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  • Hyderabad 1948: India's hidden massacre

    Hyderabad 1948: India's hidden massacre

    By Mike Thomson Presenter, Document, Radio 4



    When India was partitioned in 1947, about 500,000 people died in communal rioting, mainly along the borders with Pakistan. But a year later another massacre occurred in central India, which until now has remained clouded in secrecy.

    In September and October 1948, soon after independence from the British Empire, tens of thousands of people were brutally slaughtered in central India.

    Some were lined up and shot by Indian Army soldiers. Yet a government-commissioned report into what happened was never published and few in India know about the massacre. Critics have accused successive Indian governments of continuing a cover-up.

    The massacres took place a year after the violence of partition in what was then Hyderabad state, in the heart of India. It was one of 500 princely states that had enjoyed autonomy under British colonial rule.

    When independence came in 1947 nearly all of these states agreed to become part of India.

    But Hyderabad's Muslim Nizam, or prince, insisted on remaining independent. This refusal to surrender sovereignty to the new democratic India outraged the country's leaders in New Delhi.

    After an acrimonious stand-off between Delhi and Hyderabad, the government finally lost patience.

    Historians say their desire to prevent an independent Muslim-led state taking root in the heart of predominantly Hindu India was another worry.

    Members of the powerful Razakar militia, the armed wing of Hyderabad's most powerful Muslim political party, were terrorising many Hindu villagers.

    This gave the Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, the pretext he needed. In September 1948 the Indian Army invaded Hyderabad.

    In what was rather misleadingly known as a "police action", the Nizam's forces were defeated after just a few days without any significant loss of civilian lives. But word then reached Delhi that arson, looting and the mass murder and rape of Muslims had followed the invasion.

    Determined to get to the bottom of what was happening, an alarmed Nehru commissioned a small mixed-faith team to go to Hyderabad to investigate.

    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.



    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 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.

    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."

    The investigation team also reported, however, that in many other instances the Indian Army had behaved well and protected Muslims.

    The backlash was said to have been in response to many years of intimidation and violence against Hindus by the Razakars.

    In confidential notes attached to the Sunderlal report, its authors detailed the gruesome nature of the Hindu revenge: "In many places we were shown wells still full of corpses that were rotting. In one such we counted 11 bodies, which included that of a woman with a small child sticking to her breast. "

    And it went on: "We saw remnants of corpses lying in ditches. At several places the bodies had been burnt and we would see the charred bones and skulls still lying there."

    The Sunderlal report estimated that between 27,000 to 40,000 people lost their lives.

    No official explanation was given for Nehru's decision not to publish the contents of the Sunderlal report, though it is likely that, in the powder-keg years that followed independence, news of what happened might have sparked more Muslim reprisals against Hindus.

    It is also unclear why, all these decades later, there is still no reference to what happened in the nation's schoolbooks. Even today few Indians have any idea what happened.

    The Sunderlal report, although unknown to many, is now open for viewing at the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library in New Delhi.

    There has been a call recently in the Indian press for it to be made more widely available, so the entire nation can learn what happened.

    It could be argued this might risk igniting continuing tensions between Muslims and Hindus.

    "Living as we are in this country with all our conflicts and problems, I wouldn't make a big fuss over it," says Burgula Narasingh Rao, a Hindu who lived through those times in Hyderabad and is now in his 80s.

    "What happens, reaction and counter-reaction and various things will go on and on, but at the academic level, at the research level, at your broadcasting level, let these things come out. I have no problem with that."

    BBC News - Hyderabad 1948: India's hidden massacre
    Attached Files
    Pakistan is not going to be a theocratic state to be ruled by priests with a divine mission - Jinnah
    https://twitter.com/AgnosticMuslim

  • #2
    A more detailed excerpt alleged to be from the Sunderlal Report:


    CONFIDENTIAL

    To:

    (1) The Honourable the Prime Minister, Government of India, New Delhi.

    (2) The Honourable the States Minister, Government of India, New Delhi.

    Sir,

    We were asked by the Government of India to proceed to Hyderabad State on a goodwill mission. After completing our task there we now beg to submit our report.

