Mohan Guruswamy | Have No Illusions On What Hyderabad Was Before It Was A Part Of The Union

We are often swept with waves of nostalgia over what Hyderabad was before it became part of the Union of India. We seem to forget what it truly was. Like Jammu and Kashmir, Jodhpur or Baroda and the other big states, Hyderabad too was a very feudal princely state. What made it different was that it was a Muslim princely state. Indirect rule by the British Raj ensured that a network of Muslim nobility lorded it over. The last Nizam, Osman Ali Khan, was truly independent and paramount only in the 13 months before Maj. Gen. J.N. Chaudhry supplanted him.

The Nizam, Osman Ali Khan, is credited with building major institutions in Hyderabad such as the Osmania University, the centrepiece of which is the beautiful Arts College. The city is dotted with numerous institutions in their unique architecture which stand testimony to his proclivity for institution building and aesthetics. But let us not be under any illusions. Hyderabad was a Muslim-ruled feudal state and largely served a small economic and religious class. The tehzeeb and lifestyle was only for them, and the small parvenu class of Hindu tax-collecting landlords.

At the time of India’s independence, Hyderabad was the largest Indian princely state in terms of population and GNP. Its territory of 82,698 sq miles was more than that of England and Scotland put together. The 1941 census had estimated its population to be 16.34 million, over 85 per cent of whom were Hindus and with Muslims accounting for about 12 per cent. It was also a multilingual state consisting of peoples speaking Telugu (48.2%), Marathi (26.4%), Kannada (12.3%) and Urdu (10.3%). Its diversity and broad heritage could be seen in the historical monuments at Ajanta, Ellora and Daulatabad in Marathawada, Bijapur, Bidar, Gulbarga, Anegondi and Kampili in Karnataka, and Warangal and Nagarjunakonda in Telangana.

Hyderabad city’s history goes back to the 11th century when the Kakatiya kings of Warangal built the fort that later became famous as Golconda. Mohammed Quli Qutab Shah founded the capital city that we now know in 1590. Quli Qutab Shah was quite a romantic and first called the city Bhagyanagar after his Hindu-born Queen Bhagmati. Bhagmati later took the name Haider Mahal and hence Hyderabad. Haider Mahal also inspired him to pen the immortal lines: “piya baaj pyaala piya jaaye na, piya yakthil jiya jaaye na”. This romanticism suffused the spirit of Hyderabad through most of its existence.

Hyderabad not only had its own army, but also its own railway, airline, postal service, broadcasting network and currency. The Nizam and his court ruled over it, with the British Resident keeping a close and watchful eye over everything. The British-run Indian Army also had a permanent garrison, just in case the “faithful ally of the King Emperor” was found lacking in faith. Incidentally, this regiment, the 13 Hyderabad consisting of Ahirs from Mewat, was raised by Lord Wellesley, later the Duke of Wellington, who won everlasting renown at Waterloo. After accession, 13 Hyderabad became the 13 Kumaon, whose C company won lasting fame in the 1962 India-China conflict for its heroism at Rezang La.

As can be imagined it was a Muslim-dominated state. Typically, in 1911, 70 per cent of the police, 55 per cent of the Army and 26 per cent of the public administration were Muslims. In 1941 a report on the civil service revealed that of the 1,765 officers, 1,268 were Muslims, 421 were Hindus and 121 others, presumably British, Christians, Parsis and Sikhs. Of the officials drawing a pay between Rs 600-1,200 per month, 59 were Muslims, 38 were “others”, and a mere five were Hindus. The Nizam and his nobles, who were mostly Muslims, owned 40 per cent of the total land in the kingdom. Quite clearly, it was too much of a good thing for so few and the time for its end had come.

Harvard University’s Wilfred Cantwell Smith states that Hyderabad was an area where the political and social structure from medieval Muslim rule had been preserved more or less intact into modern times. The last Nizam was reputed to be the wealthiest man in the world. He was supported by an aristocracy of 1,100 feudal lords, who owned a further 30 per cent of the state's land, with some four million tenant farmers. The state also owned 50 per cent or more of the capital in all the major enterprises, allowing the Nizam to earn further profits and control their affairs.

Next in the social structure were the administrative and official classes, comprising about 1,500 officials. A number of them were recruited from outside the state. The lower-level government employees were also predominantly Muslim. Effectively, the Muslims of Hyderabad represented an “upper caste” of the social structure.

All powers were vested in the Nizam. He ruled with the help of an Executive Council or Cabinet, established in 1893, whose members he was free to appoint and dismiss. The government of the Nizam recruited heavily from the North Indian Hindu Kayastha caste for administrative posts.

There was also an Assembly, whose role was mostly advisory. More than half of its members were appointed by the Nizam and the rest were elected from a carefully limited franchise. There were representatives of Hindus, Parsis, Christians and the Depressed Classes in the Assembly. Their influence was, however, limited due to their small numbers.

Mohan Guruswamy is a scholar and an author. The views expressed here are his own.