Footprints: NO LOOKING BACK

Published August 6, 2017
PRINCESS Esra married the heir to the Hyderabadi throne, Prince Mukarram Jah, in 1959. She recalls that when she arrived in Hyderabad she had never seen anything like it.—Photo by Rumella Dasgupta
PRINCESS Esra married the heir to the Hyderabadi throne, Prince Mukarram Jah, in 1959. She recalls that when she arrived in Hyderabad she had never seen anything like it.—Photo by Rumella Dasgupta

SIXTY-NINE years after India annexed the prin­cely state of Hyderabad there is little resentment amongst the city’s Mus­lims about the collapse of royal Muslim rule.

Back in 1947 the Nizam of Hyderabad, Osman Ali Khan, was opposed to becoming part of India. A descendent of many generations of royal rulers, he had absolute power and fabulous wealth.

The nizam had so many Rolls Royces that some were used to clean rubbish from the streets. With gold-filled trunks, the most valuable collection of jewels on earth and his own army, he thought he could resist an Indian takeover. He favoured either joining Pakistan or becoming independent. Newly discovered papers in the royal archive show that at one point he tried to purchase Goa from the Portuguese so that Hyderabad could strengthen its strategic position by securing access to a seaport.

But on Sept 13, 1948, Jawaharlal Nehru ordered the start of Operation Polo. It took just four days for Indian forces to sweep through the nizam’s kingdom. On Sept 17, the commander of the nizam’s forces, Major General Syed Ahmed El Edroos, accepted defeat and surrendered.

By now, even those connected to the royal family have come to terms with the collapse of their state. “It was inevitable, it was going to happen,” said Princess Esra. “How can you regret something that was obviously there?” The princess, who now moves between homes in Hyderabad, California, London and Turkey, married the heir to the Hyderabadi throne, Prince Mukarram Jah, in 1959. She recalls that when she arrived in Hyderabad she had never seen anything like it. “It was the biggest Muslim state in India, bigger than France practically. It was totally a different world.”

Even if some intellectuals in Hyderabad today mutter privately that they live in a defeated state, students at Hyderabad’s Osmania University express no desire to turn back the clock. The university, founded by Osman Ali Khan a century ago, was designed to promote the use of Urdu. “For over 200 years a monarchy was here in Hyderabad so change was due for a long period of time and democracy was the order of the day,” says law student Sanaullah Farhan.

Elsewhere in India, especially in the north, an increasingly intense culture war between Muslims and Hindus has led to violence. But so far ‘beef politics’ has found no purchase in Hyderabad. In the Old City, beef is openly on sale.

Although it has hopes of an electoral breakthrough in Hyderabad, the BJP has so far made little headway in the city. But party strategists think they have identified an issue that could rally Hindu support. They say Sept 17 should be declared a “Liberation Day” in Hyderabad.

Many Hyderabadis are sceptical about the proposal, fearing that such an appeal to identity politics will create communal divisions in a place where few currently exist. “I see no need to celebrate any kind of liberation thing,” said Mohammed Fasiullah, a 28-year-old student studying for an English literature masters degree at Maulana Azad National Urdu University.

But a BJP leader in Hyderabad, Kishan Reddy, insists his party will continue to campaign for the liberation day and rejects the claim that he is seeking to build a power base by stirring up intercommunal tension. “This is absolutely wrong,” he insists. “This is not a Hindu Muslim issue, it’s an independence issue.”

Contrasting interpretations of the nizam’s record and legacy are the subject of gentle rather than passionate debate in Hyderabad. Some, particularly from the Muslim community, argue that successive generations of the royal family helped the princely state develop, with hospitals, roads and railways. They point out that in 1945 Hyderabad even had its own airline, Deccan Airways.

But others remember it rather differently. B. Narsing Rao, 85, formerly a card-carrying member of the Indian communist party, believes such rose-tinted accounts overlook repressive aspects of royal rule. “It was a feudal state,” he says. “It was a monarchical autocracy.” Those who opposed royal rule point out that there were peasants’ revolts in Hyderabad’s Hindu-majority rural areas in the 1930 and ’40s.

Seventy years after Partition, few Hyderabadis — even among the Muslim community — express support for Pakistan. Princess Esra believes those who moved from here in 1947 and 1948 made a mistake. “They would have been better off staying here, in my opinion, because Pakistan is in turmoil,” she said in an interview with the BBC. Some Muslim politicians in Hyderabad agree. Syed Amin-ul Hasan Jafri of the All India Majlis-i-Ittehadul Muslimeen (MIM) sits in the senate of the provincial assembly. MIM is generally reckoned to be one of the most strident parties in Hyderabad when it comes to asserting Muslim rights. Asked about the relative state of Muslims in India and Pakistan he said: “We are better off than them.”

For the younger generation in Hyderabad, questions about the regal legacy are irrelevant matters of history. But when it comes to the future they express confidence. “Our constitution is great actually,” says Hajra Khulsum, a veiled Muslim student at Osmania University. “It has been made on the basis of secularism.” V. Shree Poojitha, a Hindu classmate, nods in agreement: “We are brothers and sisters together.”

Published in Dawn, August 6th, 2017

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