Thread:
"The Forgotten Massacre in Hyderabad"

#SardarVallabhbhaiPatel, the then home minister, was the mastermind of Operation Polo in 1948 in which 200,000 Muslims of Hyderabad were massacred. He used an Armoured Division along with the Air Force in the operation.

(contd)

Professor Wilfred Cantwell Smith, a critic of Jinnah's politics, wrote a seminal article in the periodical The Middle East Journal in 1950 (Volume 4) titled Hyderabad: A Muslim Tragedy.

"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"

Nehru commissioned a small mixed-faith team to go to Hyderabad to investigate.

(contd)

It was led by a Hindu congressman, Pandit Sunderlal. But the resulting report that bore his name was never published.

Historian Sunil Purushotham from the University of Cambridge has now obtained a copy of the report as part of his research in this field.

(contd)

The Sunderlal team visited dozens of villages throughout the state.

At each one they carefully chronicled the accounts of Muslims who had survived the appalling violence:

"We had absolutely unimpeachable evidence to the effect that there were instances in which....

(contd)

men belonging to the Indian Army and also to the local police took part in looting and even other crimes.

"During our tour we gathered, at not a few places, that soldiers encouraged, persuaded and in a few cases even compelled the Hindu mob to loot Muslim shops and houses."

The team reported that while Muslim villagers were disarmed by the Indian Army, Hindus were often left with their weapons. The mob violence that ensued was often led by Hindu paramilitary groups.

(contd)

In other cases, it said, Indian soldiers themselves took an active hand in the butchery:

"At a number of places members of the armed forces brought out Muslim adult males from villages and towns and massacred them in cold blood"

(contd)

@DalrympleWill writes in his book 'The Age of Kali' that the Operation was accompanied by serious atrocities (including murders and rapes) of thousands.

"The report, entitled on the Post-Operation Polo Massacres, Rape and Destruction or Seizure of Property in Hyderabad State,..

makes grim reading. In village after village across the state, it meticulously and unemotionally catalogued incidents of murder and mass rape, sometimes committed by troops, in other cases committed by local Hindu hooligans after the troops had disarmed the Muslim population.

A short extract, chosen at random, gives the general flavour:

"Ganjoti Paygah, District Osmanabad:There are 500 homes belonging to Muslims here. Two hundred Muslims were murdered by the goondas. The army had seized weapons from the Muslims.

(contd)

As the Muslims became defenceless, the goondas began the massacre. Muslim women were raped by the troops. Statement of Pasha Bi, resident of Ganjoti: the trouble in Ganjoti began after the army’s arrival. All the young Muslim women here were raped.

(contd)

Five daughters of Osman sahib were raped and six daughters of the Qazi were raped. Ismail Sahib Sawdagar’s daughter was raped in Saiba Chamar’s home for a week. Soldiers from Umarga came every week and after all-night rape,...

(contd)

young Muslim women were sent back to their homes in the morning. Mahtab Tamboli’s daughters were divided among Hindus, one is in Burga Julaha’s home… "

And so on, for page after page. In all, the report estimates that as many as 200,000 Hyderabadi Muslims were slaughtered.

A lower but still horrific estimate comes from UCLA Professor Perry Anderson.

“When the Indian Army took over Hyderabad, massive Hindu pogroms against the Muslim population broke out, aided and abetted by its regulars.

(contd)

On learning something of them, the figurehead Muslim Congressman in Delhi, Maulana Azad, then minister of education, prevailed on Nehru to let a team investigate. It reported that at a conservative estimate between 27,000 and 40,000 Muslims had been slaughtered....

(contd)

in the space of a few weeks after the Indian takeover. This was the largest single massacre in the history of the Indian Union".

(contd)

A German Scholar, Margrit Pernau records in her book The Passing of Patrimonalism that:

"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.

(contd)

The Razakars had sown wind and reaped not only storm but a hu rricane 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".

(page 336, emphasis added, throughout. See review on page 75).