    (1) The delegation consisting of Pandit Sundarlal, Kazi Abdul Ghaffar and Moulana Abdulla Misri arrived at Hyderabad on the 29th of November and returned to Delhi on the 21st of December 1948. During this period we toured through 9 out of the 16 district s of the state, visiting 7 district headquarters, 21 towns and 23 important villages. In addition we interviewed over 500 people from 109 such villages as we did not visit.

    Further 31 public meetings at various places and 27 private gatherings of Hindus, Muslims, Congress men, Official Members of Jamiat Ullma and of the Ittahadul Muslimeen, the staffs and students of some Educational Institutions, Members of the Progressive Writers Association and of the Hindustani Parchar Sabha, etc., were addressed by members of the delegation.

    Amongst important men and officials interviewed by us may be mentioned H.E.H. the Nizam, H.E. the Prince of Berar, Major General Choudhri, Mr. Bakhlo, the Chief Civil Administrator, Swami Ramanand Tirtha, Dr. Malkote, Messrs Ramchander Rao, Ramachari, K. Vadya, Venkat Rao and Abul Hassan Sayed Ali, Nawab Ali Yawar Jung, Nawab Zain Yar Jung, Raja Dhonde Raj, Moulana Abu Yousuf, Moulvi Abdul Khair, and Moulvi Hameed uddin Qamar Farooqi.

    At all these meetings and interviews the main problem discussed was that of the creation and maintenance of cordial relations between the communities. Appeals were made to the people to forget the past and to work unremittingly for the establishment of p eace and harmony amongst themselves. The aim and policy of the Indian Union was also explained and special emphasis was laid on the objective which was the establishment of a secular government for the people of Hyderabad, in which all of them irrespecti ve of religion, caste or creed will enjoy equal freedom and civil rights and will have equal opportunities for development and progress. It was made perfectly clear that the military administration had been charged with the duty of implementing that poli cy. We clarified our position, whenever opportunity presented itself saying that ours was not a Commission of investigation or Inquiry into events proceeding or following the police action and that ours was merely a goodwill mission charged with the task of restoring better communal relations. All the same, we feel it our duty to bring to your notice what we saw and gathered in our tourings, as it has, in our opinion, an importance all its own.

    (2) Hyderabad State has 16 districts, comprising nearly 22,000 villages. Out of them only three districts remained practically, though not wholly, free of communal trouble which affected the state first during the activities of the Razakars and then duri ng the reprisals that followed the collapse of that organisation. In another four districts the trouble had been more serious but nothing like the havoc that overtook the remaining eight. Out of these again the worst sufferers have been the districts of Osmanabad, Gulburga, Bidar and Nanded, in which four the number of people killed during and after the police action was not less, if not more than 18,000. In the other four districts viz. Aurangabad, Bir, Nalgunda and Medak those who lost their lives num bered at least 5 thousand.

    We can say at a very conservative estimate that in the whole state at least 27 thousand to 40 thousand people lost their lives during and after the police action. We were informed by the authorities that those eight were the most affected districts and n eeded most the good offices of our delegation. We, therefore, concentrated on these and succeeded, we might say, to some extent at least, in dispelling the atmosphere of mutual hostility and distrust.

    It is a significant fact that out of these eight the four worst affected districts (Osmanabad, Gulburga, Bidar and Nanded) had been the main strongholds of Razakars and the people of these four districts had been the worst sufferers at the hands of the R azakars. In the town of Latur, the home of Kasim Razvi - which had been a big business centre, with rich Kuchhi Muslim merchants, the killing continued for over twenty days. Out of a population of about ten thousand Muslims there we found barely three th ousand still in the town. Over a thousand had been killed and the rest had run away with little else besides their lives and completely ruined financially.

