OPINION | Hyderabad’s Journey from Independence to Integration: The fall of the Nizam

At the time of independence, Hyderabad was ruled by Mir Osman Ali Khan, the last Nizam of the princely state.

When India celebrated its independence on 15 August 1947, Hyderabad opted out of the national euphoria, seeking to remain independent. The 13 months that followed—from India’s liberation from British rule to Hyderabad’s eventual accession on 17 September 1948—were marked by intense negotiations, political drama, and ultimately a decisive military action that brought Hyderabad into the Indian Union.

At the time of independence, Hyderabad was ruled by Mir Osman Ali Khan, the last Nizam of the princely state. He considered his state special due to his unflinching loyalty to the British. Be it the mutiny of 1857 or the two world wars, he had always sided with the British Crown. Even when Turkey’s rulers sided with the Axis powers during World War I and appealed to the Muslims in India and elsewhere to revolt against the imperialist power, the Nizam defied that appeal and urged them to support the British, not the Ottoman Caliph, who was considered the spiritual head of Islam.

Hyderabad Nizam's Stubborn Stance for Independence

John Zubrzycki, in his critically acclaimed book Dethroned: Patel, Menon and The Integration of Princely India, writes: “The negotiations with Hyderabad, conducted primarily by Mountbatten, Nehru, and Menon between August 1947 and June 1948, were long and torturous.” Mountbatten’s account of them in his final dispatch to the King as Governor-General ran to more than 27,000 words, with Menon’s report of about the same length.

According to Zubrzycki, during this period, “agreements were frustrated by last-minute brinkmanship on the part of the Nizam, spurred on by the nationalist Ittihad ul-Musslimeen (IUM) and its fanatical leader Kasim Razvi.”

Historian Ramachandra Guha, in his seminal work India After Gandhi: The History of the World's Largest Democracy, writes that the Nizam was determined that his state, after the exit of the British, should remain independent with “relations forged directly between him and the Crown.”

Guha also writes that when Lord Mountbatten suggested that Hyderabad should join the Constituent Assembly, the Nizam’s lawyer said that if India pressed too hard, his client might “seriously consider the alternative of joining Pakistan.”

Losing Hyderabad was not an option for India, as it would have cut off northern India from the South. Sardar Patel was categorical in rejecting any such proposition and remarked that an independent Hyderabad would be like a “cancer in the belly of India.”

Patel’s political prudence convinced him that the Nizam would not fall in line through negotiations. However, Mountbatten believed that he could handle the Nizam with Jawaharlal Nehru’s help. Narayani Basu, in her biography of V. P. Menon, who played a significant role in the integration of princely states as Patel’s most trusted lieutenant, writes that Patel did not buy this optimism. Basu, while quoting from an interview of H. V. Iyengar, writes, “Patel, said Iyengar, shrugged this off. ‘You are dealing with a fox. I do not trust that fellow, the Nizam. I think he will let you down. Nevertheless, as you say that you are going to deal with him, I will keep off and let you handle this problem yourself.’”

Patel’s assessment proved correct. Basu writes, “Throughout July 1947, as the States Ministry tried to get Hyderabad on board, discussions between the delegation (led by the Nawab of Chhatari) and V. P. Menon kept floundering against the rock of Hyderabad's obstinacy. The Nizam might be interested in the Standstill Agreement, suggested the Nawab archly, but he did not want to consider accession. It had become evident that the Nizam was not prepared to do the same thing that other rulers had done.”

Fanaticism and Militancy in Hyderabad

The hostility towards the idea of joining India ran deep in the Nizam and his supporters—most violently expressed by the Razakars, the militia led by Qasim Razvi. On 15 August 1947, when Congress workers hoisted the national flag in parts of Hyderabad, they were branded as “offenders,” arrested, and jailed. The hatred turned brutal when journalist Shoebullah Khan, who favoured Hyderabad’s merger with India through his Urdu daily Imroze, was assassinated—his hands cruelly chopped off before his murder.

Guha writes that the Nizam, and more so the Razakars, also drew sustenance from the support for their cause from Pakistan. Jinnah had gone so far as to tell Lord Mountbatten that if Congress attempted to exert any pressure on Hyderabad, every Muslim throughout the whole of India, yes, all the hundred million Muslims, would rise as one man to defend the oldest Muslim dynasty in India.

Diverging Approaches of Sardar Patel and Lord Mountbatten

However, after independence, India, under Sardar Patel, adopted a firmer stance. In November 1947, the Nizam reluctantly agreed to sign a ‘Standstill Agreement,’ which essentially extended the arrangements Hyderabad had earlier enjoyed with the British Raj to the new Indian government. Under its terms, both parties would maintain the status quo and post representatives in each other’s territories. However, by then, the real powers had passed to the Razakars and their leader Qasim Razvi, who had taken a vow in the name of Allah to “fight to the last to maintain the supremacy of Muslim power in the Deccan.”

By June 1948, the situation had worsened with allegations of “gun-running from Pakistan to Hyderabad” and an open threat by the Razakars of killing Hindus, who constituted 85 per cent of the population of the state.

Earlier, in June 1948, India’s demand for a representative government and a plebiscite on accession in Hyderabad was flatly rejected by the Nizam. Even Lord Mountbatten, before resigning on 21 June 1948, urged the Nizam to compromise—but his advice too was ignored. Finally, in September, events reached their decisive turn. Operation Polo was launched. In four days, the Razakars were annihilated, and on 17 September, the Nizam agreed to join the Indian Union.

Hyderabad's Final Act of Accession to India

An interesting anecdote has been shared by Zubrzycki in his book Dethroned. He writes that when Mountbatten discovered that the Indian government had drawn up plans for a military invasion of Hyderabad, codenamed ‘Operation Polo,’ his first reaction was one of disbelief—that a military plan had been named after his beloved sport. “It could hardly have been better calculated to add insult to injury to me personally,” he wrote to King George VI.

Rajmohan Gandhi narrates an equally interesting incident in his book Patel: A Life. After his defeat, the Nizam duly acceded to India, disowned the Razakars, withdrew the complaint to the UN, accepted a constitutional role, welcomed representative rule, and surrendered his vast holdings of land.

Gandhi writes, “Though he continued to avoid going to Delhi, he was at the airport when, in February 1949, the Sardar made his first visit after Polo to Hyderabad. The Nizam folded his hands to greet his victor. Earlier, spotting the Nizam from his plane, Vallabhbhai had said to Shankar, ‘So His Exhausted Highness is here.’”