The Violence of Silence

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Invited contribution to Tripathi, Rama Charan (ed.), Violence and the Other. Pearson. 1

Violence of Silence: ‘Police Action’ in Hyderabad and its Aftermath

Vinod K. Jairath and Huma R. Kidwai

I. Introduction

The city of Hyderabad, and the pre-Independence ‘premier princely state' of

Hyderabad (and its earlier avatar, Golkonda) had not experienced communal violence

since its inception in the sixteenth century – till 1938.1 The period 1938-48 saw the

emergence of mass mobilization of communities along religious lines. But the

September 1948 ‘Police Action’ by the Indian Army, and the ‘fall of Hyderabad’ and

its aftermath, left a deep and traumatic scar amongst the Muslims of Hyderabad.

However, the state and the society decided to maintain complete silence about that

colossal tragedy which led to downgrading of a whole community. Despite this, there

was no communal violence in the city of Hyderabad for the next thirty years, a period

of politically orchestrated riots for 12 years from 1978-1990 and again there were no

riots from 1991 to the present date. Although much effort has been applied to explain

the susceptibility to violent confrontation and its genesis, assuming violence to be

endemic in Hyderabad society, yet it failed to account for the absence of violence for

most part.

This paper is part of a larger study of the social structure of Muslims in Hyderabad. In

the course of field work, several Muslims, both men and women, belonging to a wide

range of social, economic, political and educational backgrounds, made recurring

reference to the ‘Police Action’ of 1948, which merged the Hyderabad State into the

Indian Union through a one sided military campaign. The imprint of the event seems

1 Tension had started building up during the 1920s when there were several clashes of local nature.

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to have burned itself into the Muslim psyche deep enough to shape their responses

even after more then half a century – a permanent plastic mould, which changed their

social structure and political alignment - just as did the Babri Masjid and more

recently the Gujarat riots. This paper will attempt to trace the process of alienation

that the Muslim community experienced, through the events that led up to the military

action, and see how the silence over the violence in its aftermath led to what is called

the 'siege mentality', which, in turn, contributed to communalization and susceptibility

to violent confrontation. However, more than any physical violence, we want to draw

attention to the emotional violence experienced by the Hyderabadi Muslims of all

strata due to the silence of the state at the consequences of its actions and policies. As

we approach the completion of sixty years since the Police Action, perhaps the time

has come to break this silence2.

The process of redefining and redrawing boundaries is a direct function of the

political events that take place at the behest of those who are governed in their

decision making by political expediency and vested interest in acquisition and/or

retention of power. The ramifications are vast and far reaching in time and space. It

leaves a permanent imprint on individual psyche, the inter- and intra- community

relationships, the perception of self and the Other, group loyalties and more often

colours and distorts experienced reality which is seen through the prism of the past3. It

also, very importantly, determines or precludes the dominance of one or the other

group within the given community. The group that reacts most aggressively to events

outside the community is perceived as the protector of life and property and, more

significantly, 'honour'. Power is then accorded to it by the rest of the community

2 1990s have seen the resurgence of writings on the Partition violence by scholars like Gyanendra

Pandey, Joya Chatterji, Urvashi Butalia, Ritu Menon and Kamala Bhasin. 3 For an analysis of this complexity, see Pandey 2001.

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because it takes away the onus from the individual to 'fight' for rights/honour or

whatever is perceived as being under threat from the other. Such a ‘vocal’ group

within the community constantly ups the level of stridency in order to be 'seen' as

representing the interests of the community, thereby retaining its position of power.

These groups, for perpetuation of their own position, sanction violence against the

other, constantly redefining and reinforcing boundaries.

We have attempted to trace the genesis and the process of polarisation, the redefining

of community identities, redrawing of boundaries, investing the Other with attributes

that reinforce homogenisation of the other community, and the organisation and

dominance of groups within each community, leading to a sense of alienation

amongst the Muslims of Hyderabad, particularly since the 'Police Action' and the

events in its aftermath. In this paper, we do not intend to explain the communal riots.

In the next sections, we will very briefly recollect the traditions of the Hyderabad

State and events during the 1930s and 1940s, leading upto the 'Police Action' and the

radical downgrading transformation of the Muslim community in social, economic,

educational and political areas, resulting from it.

II. A brief history

From the time of Allauddin Khilji (r.1296-1316), the Hindu Rajas of Warangal

accepted to pay tribute to the Delhi Sultanate and later the same relationship passed

on to the Bahmani kingdom of Deccan. Out of the ruins of the Bahmani kingdom, in

late 15th century, arose five Muslim kingdoms in the Deccan - Bijapur, Ahmednagar,

Berar, Bider and Golconda. The founder of Golconda kingdom was Bada Malik Qull

Qutb-ul-Mulk, a persian by descent, who entered the service of Sultan Mahmoud

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Bahmani towards the close of the 15th century. Through his loyalty to the throne, he

rose to become Governor of Telingana. During the time of the Bahmani Sultans,

Golconda was the capital of the Governor of the Telangana provinces, and his rule

extended to the eastern coast with ports at Masulipatnam and Kakinada. When in

1489 the other Deccan Sultans threw off the semblance of submission to the Bahmani

Sultan, Qutb-ul-Mulk still remained loyal, and it was not until 1510 that he finally

declared his independence (Gribble 1896: 171).

Thus was created the kingdom of Golconda ruled by the Qutb Shahi dynasty from the

time of Qutb-ul-Mulk’s formal accession to throne in 1518 upto 1687, when

Aurangazeb overran Deccan. The fifth king of this dynasty, Muhammad Quli Qutb

Shah (r. 1580-1612), is remembered for planning and building of the city of

Hyderabad, by which name later on, the State was referred to.

