Hyderabad was never an Independent State

Preface

ON SEPTEMBER 17, 1948, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel decisively extinguished the moth-eaten state of Hyderabad in less than 48 hours. On The Dharma Dispatch, we’ve published several essays dissecting the alleged glory and splendour of this oppressive Muslim despotism in which 90 per cent of Hindus were in the thrall of a heartless Nizam.

After the British departed in 1947, Nizam Mir Osman Ali persisted in his obstinacy to remain “independent.” Even as Patel, K.M. Munshi, et al., were trying to shine the light of sobriety and common sense into the Nizam’s opaque psyche, public opinion was unambiguous: Osman Ali had to go. 

Acharya Jadunath Sarkar was at the forefront of those who wanted this rabid “cancer in India’s belly” to be permanently eradicated. His Herculean status as India’s towering historian enabled him to detect in Hyderabad (then spelled as Haidarabad) what most people had failed to detect: that since its inception, Hyderabad had never been an independent state.

In a majestic essay in August 1948 — a month before Operation Polo —  Jadunath Sarkar compressed a 224-year-old history in the space of about 1600 words. It was titled, From Asaf Jah I to Osman Ali. It remains one of the authoritative expositions on the subject. 

Happy reading!