they argue, is what prevented a Kashmir-esque Article 370 arrangement between Hyderabad and India.
In an address Tuesday, PM Modi said “Hyderabad Liberation Day” is a result of Sardar Patel’s vision. BJP general secretary Ram Madhav, who was in Karimnagar a few days ago to deliver a talk, “End of Article 370: Impact on emerging India and Kashmir – A historical correction of a Himalayan blunder”, reportedly said the Hyderabad state would have met the same fate as Kashmir had Patel not interfered and liberated Hyderabad state from Nizam rule.
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Southern ambitions
The BJP has so far only formed government in one southern state, Karnataka. In India’s newest state, Telangana, however, it registered a surprise performance in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, winning four of the state’s 17 seats, including at the cost of high-profile candidates like K. Kavitha, the CM’s daughter.
The gains were particularly significant in light of the BJP’s humbling performance in the assembly polls a few months before, when it won just one seat out of the state’s 117. Between the two elections, its voteshare rose from 7 to 20 per cent.
In a state where the main opposition, the Congress is faltering, the saffron party is aiming big with national leaders’ visits, rigorous strategy meetings and membership drives.
And the “liberation of the vast majority of Hindus from Muslim rule”, symbolised by 17 September, is likely to remain the main theme of the BJP’s campaign in Telangana.
The AIMIM, however, is dismissive of this strategy. “The accession is a historical event that everyone is aware of and there is as such no need to celebrate the time that was marked by communal conflict and killings of Muslims,” AIMIM MLC Syed Aminul Hasan Jafri said.
“The BJP’s argument that the TRS is afraid of the AIMIM is a useless argument. The CM has clarified that as far as he’s concerned, 2 June (Telangana formation day) is the real liberation day,” he added.
Political analyst K. Nageshwar said the state government should mark the day officially.
“No one can deny the immense historical significance 17 September has in Telangana history. While the BJP, with its electoral interests, continues to portray it as a Hindu-Muslim issue, the TRS is also wrong in not commemorating the important day for fear of annoying Muslims,” he added.
“No one is bothered if the Tricolour is hoisted at the TRS office on this day. The government should venerate the day officially.”
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Political parties are just like companies in a competitive market. Always looking for that one niche to enter the market. Most people don’t take these things seriously but it only needs to swing a few percent vote or help build a die hard cadre for such moves to b politically useful. It is an unfortunate consequnce of the dynamics of democracy.
BJP has zero role either in dependence movement or Hyderabad annexation. They have been using 370 Hyderabad etc for dividing the people and political gain. BJP led by Modi should be ashamed for creating trouble in non BJP states.