The city of Hyderabad soon emerged as a flourishing and prosperous cosmopolitan

center. Jean-Baptiste Travernier, a renowned French trader and traveler, visiting

Hyderabad in 1641 describes the city as being 'nearly the size of Orleans' and the

bridge over Musi as being 'scarcely less beautiful than the Pont Neuf of Paris'. He

describes wide streets, caravan sarais, lakes and terrace-gardens. (Travernier 1676:

122-24)

Mohammad Quli is also credited with patronising the local Telugu language and

culture, along with Persian and Arabic. He was a poet of considerable merit in Telugu

and the new dialect Deccani, which was an amalgamation of Hindustani, Telugu,

Marathi, and Persian. He was the first Urdu (Deccani actually) poet who had an

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anthology of poems. All the kings of this dynasty were proficient in Telugu and the

poems of Muhammad Quli are a graphic representation of the what was later to be

called the Deccani culture, once again an amalgamation of the cultures of South India,

including the Hindu traditions and rituals of Marathi and Telugu peoples, and the

Persian-Turkish cultures.

Moghul Emperor, Aurangazeb, put an end to the Qutb Shahi dynasty in 1687, but did

not stay on to contribute any thing of value to Hyderabad. His death in 1707 resulted

in weak successors coming to the throne of the vast Moghul Empire, which, as a

consequence, dissolved into chaos.

Mir Qamarruddin, a nobleman from the line of those who came from Bukhara, then in

the region of Turkistan, was inducted, like his grandfather and father, into the service

of the Moghul court under Aurangazeb. He rose to power until he was appointed

Governor of the seven provinces of Deccan as well as Gujarat and Malwa and given

the titles of Nizam-ul-Mulk (grand vazir) and later of Asaf Jah, (meaning, just like

Asaf, the wise vazir of king Solomon). He lived to see six successors to the Delhi

throne after Aurangazeb and fought 87 battles, mostly on their behalf. He never

declared independence from the Moghul court and hence there is no clear date of

accession to the throne of Hyderabad. However, 1723 can be considered the year of

independence of the Hyderabad State from Delhi, since that is the time he left Delhi

for good and, until his death in 1748, remained in the seat of power at Hyderabad

(Gribble 1896: 376) He was succeeded by six rulers from what came to be known as

Asaf Jahi Dynasty, the last being Mir Osman Ali, the seventh Nizam of Hyderabad,

who was forced to hand over the State to the Indian Union in 1948, after a rule of 37

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years. The Asaf Jahs reigned for 225 years. In all, the region of what came to be

called the Hyderabad State had been under continuous rule by a Muslim for almost six

centuries.

The Muslim rulers of Hyderabad consciously cultivated the local cultures and

languages (Telugu, Marathi and Kannada) and brought about a unified and unique

Deccani culture and Deccani language. Whereas in most of India Aurangazeb's reign

was perceived as marking the beginning of alienation of Hindus from Muslims, the

Muslims of Hyderabad resented Aurangazeb as much as the Hindus because he had

taken Golconda fort by treachery rather than valour and they held the Qutb Shahi

rulers in high esteem. Aurangazeb had hurt their pride and made them subject people.

For Aurangazeb, it constituted the realization of a long held Moghul ambition to

subjugate the vastly wealthy kingdoms of Deccan.

Since the early nineteenth century, the British came to have increasing influence, and

the assertion of British ‘paramountcy’, in the affairs of the State of Hyderabad.

Several reforms were introduced in the State. But the ‘traditional’ structure and

culture of the society continued to be reproduced, with amity between Hindus and

Muslims of the State.

The twentieth century, however, saw some mobilization of communities along

religious lines though the prominent concern emerging was that of political power. If

‘responsible’ government, democratic and secular, was to be introduced in a society,

with about 10 per cent Muslims and about 85 per cent Hindus, ruled by Muslim elite

for centuries, then the debates and struggles around the nature of political structure

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were bound to be contentious. The political issues of power, control and decision-

making, under the circumstances, took a communal turn in Hyderabad State, as in so

many struggles elsewhere and other times. The syncretic tradition, in the process, was

disturbed.

Syncretic Tradition in Hyderabad

The people of Hyderabad, particularly the elite – both Muslim and Hindu, took a

certain pride in Hyderabad's syncretic culture and the relations between communities

were fairly amicable up to the 1920s. The legendary love of Mohammad Quli for a

Hindu commoner Bhagmati who he made his Queen and built a living city in her

name, was, and is, oft quoted. There was a state policy ‘of a careful management of

communal matters’, as for example enunciated by the sixth Nizam Mir Mahbub Ali

Khan (1884-1911), that ‘the Government should have “nothing whatever to do with

[the] religious or quasi-religious practices of its subjects”; but “when any such

practice of any community gives offence naturally to the real susceptibilities of any

other community, the Government must prevent it in the interests of peace and public

tranquility”’ (Benichou 2000:17). All ‘traditional’ religious institutions and practices

continued unhindered. In 1931, Hyderabad had 31,372 temples, 5,191 mosques, and

110 churches.

In the reign of Mir Osman Ali Khan, the last Nizam, his declaration of the Hindus and

Muslims being his two eyes, reflected the continuation of the policy of communal

impartiality. In 1923 he decreed that the slaughter of cows in public places was

henceforth forbidden in the Hyderabad State. The euphoric reaction of the Hindus was

reported in The Express, dated 8/2/1923, of Bihar: ‘Every Moslem in this country

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should follow the example of …the Nizam who has done more to promote Hindu-

Muslim unity than any other prince in India’ (Cited in Benichou 2000: 18). The

Nizam gave financial support to Hindu religious and educational institutions4. The

Nizam's dominions contained ‘Samasthans’ or semi autonomous regions under Hindu

Rajas such as Gadwal, Jetparole and Wanaparthy.

