archive: How Hyderabad escaped the fate of Kashmir
How Hyderabad escaped the fate of Kashmir
V.P. Bhatia
Organiser
July 18, 1999
Title: How Hyderabad escaped the fate of Kashmir
Author: V.P. Bhatia
Publication: Organiser
Date: July 18, 1999
An interesting story is told about how Pt. Nehru in collusion with
Mountbatten opposed till the end Sardar Patel's resolve to solve the
Hyderabad problem at one go by Police action in September, 1948 as the
Nizam was conspiring to set up a free Muslim State in the heart of
India. This shilly-shallying on the part of Indian Government
encouraged the Nizam not only to conspire against India even in
collusion with Pakistan and the Tory elements, including Churchill in
Britain, but also the Portuguese in Goa. Right till his stay in India
by June 21, 1948, Mountbatten was trying for special status for
Hyderabad even while the Nizam was dreaming of keeping Hyderabad
independent and even becoming a member of the UNO. Unlike rulers of
other States he was given a year's stand-still agreement to make up
his mind on the final accession with India. As a result the Nizam's
paltry forces and the hordes of fanatical Razakars under Kasim Rizvi
were being constantly strengthened, arms being brought in from UK and
other European countries to fight India and atrocities being
perpetrated on the 90 per cent Hindu population of the State to
Islamise them or drive them out of the State. Even contiguous
territories of India in Madras and Bombay provinces were being raided.
As Durga Das, a former Editor of The Hindustan Times, narrates in his
memoires India-From Curzon to Nehru, there were 'days of tenseness and
high drama' in New Delhi particularly in the Cabinet. Pt. Nehru still
wanted a peaceful solution, for fear of Pakistan's reaction, while
Patel was pressing for Police action soon after Mountbatten left. And
as Pt. Dwarka Prasad Mishra, a Patelite who was then Home Minister of
Madhya Pradesh, relates in his memoirs (Living an Era) how opposed
Nehru was to the use of force for fear of Pakistan, was revealed to
him by Dr Syama Prasad Mookerjee, a Central Cabinet Minister at that
time.
Syama Prasad Mookerjee's retort to Nehru
According to this story told by Dr Mookerjee, "When a Cabinet meeting
had ended after deciding to resort to Police action, Nehru sent for
him (Mookerjee) and after expressing displeasure for his support to
Patel in resorting to Police action, warned him that Pakistan would
retaliate by invading West Bengal and that Calcutta might be bombed.
Mookerjee had then replied that the people of West Bengal and Calcutta
had enough patriotism to suffer and sacrifice and would rejoice to
hear that (General) J.N. Chaudhuri, a Bengali (who was to lead the
Police action) had conquered Hyderabad."
The Nizam had advanced Rs 20 crore as help to Pakistan and stationed a
bomber plane there. In fact, the then British Chief of Indian Army,
Sir Rob Lockhart, had told Nehru that Pakistan would invade India and
Hyderabad too had built up a strong military forces under his friend
Gen. El Droos so that it could resist Indian forces for many months
whereas actually it surrendered within four days.
The Police action had indeed been postponed again and again at Nehru's
behest for four months. Originally, it was to begin in May, 1948, with
a view to bringing it to successful termination before the monsoon.
But Mountbatten did not want it when he was still the Governor
General. He had in fact been warning Nehru that there would a Muslim
uprising in India against it. His Tory friend, Sir Walter Monckton,
had become legal adviser to the Nizam and was negotiating with India.
But he left disgusted as Nizam was rejecting draft after draft of
agreement, and even trying to secure the port of Goa from the
Portuguese as an outlet for independent Hyderabad. The hurdle was
removed as Mountbatten left India on June 22, 1948. After
Mountbatten's exit, when the Nizam still talked of further agreement,
Patel publicly declared, "Agreement has gone to England."
Later, as Durga Das says : "Twice the zero hour was fixed by Patel,
who as Home Minister, was to authorise the Police action, and on each
occasion, he was compelled to cancel it under heavy political
pressure. The zero hour was then fixed for the third time (for
September 13) and Patel was determined to see it through. Once again a
hitch developed at the eleventh hour. The Nizam appealed personally to
C. Rajagopalachari (who had taken over as Governor-General from
Mountbatten), who conferred with Nehru and they both decided to call
off action again. Patel was informed and the question of drafting a
suitable reply to the Nizam arose. Defence Secretary H.M. Patel and
V.P. Menon were summoned and they exhausted three hours in
consultation and in formulating a reply. When the reply was finally
ready, Patel coolly announced that the Army had already moved into
Hyderabad and nothing could be done to halt it. Defence Minister
Baldev Singh and Patel were of one mind and had resolved to bring the
Nizam to his senses and not yield to any further counsel of
wreakness."
Durga Das, the veteran journalist who was very close to Maulana Azad
and Sardar Patel since the days of Independence movement, further
writes, "I kept a tab on this midnight meeting through telephonic
connection with Patel's residence. Not unexpectedly Nehru and C.R.
were at once agitated and worried whether it would provoke retaliation
by Pakistan. Within twenty-four hours, the action was successfully
underway and there were smiles all around."
In fact, CR wanted to postpone it further as a gesture to Pakistan as
Jinnah had died the previous night. But Patel refused.
