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Hyderabad massacres

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1948 Hyderabad massacres
Part of the Indian annexation of Hyderabad (Operation Polo)
Indian Army officers ordered the surrender of all arms, but in practice, only Muslims were disarmed. Hindus, whom the military deemed less of a threat, were often allowed to keep their weapons which resulted in the massacres.[1]
Hyderabad State (coloured in red)
LocationHyderabad State (hardest-hit areas were Osmanabad, Nanded, Gulbarga and Bidar[2] [3])
Date13 September 1948 (1948-09-13) - October 1948; 76 years ago (1948-10)
TargetHyderabadi Muslims
Attack type
mass murder, pogrom,[4][5], arson, ethnic cleansing, genocidal rape, systematic torture, lootings by Indian soldiers.[6]
Deaths27,000–40,000 (according to the Sunderlal Committee's estimate)[7]
PerpetratorsHindu Militias,
Indian Army
MotiveIslamophobia Retributive violence[2]
Religious bigotry[8]
Part of a series on
Violence against Muslims
in independent India
Major incidents

The Hyderabad massacres[9] refers to the mass killings and genocidal massacre of Hyderabadi Muslims that took place in the aftermath of the Indian annexation of Hyderabad (Operation Polo). The killings were perpetrated by local Hindu militias, and by the Indian Army. An official "very conservative estimate" puts the total civilian death toll at 27,000–40,000 civilians between September–October 1948;[10] other scholars have put the figure at 200,000, or even higher.[11] Apart from mass killings, activists such as Sundarayya mention systematic torture, rapes, and lootings by Indian soldiers.[6]

Background

See also: Annexation of Hyderabad

Violence

The violence occurred in many rural areas, however, the hardest-hit areas were Osmanabad, Nanded, Gulbarga and Bidar[2] where "the sufferers were Hindus who formed the hopeless minority."[3]

The crimes that were committed by the Hindu militias included the desecration of mosques, mass killings, the seizure of houses and land, looting and burning of Muslim shops, as well as the rape and abduction of Muslim women.[12][13][2]

In addition to mass killings, activists such as Sundarayya claim that Indian soldiers systematically engaged in torture, rape, and looting.[6]

The Pandit Sunderlal Committee that was commissioned by Jawaharlal Nehru, in his "personal capacity"."[3] Its Report contained a detailed description of the violence that took on during[verification needed] and after Operation Polo.[2] The report, although made in 1948, was kept hidden from public eyes, until it was made available for viewing at the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library.[2][14] It is unconfirmed why the report was hidden, but some say it was to prevent further instances of communal violence by Razakars from happening. Vallabhbhai Patel refused to accept this report, and when sent a copy, had said, "There could have been no question of Government of India sending any goodwill mission to India...There is all about the Razakar atrocities on Hindus..."[15] The Confidential Notes of the Sunderlal Report, the authors issued an entire section of Razakar atrocities.

"During our tours, we also heard statements of Razakar atrocities...Their atrocities chiefly consisted of levying monthly amounts i.e., Zizya (Jaziya) on every town and village. Wherever these amounts were willingly paid there was generally no further trouble. But at places they were resisted, loot, rape and murder of innocent Hindus followed. If there was no trouble during the loot trouble generally ended, in the removal of looted property, sometimes in motor trucks. But wherever there was further resistance, arson, murder, even rape and abduction of women followed."[3]

The report also conservatively put the death toll to between 27,000 and 40,000 Hindu civilian lives lost.[3] Violence by Muslims is told largely through the report, eyewitness accounts and other sources.

"In Osmanabad....the town of Latur in the same district fared even worse. Some witnesses told us that the number of Hindus murdered by Muslims in Latur was somewhere between 2000 and 2500...Latur was a big business centre. It had big Kutchi merchants. The total Hindu population was nearly ten thousand. When we visited the town, it was barely three thousand. Many ran away to save their lives, The killing lasted twenty days...Our idea is that the total killed in Gulbarga district must have been between 5000 and 8000...The district of Bidar fared at least as ill if not worse than Gulbarga. The fourth district is Nanded. With the total killed according to our estimate somewhere between 2000 and 4000. When we talk of killing, we do not include those who died fighting but only those murdered in cold blood."[1]

"It appears that as the Hindu population fled in panic towards the headquarters of the state or other villages which they thought might be safer but it was not, a very large number was killed on the way and in the jungles. In many places we were shown well or Bawaries still full corpses rotting. In one such, we counted 11 bodies which included that of a woman with a small child sticking to her breast...We saw several such wells. We saw remnants of corpses lying in ditches. At several places, the bodies had been burnt and we could see the charred bones and skulls still lying there."[1]

Another important feature of the violence was the role of the Razakars and Nizam administration in the violence of the massacres.