However, the interpretation of history is sometimes reconstituted to accommodate the

present dominant political and social reality, in order to seek legitimacy of its

perspective through justification in history and as an uninterrupted sequence flowing

from it. As Sudhir Kakar (1996: 30) argues:

"As far as I can see, the truth is that there are two overarching histories of Hindu-

Muslim relations - with many local variations - which have been used by varying

political interests and ideologies and have been jostling for position for many centuries.

In times of heightened conflict between the two communities, the Hindu nationalist

history that supports the version of conflict between the two assumes preeminence and

organizes cultural memory in one particular direction. In times of relative peace, the

focus shifts back to the history emphasizing commonalities and shared pieces of the

past. Many of the cultural memories which were appropriate during the conflict will

retreat, fade, or take on new meaning, while others that incorporate the peaceful

coexistence of Hindus and Muslims will resurface. And so it goes, on and on."

While much of the syncretic culture continued to exist in Hyderabad, especially

among the elites, the discourses of communal discord increasingly came to

dominate the political scene since the 1920s, particularly in the districts. Tension

and sporadic violence, though nothing like a ‘communal riot’, between Hindus and

Muslims mounted since the 1930s. Despite this, ‘It is remarkable….that at the worst

of communal massacres following the partition of India in 1947, and even though

Muslim extremism was by then at its height in the State, Hyderabad remained

unaffected’ Benichou (2000: 248-249). Javeed Alam (2006) has looked at the ‘frail

4 Banares Hindu University (Rs one lakh), Aurobindo Ashram, Pondicherry (Rs 15,000 for 6 years),

Preparation of Vedic Dictionary (Rs 1000 for 4 years), Andhra University, B.G (Rs one lakh), for more

details see Babu 2004 and Ashraf 2002.

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nature’ of the ‘composite culture’ of Hindus and Muslims and analysed why and

how it came under strain when certain interventions were made from above. The

scope of our paper does not allow us to explore the complexity of this issue here.

However, it may be pertinent to simply point out here that neither Hindus nor

Muslims constitute homogeneous entities and there are a variety of discursive

positions on the issue of syncretic or composite culture.

Run up to the ‘Police Action’

Hyderabad was one of the 601 ‘Princely States' of the Indian Subcontinent existent in

1944. Only fifteen of these were large, like Mysore, Travancore, Kashmir, Cochin,

etc., some others 'middling', and 'several hundreds of very small areas....almost that of

an average farmer's holding'(Nehru 1956: 306). Hyderabad, however, was the largest

in terms of population and a close second in terms of area, after Kashmir. It occupied

an area between the Krishna and Godavari rivers, greater than the size of England and

Scotland put together.

Some States like Mysore, Kashmir and Gwalior had Hindu Rajas for rulers and few

like Rampur, Junagarh and Hyderabad had Muslim rulers; everyone of them held

power (and some of them even their existence) at the pleasure of the British, having

proven their loyalty to them. When British exit seemed imminent, there was a general

crisis. It had, essentially, to do with protecting wealth, power and status than with

religion. It was simply not in their interest to divide the people when they needed

them most. How a movement for political rights or control developed into a

communal agenda, is an important issue here.

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Though Hyderabad State was ruled by Muslims for several centuries, Hindus

occupied an important place in its polity and economy. While Muslims in the State

occupied the privileged positions, the economy was almost completely dominated by

the Hindus. According to Benichou,

The Muslims, a minority averaging little over 10 per cent of the total population,

had retained their privileged position in the State and continued to dominate the

approximately 85 per cent Hindu majority.

This is not to say, however, that all Muslims in Hyderabad were wealthy and / or

influential. Most were, in fact, found at the lower levels of the State’s

socioeconomic order.

Based on honour and privileges, the Nizam and his family stood at the top of the

hierarchy. Paigah family, traditionally the holders of the supreme command of the

Nizam’s private guards, and in matrimonial alliances with the ruling house, took the

second place in the hierarchy. The third level comprised the high nobility. This

included the Shia group to which the family of Salar Jung belonged, the families of

Khankhana and Fakhr ul Mulk who were linked to Salar Jung by matrimony, the

Khatri family of Maharaja Kishen Pershad, the Kayasha family of the Malwalas,

Marathwada Brahmin family of Shamraj, and the Hindu families of the big

samasthans of Wanparthy and Gadwal (see Pernau 2000: 63-4). Below them came the

jagirdars, numerically dominated by Muslims, with landed estates of different

varieties and sizes. Muslim jagirdars tended to be urban dwellers and absentee

landlords.

‘Hindus, on the other hand, derived their income predominantly from agriculture,

although in the urban areas they accounted for the largest number among the well-to-

do classes in trade and commerce, banking and finance, the professions and liberal

arts, and in the middle levels of the civil service and administration’ (Benchou 2000:

15). Khalidi provides interesting details of ‘how three Hindu business communities –

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the Gujaratis, Gosains, and the Marwaris arrived, survived and flourished in the

“Muslim” dominion of the Nizams of Hyderabad in the eighteenth through the first

half of the twentieth century’ (2006: 49). Thus the Hindus ‘flourished’ economically

and even constituted a major part of the high nobility under ‘Muslim’ rule in

Hyderabad.

However the ultimate political and bureaucratic power lay with the Muslims. ‘In

1911, for instance, although Muslims accounted for 10.3 per cent of the total

population, they constituted approximately 70 per cent of the urban police force, 55

per cent of the army and 26 per cent of the public administration’ (Benchou 2000: 13).