The police action started early on September 13 as the Indian Army
marched in from four corners of the State and the Nizam's forces
surrendered to Gen. Chaudhuri on September 17. However, as it is said,
'even after a rope is burnt, the twist remains'. The Nizam went to the
airport when Nehru visited Hyderabad some weeks after surrender, but
sometime later he was unwilling to extend the same courtesy to Sardar
Patel, but was ultimately prevailed upon to present himself at the
airport. In the course of the conversation, the Nizam told Patel, "To
err is human!" To which Patel replied acidly, this was true but
"errors also had their consequences".
Patel's pride of Hindu triumph over Nizam
As Rajmohan Gandhi says in his book Patel-A Biography (Navjeevan
Publishing House), the Sardar was, however, feeling a sense of Hindu
pride that the last vestiges of Mughal rule over Hindu majority had
been ended by his 'central role' in the operation. "We see a touch of
this pride in his encounter with the Nizam: here Patel squares, on
behalf of Hindus, an ancient account with the Muslims. In righting the
Delhi-Hyderabad equation, he also righted the Hindu-Muslim one. His
frankness with the Nizam is of a rough and even brutal kind. He
arraigns and exposes a defeated adversary in front of others. He does
so because he cannot forget, in his moment of triumph, past wrongs on
Hindus. Yet if the victor bears a trace of an avenger's tongue...
ready to hurt, Vallabhabhai was also ready to be a friend." (p. 485)
It is interesting to note that while advising a special status for
Hyderabad, Mountbatten said it would keep a certain equilibrium in
India by Hindu-Muslim parity!
However, Patel treated the Nizam, whose Razakar lashkars were dreaming
of conquering Red Fort, generously otherwise. He was kept as
Rajpramukh of the State till the reorganisation of States in 1956.
Ironically, this courtesy was not extended to Maharaja Hari Singh who
had not fought India like the Nizam, but had merged the State
willingly despite Nehru's hostility to him. He was forced to abdicate
in June, 1949, and leave the State permanently and reside in Bombay at
Sheikh Abdullah's pressure, despite promises of fair treatment to him
prior to accession. Even Patel could not help him because of
Nehru-Abdullah axis for fear of which the accession had been delayed
by the Maharaja.
Anyway, the interesting thing is that though Pt. Nehru opposed
Hyderabad's take over by Police action till the bitter end, he was
later thankful to Sardar when he realised during his visit to London
and Paris a month later in October, 1948, that how unlike Kashmir,
there was little mention of Hyderabad and Junagarh in foreign
conclaves, although the Nizam had complaint in the UNO against India
in early September, 1948, and Pakistan had supported it. For unlike
Nehru's handling of J&K, Sardar Patel had solved these problems
successfully and presented the world with a fait accompli. There were
no more embarrassing questions in the international arena after that
although Pakistan kept making noises for some time.
"What is the use of Parliament if you know everything?" said Dr
Mookerjee to Nehru
Anyway, this is what Nehru wrote to Sardar in his letter from Paris
dated 27 October, 1948, in this context :
"My visits to London and Paris have helped me not only to understand
the international situation a little better but also and more
specially the position of India in relation to it... Both Hyderabad
and Kashmir have troubled people a lot here (Paris which was temporary
headquarters of UNO then) and in London. It is recognised, of course,
that the Hyderabad affair is over from international point of view. It
is very fortunate that we could dispose of it rapidly. Otherwise
reactions to it would have been very much adverse to us as it is
difficult to explain everything..." Questions, however, were still
being asked about the future of the Nizam, etc., but that was just by
the way, he wrote.
In case of Kashmir, however, he said although our case is a "good
one", "this business of Plebiscite and conditions governing it fills
people's mind". All kinds of discussions and wrangling with the
Pakistan Prime Minister Liaquat Ali Khan, who too had come to attend
the Commonwealth Prime Ministers' Conference in London had been going
on.
Nehru's naivete about the potential of newly emerging China is
strikingly visible in this letter when he writes : "Definitely India
is considered a potential great Power and especially as a dominant
Power in Asia, apart from USSR in the north... In Asia, everyone knows
that China cannot play an effective part for a very long time. The
only country in Asia is India, capable of playing this part. Pakistan
of course does not come into the picture at all."
It is true that India was considered a potential great power at that
time, but it gradually lost out in the race, as it neglected building
up its armed might, as Nehru thought that only his personal image as
moralistic peace-maker and ace diplomat could overawe the world. No
wonder, we find China challenging India's interests in Tibet within a
year and Pakistan becoming a menace with generous US aid by 1954,
reducing India to the position of a supplicant. Sardar Patel had
sensed Chinese challenge even in 1950 as Nehru compromised over
Chinese thrust in Tibet as buffer State. In a couple of letters to
Nehru, Patel had challenged his handling of Tibetan affairs but as
usual Nehru replied he knew better.
Incidentally, this was the reply that Nehru gave to Dr Syama Prasad
Mookerjee also when the latter in his famous speech on Kashmir drew
Nehru's attention to disintegrative consequences of Sheikh Abdullah's
actions, turning J&K into a republic within a republic and
perpetrating atrocities on Hindus of Jammu who had risen in revolt
almost. When Nehru said he knew more about Kashmir than anybody else,
Dr Mookerjee replied, "Then what is the use of this Parliament if you
know everything?" But Nehru refused to listen to sane advice ..... He
refused to heed even the advice the then Vice-President, Dr
Radhakrishnan, to meet Dr Mookerjee once before he left for Kashmir on
his last journey to focus attention on Abdullah's perverse policies.
Within two months Nehru had to put Abdullah in jail... but only after
Dr Mookerjee had died in detention in Srinagar.
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