Hyderabad: The BJP-led Centre commemorates 17 September as Liberation Day, and Telangana’s erstwhile Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) government observed it as Integration Day. Now in power in Telangana, the Congress will celebrate it as Praja Palana Dinotsavam, or People’s Governance Day.
The day is of immense historical significance in the Deccan but has communal overtones. It becomes a political flashpoint every year, more now than ever as different parties in Telangana observe the day with a moniker in line with their ideology and position.
Opposition parties BRS and BJP are objecting to Chief Minister Revanth Reddy’s appellation, questioning his rationale behind the naming of the day.
On 17 September 1948, over 13 months after India’s independence from the British, the erstwhile princely state of Hyderabad became a part of India. Present-day Telangana and vast expanses of Maharashtra and Karnataka were under the Nizam’s rule before that.
On 11 September this year, Telangana Chief Secretary Santhi Kumari issued an order, saying the CM will hoist the national flag and take the salute in Hyderabad on Telangana Praja Palana Dinotsavam while ministers and other dignitaries will do the same in the district headquarters. All government offices, urban local bodies, and gram panchayats will also have to hoist the Tricolour.
On Friday, CM Reddy wrote to Union Home Minister Amit Shah, inviting him to attend the Telangana Praja Palana Dinotsavam as a special guest, “to celebrate the anniversary of the arrival and heralding of democracy on Hyderabad soil”.
“True, the day is being referred to by different names, with contrasting arguments. As a government committed to people’s welfare and administration driven by public aspiration, we have aptly named it People’s Governance Day,” said Adi Srinivas, Congress MLA and government whip in the assembly.
In 1948, the seventh and last Nizam of Hyderabad, Mir Osman Alim Khan, surrendered to the new Indian State, but only after an intervention by the Indian Army. Starting on 13 September 1948, the five-day intervention — known as ‘police action’ or Operation Polo — culminated in Hyderabad’s integration into India.
Historians paint the period before and after Operation Polo as a painful memory for Hindus and Muslims, respectively.
The Nizam’s rule was considered largely free of communal tensions. However, the Nizam’s militia — Razakars under Qasim Razvi — came down heavily on Hindus in 1947-48, remembered as a dark period in history. Razvi is also said to have influenced the Nizam to abstain from joining India in 1947.
The Muslim minority community, on the other hand, saw dark times during the ‘police action’ and in the subsequent days. The Sunderlal Committee Report, submitted in 1949 but not made public till 2013, estimated that Operation Polo cost 27,000-40,000 lives.
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Politics driving how 17 September is commemorated
Over the past few years, the Telangana BJP has been trying to galvanise sentiments for Vimochana Divas (Liberation Day), portraying the occasion of Hyderabad’s integration into India as the “liberation of the vast majority of Hindus from a tyrannical Nizam rule”.
The party credits Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, India’s first home minister, for Hyderabad’s liberation.
“Telangana’s mukti (liberation) completed 75 years today, which would not have been the case without Sardar’s timely intervention. The Hyderabad ‘police action’, strategised by him, respecting the sentiments of the locals suffering under the cruel Nizam’s rule, led to the surrender of the Nizam’s Razakars, without bloodshed,” Home Minister Amit Shah said at the Secunderabad Parade Grounds on 17 September last year, while attending the Union Ministry of Culture’s ‘Liberation Day’ event.
However, given the communal overtones of the day, the BRS and the Congress have been treading more cautiously. This caution, however, has elicited accusations of “appeasement” politics from the BJP’s end.
The state has a majority Hindu population of 85 percent, and Muslims constitute a significant 13 percent.
From KCR to Revanth, BJP takes umbrage at naming
Neither in united Andhra Pradesh nor in a separated Telangana was 17 September commemorated officially till 2023.
Last year, K. Chandrasekhar Rao, feeling pressure from the Centre, which had announced Liberation Day festivities, marked it as Telangana Jateeya Samaikyatha Dinotsavam (National Integration Day). The All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) agreed with the appellation.
Earlier, the Congress party referred to 17 September with a more innocuous moniker — “merger day”.
“What does Revanth mean by Praja Palana Diwas now? Is he insinuating that Nizam’s rule was feudal and tyrannical? And that the day marked the shift to democracy?” said BRS senior leader and spokesperson Dasoju Sravan Kumar, speaking to ThePrint.
He added: “At a time when under his administration and directions, HYDRAA (Hyderabad Disaster Response and Assets Monitoring Agency) is demolishing houses and rendering many poor people homeless, when many of his election promises remain unfulfilled, and when opposition MLAs are getting lured to the ruling side in a mockery of democracy, it is ridiculous that CM Revanth wants to call 17 September Praja Palana Diwas.”
The Telangana BJP opposed the name as well. “17 September is when the Hyderabad state became a part of India, and the oppressed masses proudly became Indian citizens. The historical day signifies the sacrifices of thousands who fought the despotism of the Nizam and Razakaars. Revanth seems to be discounting the hardships and struggle of the time and disregarding the valorous fight,” Ramchander Rao, a former MLC and BJP national executive member, told ThePrint.
A year ago, the BJP similarly accused KCR of refusing to commemorate ‘Liberation Day’ and honouring the martyrs of 1948, “to appease his Muslim friend AIMIM”.
Now, the party is saying Revanth is walking in the footsteps of his predecessor.
“The CM is keen on getting AIMIM on his side and named the day in line with it. This lacks rationale. We demand that the state government commemorate it as Vimochana Diwas,” Rao said.
(Edited by Madhurita Goswami)
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