Muslims constituted 27.7 per cent of all those employed in the category of

‘professions and liberal arts’ in 1911 whereas 77 per cent in that category were

Hindus. Similarly, in the same year, Muslims accounted for 22 per cent of all literates

in the State.5

From the above description, the Hindus do not emerge as a homogeneous category of

oppressed and poor; neither did the Muslims constitute a homogeneous category of

rich and powerful. What is of particular importance here is the fact that apart from

professionals, there was exclusivity in the domains of occupational dominance. There

were therefore few or no competing interests in the economic dispensation. This

worked for a stable socio-economic state of affairs, though it also limited class

mobility to some extent.

5 Census of India 1911, cited in Benchou 2000.

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The fiscal reforms (under pressure from the British) promulgated by the then Prime

Minister, Salar Jung I, at the turn of the century, disturbed the socio-economic order

of long standing (Lynton 1991, Ray 1988). The new revenue administration required

trained bureaucrats in large number and these were brought in from North India, again

on British recommendation (Indian Civil Services). This changed the composition of

the State bureaucracy by expanding the number of Muslim ‘non-Mulkis’ in it.

Meanwhile the Hindu landlords, like the Reddys and the Marathas, who stayed away

from the court and ran their feudal estates in the rural areas, patronising their language

and culture, coalesced into a vocal middle class and began to form cultural-linguistic

associations like the Maharashtra Parishad, Karnataka Parishad and the Andhra

Mahasabha (which later came to be dominated by the communists in Telangana).

They felt they had lost the opportunity to play a role in the new bureaucratic-decision

making dispensation. Their demands for democratic rights and civil liberties, over the

next three decades would acquire a distinct communal colour. In response, Bahadur

Yar Jung launched Majlis-e-Ittehad-ul-Muslimeen (MIM) in 1927 which played a

critical role in mobilizing Muslims of the State in large numbers during the 1930s and

1940s.

Up to the 1920s there was no political party in the State. Muslims, the elite in

particular, were loathe to associate into any political or ideological group. As

Rasheeduddin Khan explained, ‘….the inevitable democratisation involved in a party

organisation, which would have dismantled the hierarchical order and disrupted the

...sense of rank and respect... was anathema to the Hyderabad Muslim society’ (1971:

787). With the status quo preserved, the Muslims saw no threat to their position as the

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ruling class, hence there was no agenda or competition to propel them into political

association. However the community was concerned about emerging religious

matters.

Three important issues, of religious revival, regional-cultural nationalism and the idea

of ‘representation’, intertwined with each other, began to make an impact on the

‘shared culture’ of Hyderabad State during the 1920s and 1930s. Religious revival

was seen in ‘purifying’ communities of ‘outside’ influences and competitive bids to

convert others, especially members of the lowest castes. Regional cultural revivalism,

established through the emergence of Andhra Jana Kendra Sangham in 1924, and

later on Maharashtra Parishad and Karnataka Parishad, emphasized different historical

and linguistic trajectories and simultaneously pushed the Congress agenda of

responsible government and constitutional reforms. Whereas Hyderabad State

Congress pursued constitutional reforms, Andhra Mahasabha, increasingly under the

influence and control of communists, attacked landlordism in the Telangana region.

The Arya Samaj had made its entry into Hyderabad State in 1890s and in 1923 it set

up Arya Pratinidhi Sabha in Hyderabad city and immediately started work on mass

reconversion (Shuddi) from Islam. In 1932 Bahadur Yar Jung, in opposition to the

Arya Samaj's Shuddi movement, set up a society, called Anjuman-e-Tabligh-i-Islam,

for conversion of Hindus to Islam,. By this time the Hindu Mahasabha, an orthodox

Hindu organisation with branches in the rest of India, was also making its presence

felt (Khan 1980: 50).

Maratha and Andhra nationalism introduced centrifugal and fragmenting forces in

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Hyderabad. The result was a radical and, in those circumstances, an ‘unrealistic’ form

of Muslim nationalism. MIM grew rapidly during the late 1930s and 1940s. Bahadur

Yar Jung’s popularity was soaring among the Muslims of the State. On the other

hand, pressure for constitutional reforms was mounting, especially after the

Government of India Act of 1935 and, consequently, sweeping election victory of

Congress in British India. Tension and violence increased, especially with the October

1938 Satyagraha simultaneously by Arya Samaj, Hindu Mahasabha and the

Hyderabad State Congress.

In November 1938, after the first major communal riots in April of the same year,

Padmaja Naidu, in her report to Gandhiji expresses her anguish at the loss of

Hyderabad’s traditional communal harmony (cited in Benichou 2000: 66)

I still find it almost incredible, that in this short space of time, there could have been

established in Hyderabad with its long tradition of real communal harmony, the

bitterness and hostility, the demoralising distrust and suspicion that are abroad.

In relation to the reforms, MIM, under the leadership of Bahadur Yar Jung, hardened

its political stand. ‘He not only demanded the inclusion in the constitution of the

fundamental principle that Hyderabad was an Islamic State but also the establishment

of a clear predominance of the Muslims in the Legislative Assembly as well as the

introduction of separate electorates’ (Pernau 2000: 273). Debates around the reforms

and independence / accession continued well into 1948, sometimes coming very close

to an agreement. In the meantime, Bahadur Yar Jung raised Muslim volunteers

(Razakaars), as a self-defense force, who were ill-equipped and ill-trained but who

were cited as one of the reasons for “Police Action’.