"...we had unimpeachable evidence to the effect that there were instances in which men belonging to the Razakars and also to the local police took part in the looting and local crimes...soldiers encouraged, persuaded and in a few cases even compelled the Muslim mobs to loot Hindu homes and shops. In another district, a judge's house, among others, was looted by soldiers and a Tehsildar's wife was molested. Complaints of molestation and abduction of girls, against Indian soldiers, was none or very rare."[3]

"We are also informed that a large mix of trained and armed men from a well-known Hindu organization filtered into the state along with the Indian Army from Sholapur...The Indian Army wherever it went, ordered the people to surrender all arms. The order applied to Hindus and Muslims alike. But in practice, while all arms were taken from the Muslims, sometimes with the Hindu population, the Hindus from whom the Indian military had little to fear were left in possession of their arms."[1]

See also

References

  1. ^ a b c d Noorani, A.G. (2014). "Appendix 14: The Sunderlal Committee Report on the Massacre of Muslims". The Destruction of Hyderabad. New Delhi: Tulika Books. pp. 361–375. ISBN 978-93-82381-33-4.
  2. ^ a b c d e f "Hyderabad 1948: India's hidden massacre". BBC News. 24 September 2013.
  3. ^ a b c d e f Noorani, A.G. (2014). The Destruction of Hyderabad. New Delhi: Tulika Books. pp. 221–246. ISBN 978-93-82381-33-4.
  4. ^ Anderson, Perry (19 July 2012). "Perry Anderson · Why Partition?". London Review of Books. 34 (14). Retrieved 5 March 2024.
  5. ^ Aiyar, SA (25 November 2012). "Declassify report on the 1948 Hyderabad massacre". Times of India. Retrieved 5 March 2024.
  6. ^ a b c Telangana People's Struggle and Its Lessons. Foundation Books. 1972. ISBN 9788175963160.
  7. ^ Dam, Abhirup (17 September 2015). "Hyderabad 'Liberation' Day? The Price Was 27,000 Massacred". TheQuint. Retrieved 3 February 2023.
  8. ^ Sherman, Taylor C. (2007). "The integration of the princely state of Hyderabad and the making of the postcolonial state in India, 1948 – 56" (PDF). Indian Economic & Social History Review. 44 (4): 489–516. doi:10.1177/001946460704400404. S2CID 145000228. The Committee generally credited the military officers with good conduct but stated that soldiers acted out of bigotry.
  9. ^ Purushotham, Sunil (19 January 2021). From Raj to Republic: Sovereignty, Violence, and Democracy in India. Stanford University Press. ISBN 978-1-5036-1455-0.
  10. ^ PURUSHOTHAM, SUNIL. “Internal Violence: The ‘Police Action’ in Hyderabad.” Comparative Studies in Society and History, vol. 57, no. 2, 2015, pp. 435–66. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/43908352. Accessed 14 June 2024.
  11. ^ Noorani, A.G. (3–16 March 2001), "Of a massacre untold", Frontline, 18 (5), retrieved 8 September 2014, The lowest estimates, even those offered privately by apologists of the military government, came to at least ten times the number of murders with which previously the Razakars were officially accused...
  12. ^ Gulbargavi, Talha Hussain (17 September 2022). "1948 Hyderabad Massacre: A Timeline". The Cognate. Retrieved 15 July 2023.
  13. ^ MuslimMirror (18 September 2022). "The first genocide of Muslims in independent India is celebrated each year on September 17". Muslim Mirror. Retrieved 15 July 2023.
  14. ^ Mir Ayoob Ali Khan (15 December 2013). "Telangana statehood issue: Lessons to learn from Hyderabad's past". Times of India.
  15. ^ Nandurkar, G.M., ed. (1978, 1981), Sardar's Letters, Mostly Unknown, Ahmedabad: Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel Smarak Bhavan
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