Government of India approves year-long commemoration of the “Hyderabad Liberation Day”

Source: The post is based on the article “Government of India  approves  year-long commemoration of the “Hyderabad Liberation Day” published in PIB on 4th September 2022.

What is the News?

The Ministry of Culture will organize the inaugural programme of the year-long commemoration of the Hyderabad Liberation Day on 17th September 2022.

The date assumes significance as it was on 17 September 1948 that the erstwhile Hyderabad State under Nizam rule merged with the Indian Union.

Liberation of Hyderabad

India had several princely states. When the British left India in 1947, they gave the princely states the option of joining India or Pakistan or remaining independent. 

Out of the 565 princely states that existed at the time, 562 decided to join India. However, neither did Hyderabad, Junagadh, nor Kashmir, three princely states, integrate into India or demonstrate any interest in doing so.

The state of Hyderabad was under the Nizam which included the whole of current-day Telangana, the Marathwada region in Maharashtra and several regions of Karnataka.

The Nizam of Hyderabad hoped to retain his sovereignty and opposed the idea of merging with India after Independence. Osman Ali Khan Asaf Jah VII, the last Nizam of the princely state of Hyderabad proclaimed Hyderabad as a sovereign state and this added to the tension and led to communal clashes.

The Indian government did not want Hyderabad to remain free fearing that it would lead to the country’s balkanization. 

The then Home Minister Sardar Patel referred to the concept of an independent Hyderabad as “an ulcer in the heart of India which needed to be removed surgically.”

Hence, India decided to annex Hyderabad and named the operation “Operation Polo”. On September 13, 1948, Indian forces attacked Hyderabad. In a five-day battle, the Indian Army took Hyderabad and fully integrated it into Indian territory by decisively defeating Nizam.