Police Action and its Aftermath

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When the state uses its army against another state, it is called war, but when it turns

the army against a section of its own citizens, then it is euphemistically called 'Police

Action'. No police force was used. It is only a misnomer to make it look far less brutal

and overwhelming than it truly was.

On 13 September 1948, at 4:00 a.m., 'Operation Polo', began. Five battalions of the

Army as well as Air Force took part, entering the State from all sides. By 5:00 p.m.,

17 September - within 5 days - the Nizam surrendered and Hyderabad State ceased to

exist. But the violence had only just begun and would last for months. There had been

no resistance since the Nizams forces had neither arms, ammunition nor the capacity

to fight. The Razakars or voluntary guards were a rag-tag group of young men with

almost no concept of strategy or training, to counter the might of Indian Union.

In the course of our field work, a 70 year-old original native of Osmanabad gave us an

eyewitness account6:

The first tanks came sometime in the night...Collector, SP, etc., had all left the town at

night, escaping via Latur. Even the Army fled. Only a few 15-16 year old Razakars

were left back to fight. In the morning, I saw a tank coming. People started running

towards the tank. They were stopped by my father. Then father went because he was

congress leader of the village, he had confidence that he would be given a hearing. He

was asked to surrender. He was asked to tell the people to vacate the town and go to the

hillocks in one hour. Then father asked all the young boys with bicycles to make the

announcement. In one hour three to four thousand people left in a procession, carrying

food etc. It was drizzling. I was among them. Villagers were told to sit in a ditch all

night in the drizzle. Some babies died. The soldiers were mostly Sardarjis.

Next morning we were made to stand in 8-10 queues...a prominent Congress leader,

camping at Sholapur, gave orders to shoot particular 10 people of MIM. Army

identified them, tied them together in barbed-wire and shot them. There was dehshat

[terror] among the people who witnessed it. Then it was the turn of the Razakars...All

males above 5'2'' separated from the rest. There were 200-300 men including my elder

brother and father. They were put into trucks and taken away. Later, after 5 months of

their going we came to know that they were taken to Sholapur and Bombay, and put in

Worli Jail. Then women and children were walked 6 km to an empty jail and locked

up there. There was nothing to eat or drink. Some died after drinking contaminated

6 During an interview held on 30

th May, 2004.

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water. People plucked leaves from trees and ate them.

Next morning the same soldiers came and poured 'jowari ka daliya' on the cement

'chabutra' [platform] and asked the women and children in the prison, to eat it. Then

they asked the young boys to collect the dead bodies from the town. Some people had

not vacated their homes in the town, as per the orders of the army, and were shot dead.

We collected about 150 bodies and piled them in a ditch near a masjid in the rain.

There were more bodies there. Then we were sent back to the jail. The Hindus of the

surrounding villages were asked to loot the houses and shops of the Muslims.

According to Pernau (2000: 336):

While the occupation by the Indian army had been quick and had caused only relatively

few casualties, the following communal carnage was all the more terrible. The

Razakars had sown wind and reaped not only storm but a hurricane which in a few

days cost the lives of one-tenth to one-fifth of the male Muslim population primarily in

the countryside and provincial towers.

A.G. Noorani (2001), in an article ‘Of a massacre untold’ in the Frontline magazine,

has tried to present a balanced picture of what happened in Hyderabad during and

after the police action by citing a British scholar, Professor Wilfred Cantwell Smith,

who was a critic of ‘the Nizam’s policies and of Qasim Razvi, the leader of the

Razakars’. After his 1949 visit to Hyderabad, Smith (1950) wrote:

"Off the battlefield, however, the Muslim community fell before a massive and brutal

blow, the devastation of which left those who did survive reeling in bewildered fear.

Thousands upon thousands were slaughtered; many hundreds of thousands uprooted.

The instrument of their disaster was, of course, vengeance. Particularly in the

Marathwara section of the state, and to a less but still terrible extent in most other

areas, the story of the days after 'police action' is grim.

"The only careful report on what happened in this period was made a few months later

by investigators - including a Congress Muslim and a sympathetic and admired Hindu -

commissioned by the Indian Government to study the situation. The report was

submitted but has not been published; presumably it makes unpleasant reading. It is

widely held that the figure mentioned therein for the number of Muslims massacred is

50,000.... In some areas, all the men were stood in a line, and done to death…. In

addition to killing, there was widespread rape, arson, looting, and expropriation. A very

large percentage of the entire Muslim population of the Districts fled in destitution to

the capital or other cities; and later efforts to repatriate them met with scant success."

(Noorani: 2001, emphases in the original ).

He was referring to a report by Pandit Sundarlal (1886-1980) and Kazi Muhammad Abdul

Ghaffar(1889-1956). Although the massacres went on for months, there were no

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protests over what was happening. The might of the State was fully demonstrated and

no voice of dissent was allowed to speak. However, some rumours of violence did

reach the then Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru's office, and he appointed a

delegation to look into reports of atrocities on Muslims in the wake of the 'Police

Action'. The delegation visited Hyderabad State and submitted the report. This report

was not tabled in parliament nor made public. The States Department even denied that

there was any such official delegation. A part of the report, as cited by Noorani (2001)

reads:

Hyderabad State has 16 districts, comprising nearly 22,000 villages. Out of them

only three districts remained practically, though not wholly, free of communal

trouble which affected the state first during the activities of the Razakars and then

during the reprisals that followed the collapse of that organisation. In another four

districts the trouble had been more serious but nothing like the havoc that overtook

the remaining eight. Out of these again the worst sufferers have been the districts of

Osmanabad, Gulburga, Bidar and Nanded, in which four the number of people killed

during and after the police action was not less, if not more than 18,000. In the other

four districts viz. Aurangabad, Bir, Nalgunda and Medak those who lost their lives

numbered at least 5 thousand….We can say at a very conservative estimate that in

the whole state at least 27 thousand to 40 thousand people lost their lives during and

after the police action…..

……Almost everywhere in the affected areas communal frenzy did not exhaust itself

in murder alone in which at some places even women and children were not spared.

Rape, abduction of women (sometimes out of the state to Indian towns such as

Sholapur and Nagpur) loot, arson, desecration of mosques, forcible conversions,

seizure of houses and lands, followed or accompanied the killing. Tens of crores

worth of property was looted or destroyed. The sufferers were Muslims who formed

a hopeless minority in rural areas.

This violence could not be described as Hindu-Muslim riot. Religious revivalism and

constitutional reforms towards responsible government had created tension between

certain groups of both the communities. As in most such situations, there continued to

exist a lot of goodwill between members of the two communities.7 As the communist

leader P. Sunarayya wrote:

7 See, for example, studies of violence in Das, Veena et al. (eds.) 2002. Pandey (2001) brings out the

complexity of inter-communal relations at the local level during the Partition.

18


..the ordinary Muslim people...were pounced upon and untold miseries were inflicted

on them. The Hindu people...rescued such ordinary Muslims to the extent possible,

gave shelter to them in their houses and rescued thousands of Muslim families from

the campaign of rape and murder indulged in by Union armies. (1972: 189)

However, there was complete silence over the happenings of the 'Police Action'. It

was not a communal riot where one community is pitted against another and the state

is supposed to play a nonpartisan role in containing violence. It was the violence of

the state against a section of its own citizens in collaboration with some members of

the civil society. It must be pointed out that when the state becomes a party in a

conflict, the citizen has no avenue to seek justice since the justice system itself is an

arm of the state. Although India had declared itself a 'democratic' and 'secular'

republic only a year ago, the civil liberties of the citizens were considered dispensable

in the interest of 'larger' goals of a fledgling nation state. There was no public debate

or demand to disclose the Sunder Lal report although many had deposed before the

delegation. An eyewitness, a seventy year old man still working in a Muslim

enterprise, told us about the visit of Pandit Sunder Lal to Osmanabad:

Sunder Lal came to our town. He was Gandhi type man. Enquiry Commission was

set up. He asked all the details. Saw the dead bodies lying there. He was shocked and

could not even walk. He was sweating. Hindus learnt of his visit and threatened

him. He was advised to flee and go to Hyderabad city.

The Decline of the Community:

Apart from the trauma of violence, there were other short term and long term

ramifications for the Muslims and as it happened, for the general polity of the country.

In the short term, the loss of life, property and honour as well as livelihood left them

in a state of shock; while in the long term, their socio-economic status would result in

progressive backwardness in all parameters of development. The socio-economic and

political decline of the Muslims of the erstwhile Hyderabad State began almost from

19


the first day of 'Police Action'. Politically, the Muslims were left with no

representative voice, no recourse to justice and no access to redressal of legitimate

grievances. The MIM had been banned. Those of its leaders who had not fled to

Pakistan had been imprisoned. Muslims were removed from all responsible positions.

About the immediate administrative changes made by the Indian Union, Benichou

writes that '….a thorough reshuffle of the entire administrative machinery in the state

was undertaken. A great number of government employees - both Hindus and

Muslims, but mainly Muslims - were summarily dismissed or retired and replaced

exclusively by Indian Union personnel' (2000: 239).

Although administrative changes were expected and required, the arbitrariness and

partisan nature of it was a further blow to the already traumatised Muslims. They

could not understand why those who were in petty positions, with no decision making

authority or political allegiance were summarily dismissed. The ground reality was

that after the merger of Hyderabad State into the Indian Union, even the local Hindus

had almost no decision making positions in the new administration. Till the elections

were held in 1952, the Governor and the administrators of the 'interim government',

were appointees of the Indian Union, and came from outside Hyderabad. One senior

bureaucrat had this to relate in an interview8:

Just after the Police Action, the Director of Religious affairs, a Muslim who had

been trained abroad, was demoted to the post of Assistant Director and the Assistant

Director, Raja Tirambak Lal was promoted to the post of Director. After the Police

Action, for several years, their [Government of India’s] policy was to keep Hindus

as Section Heads....a son-in-law of a minister forced Mir Vilayat Ali Khan, a writer

and Section Officer of Board of Revenue, to resign under threat of dismissal.

Ironically, Mir Vilayat Ali Khan had written strongly against the Razakars.

Hundreds of teachers from the Education Department were dismissed. Certain

teachers were forced to draw rickshaws for their livelihood.

After the violence of Police Action and its aftermath and the dismissal, retirement and

8 Interview held on 10

th May, 2004.

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demotion of bureaucrats, petty officials and teachers on a large scale, came yet

another shock. As Pernau states, ‘At the same time the erstwhile political elite was

deprived of its economic basis through the abolition of the jagirdar system. With the

exclusion of the few who had well invested their wealth and provided the possibility

to survive even under changed circumstances for themselves and their children, this

led to the impoverishment not only of the nobility, but of all those who through the

client network in one way or another had been a part of the feudal system’ (2000:

337).

The socio-economic impact of these policies started to be felt increasingly with time,

as can be seen by the two surveys conducted by Indian Institute of Economics,

Hyderabad during the 1950s and the 1960s. Within eight years of Police Action, a

survey of the beggars in the city of Hyderabad, as cited by Alam (1996) revealed:

...48 percent [of beggars] were Muslims, a figure higher than the corresponding

number for Harijans (who constitute the most oppressed and poverty-stricken people

in Indian society). The survey also recorded that most of the Muslim 'beggars' had

been previously employees in private establishments of the gentry or had been in the

irregular forces maintained by the owners of large landed estates.

During our recent interviews with a variety of Muslim artisans in the ‘old city’ of

Hyderabad, we were initially perplexed by the same response from a large number of

them to the question, ‘For how long have you and your family been in this trade?’ So

many artisans from different trades said, ‘About fifty years’. Then on enquiring about

what their father and grandfather did, we learnt that for most of the 50-odd-years-old

artisans, their father or grandfather was directly or indirectly a state employee during

the Nizam’s time. They had lost their jobs after the Police Action and were forced to

learn new skills as artisans in different trades. Many others became rickshaw-pullers.

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Fourteen years after the 'Police Action', a survey of rickshaw-pullers brought yet more

evidence on the downward slide of the community. Some of the results of the survey

(Indian Institute of Economics, 1962) are cited by Alam (1996: 349-50):

..it was found that 75 per cent of a total of 167,000 rickshaw-pullers in the city were

Muslim. Even more significant than this proportion is the distribution of their

number between different categories. A large number of Muslim rickshaw-pullers

had not been employed as such for long. 28.2 per cent of them were former

employees of Nizam, 10.2 per cent were skilled workers who had lost their jobs

during the '50s, 8.7 per cent were unskilled workers, 5.9 per cent were retail traders,

and 14.5 per cent were casual workers. In other words, a total of 67.5 per cent of the

Muslim rickshaw-pullers surveyed had been gainfully employed only a few years

earlier. This is reflected in the fact that 47 per cent of these people were found to be

literate.

There was also a slow 'ghettoisation' of Muslims, with concentration in the ‘old city’,

especially during the period 1978-1990, when violence marked almost every small

dispute in Hyderabad. The common man on the street seemed to erupt at the slightest

provocation. Today 70 per cent of the population of ‘old city’ is Muslim. ‘Deprived of

economic opportunities with the dismantling of the feudal structure, and deprived of

its elite, who are usually the powerful spokesmen for the enhancement of the civic

amenities, the walled city as an area languishes in multiple deprivations’ (Naidu

1991:15). Summing up Naidu’s study of old Hyderabad, Kakar states, ‘The economic

picture of the walled study, described by Naidu, is dismal (1996: 14).

In the almost sixty years after Police Action, the Muslims continued to slide into

backwardness in all parameters of development. Data on literacy gives an indication

of the decline although there has been a rapid improvement in more recent years. In

1931, the literacy rate amongst Muslims was 10.4 per cent against only 4 percent

amongst Hindus, the overall average being 4.1 per cent, in the Hyderabad State. In

2001, the literacy levels show 55 per cent for Muslim men and 40.6 for Muslim

women as against 64.5 per cent for Non-Muslim men and 45.9 per cent for Non-

22


Muslim women for India. In Andhra Pradesh these figures showed marginally less

gap. However the slide has been unmistakable for Muslims in India. A recent issue of

India Today warns of its consequences:

It is not possible to imagine how any country can leave 14 per cent of its population

behind as it moves into the modern, global, geopolitical and economic spheres. The

tectonic tensions, which have not allowed legitimate channels of release, may well

cause the internalisation of anger and resultant fissures in society……We need to

look from inside of the community to the outside, to see why it has resorted to

express anger through covert means. Is it giving the members a sense of agency that

has been denied to it otherwise? (India Today, August 14, 2006)

Silences:

Silence over violation of human rights has been historically used as a tool of

suppression of the victim's (individual's / community's) other fundamental rights and

to negate the very existence of the victim. It clearly makes the victim 'invisible' and

imposes a state of 'non-existence', in the sense that the victim’s narration of violence

cannot be heard by the rest of the society, cannot therefore be addressed in terms of

dispensation of justice. Apart from denying a sense of closure, it dictates to the victim

a message that, 'You are not important enough to be heard. Your narrative has no

meaning to the rest of us. You have no place in society's awareness of itself. And

therefore, you do not exist as a victim.' This many layered invisibility message has

been very succinctly brought out in the context of the 'blacks' in United States of

America, by Ralph Ellison in his great novel, 'Invisible Man' (1947).

In the case of the Police Action, silence was four fold. Firstly, the state, on the pretext

of it being a potential for 'public disturbance', did not make public the extent and

nature of violence. It therefore did not have to hold itself accountable, nor did it have

to apply itself to compensate or rehabilitate the victims. It is surprising that Nehru

who epitomised secularism and fairness in the eyes of the nation, saw the Sunderlal

Report and chose to keep silent.

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Not only that, the violence was followed by the state policy of removing, retiring or

demoting Muslim teachers, public servants and senior bureaucrats. And then came the

abolition of jagirdari, and with it, the loss of employment for thousands of those who

depended on those families.

Secondly, the same deliberate silence marked the response of the civil society. Those

of the elite, who could have voiced their concern, chose to accept, instead, positions

vacated by the Muslims and not to ruffle the state's official position on the 'police

Action'. It would have meant a confrontation with the state and would have proved

detrimental to their interests in the future political and economic structure. Their

vested interest made them another cog in the wheel.

Thirdly, the victims, at first in trauma, assumed a silence that lasted more than half a

century. To narrate the story of violence meant to relive the trauma, the loss of agency

and the anger. It would not serve any end, because there was no legitimate forum that

could record their narratives of violence, nor was there an authority to address their

concerns.

The fallacy that has taken currency in viewing of history backward is that there did

not exist a vocal middle class amongst the Muslims and hence they remained on the

fringes of political movement. Many Muslims who were lawyers, doctors, teachers

and smaller jagirdars, were the educated middle class, considered themselves liberals,

and desired democracy and civil liberties. It was Hasrat Mohani who first proposed

Swaraj in the 21st Congress Plenary and was booed! More and more Muslims could

not find themselves a place in the Nationalist mainstream, which Nehru

acknowledged 'was dominated by Hindus and had a Hinduized look' (Nehru 1956:

24


354). Those Muslims who disagreed with the extreme views of Muslim League as

well as the Hindu influence in the Congress, especially in Hyderabad, joined the

Communist Party. The Communist Party at the Centre, decided to continue the armed

struggle against the state, even after the 'Police Action' and the merger of Hyderabad

with the Indian Union. This led to the arrest and imprisonment of Communist party

members in large numbers, thus effectively removing all vocal dissent from the public

sphere.

Finally, there was also the question of language. Hindustani was the language that had

united the whole country in the struggle for self determination. The poetry, literature,

journalism that could reach the masses, was in Hindustani. The communist party's

literary wing, Progressive Writers' Association (founded in 1936) saw many stalwarts

pen great works of patriotism and inspiration. Krishen Chander was elected the first

president and Josh Malihabadi, Faiz Ahmed Faiz, Ahmed Nadeem Qasmi, Rajinder

Singh Bedi, Raghupati Sahay Firaq, Ali Sardar Jaffery, were only a few of the famous

writers to dedicate their works to the cause of political change. In Hyderabad,

Maqdoom Mohiuddin, Suleman Areeb, Sarwar Danda, among many others, joined in.

Their intellectual discourse - political agenda of land reforms and labour laws, the

fight against feudalism and for representative governance - kept clear of communal

politics. With the partition, the language that could have communicated the anguish

had also been partitioned into Sanskritised Hindi, purging it of Persian and Arabic

words and idioms, and Persianised Urdu, purging it of Marathi, Punjabi and Sanskrit

words. Urdu thus came to connote, not the composite culture as it so far always did,

but was confined to represent only the Muslims. The fall of Urdu, rendered the

concept of syncretism untenable and isolated an entire community along with its

25


narratives. As a corollary, and with the trifurcation of Hyderabad State into areas

based on Telugu, Marathi and Kannada, the Deccani language, along with its

linguistic nuances and the Deccani culture which was considered inclusive, was

decimated and all but ceased to exist.

Conclusion:

Thus the silence, systematically imposed on the community, alienated the Hyderabadi

Muslims in a many layered sense of betrayal, injustice and being less equal as citizens

of the state. It was almost as if the Muslims wanted to put it all behind them and

pretend it did not happen. The collective memory of this particular event was not

passed down to the generations that came next. Almost sixty years later the only

mention is of how life was 'before the Police Action' or 'after the Police Action', a

watershed in time. The people who were witness to it are all now above seventy years

of age. When we spoke to younger Muslims (or Hindus), there is a total ignorance

that such an event ever occurred. It is not part of the history taught in schools of post-

Independent India. However, the 'Liberation of Hyderabad' has been glorified and the

members of the Congress Party, who took part in it, were honoured as 'Freedom

fighters', in a very small way. The fight for democratic rights and abolition of feudal

system was part of the freedom movement of the whole sub-continent; violence was a

price that Gandhi had consistently refused to pay, precisely because of its long term

impact on community relations and credibility of the Government.

Sociologists, Political Analysts and Psychoanalysts have taken pains to look at

Hyderabad as a riot prone city and to explain the inter community relationships,

community identities, collective memory, redefining of boundaries and pressures of

26


mordernisation, which make Hyderabad susceptible to violent confrontation between

Hindus and Muslims. The socio-economic, literacy levels and other parameters of

development have also been taken into account in the why and how of riots. However,

none of those theories explain the absence of riots in and around Hyderabad for thirty

years, 1948 to 1978, a whole generation after the most traumatic event when the

memory of the violence was fresh and the trauma still not so removed in time as to

become ineffectual in everyday life. It also does not explain why after the period

1978-1990, when riots became endemic and occurred with a frequency of six month

or less, there were practically no riots up to the present times, that is, during 1991-

2006. The alienation experienced by the Muslims, does not seem to have led to

violent expression. It must not be assumed, however, that the feeling of having been

unjustly treated, the anger or the distrust of the Government has disappeared.

Ironically, the adversity and alienation have resulted in a 'turning inwards' and

attempting to deal with hostile environment by finding the strength and solutions from

within, instead of depending on the Government to take any measures. The

circumstances have led to a certain sense of cohesion in the community, across the

country and within Hyderabad. There has been less and less communal-political

rhetoric, less susceptibility to be swayed by emotional issues and more inclination

towards enterprise and education. In its new avatar, the MIM has set up schools,

colleges, technical training centres, tutorials and hospitals to cater to its constituency.

The Confederation of Voluntary Organisations (COVA) has mobilised Muslim

women into small enterprises and to a coalition to combat any form of communal

conflict. Although no survey has been conducted on the issue, but the increasing role

of Muslim women in financial decision making in families where the men work in the

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West Asian countries, has resulted in more Muslim children being enrolled in private

schools that will make them far more employable than an average Muslim is at

present.

Thus the Muslim population of Hyderabad, having suffered the violence of silence

from the state and the civil society for decades, has decided to take charge of their

own situation. The Hyderabad Muslims seem, now, to be overcoming their isolation

and participating in the buoyant economy. However, the scar and trauma of silence is

still there. It will be important to break this silence so that their anguish, alienation

and anger can be better understood and overcome.

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The Violence of Silence

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