    (3) Almost everywhere in the affected areas communal frenzy did not exhaust itself in murder, alone in which at some places even women and children were not spared. Rape, abduction of women (sometimes out of the state to Indian towns such as Sholapur and Nagpur) loot, arson, desecration of mosques, forcible conversions, seizure of houses and lands, followed or accompanied the killing. Tens of crores worth of property was looted or destroyed. The sufferers were Muslims who formed a hopeless minority in r ural areas. The perpetrators of these atrocities were not limited to those who had suffered at the hands of Razakars, not to the non-Muslims of Hyderabad state. These latter were aided and abetted by individuals and bands of people, with and without arms , from across the border, who had infiltrated through in the wake of the Indian Army. We found definite indications that a number of armed and trained men belonging to a well known Hindu communal organisation from Sholapur and other Indian towns as also some local and outside communists participated in these riots and in some cases actually led the rioters.

    (4) Duty also compels us to add that we had absolutely unimpeachable evidence to the effect that there were instances in which men belonging to the Indian Army and also to the local police took part in looting and even other crimes. During our tour we ga thered, 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. At one district town the present Hindu head of the administration told us that there was a general loot of M uslim shops by the military. In another district a Munsif house, among others was looted by soldiers and a Tahsildar's wife molested. Complaints of molestation and abduction of girls, against Sikh soldiers particularly, were by no means rare. We were gen erally told that at many places out of the looted property cash, gold and silver was taken away by military while other articles fell to the share of the mob. Unfortunately there was a certain element in the army which was not free from communal feelings probably because some of them could not forget the atrocities committed elsewhere on their own kith and kin.

    Lest we might be understood to imply a slur on the Indian army we hasten to record our considered opinion that the Indian Army and its officers in Hyderabad generally maintained a high standard of discipline and sense of duty. In General Choudhri we foun d a man without any tinge of communal prejudice, a firm disciplinarian and thorough gentleman.

    We were given by Muslims instances in which Hindus had defended and given protection to their Muslim neighbours, men and women even at the cost of their own lives. In some professions the fellow feeling was particularly marked. For instance at places Hin du weavers defended Muslim weavers against Hindu and protected them often at a very heavy cost (including loss of life) to themselves. Many Hindus helped in the recovery of abducted Muslim women.

    (5) This communal trouble followed close upon the heels of the police action and the consequent collapse of the Razakar organisation, which had stood in the Muslim mind, as an effective barrier against the establishment of responsible government which wa s synonymous, to the average Hyderabadi Muslim, with Hindu Raj, because it would be based on the will of the Hindu majority. Muslim masses were generally slow to realise that their sufferings were the inevitable repercussions of the atrocities committed on the Hindus only, a few days before, by the Razakars. The Razakars movement had the sympathy of a good number of Muslimans in Hyderabad. Such of them as dared publicly to oppose that madness paid heavily for their temerity, so much so that one of them fell before the bullet of an assassin. Like the Razakars the perpetrators of crimes against the Muslims encouraged the belief that they had the backing of the authorities...

    Before closing we must gratefully acknowledge the valuable help and willing cooperation given to us by the Military Administration in Hyderabad, by Government officials in the districts we visited, by public workers and prominent citizens and lastly by o ur two Secretaries Messrs Furrukh Sayer and P.P. Ambulkar.

    From the Sundarlal Report
    Pakistan is not going to be a theocratic state to be ruled by priests with a divine mission - Jinnah
    https://twitter.com/AgnosticMuslim

    Comment


    • #3
      Very curious that you posted about massacres in India. Why don't you post about massacres in Pakistan, namely the most recent bombing at a Christian prayer of grounds.

      Comment


      • #4
        A massacre among massacres.

        Shows how flawed of a concept this partition was. Pakistanis celebrate Jinnah and this partition because they were able to carve out their Islamic utopia, while Indians despise the partition, precisely because Pakistan was built on the blood of millions of innocent people.
        Cow is the only animal that not only inhales oxygen, but also exhales it.
        -Rekha Arya, Former Minister of Animal Husbandry

        Comment


        • #5
          Originally posted by Blademaster View Post
          Very curious that you posted about massacres in India. Why don't you post about massacres in Pakistan, namely the most recent bombing at a Christian prayer of grounds.
          Are you suggesting that posters from a particular nationality restrict themselves to starting threads only about their own countries?
          Pakistan is not going to be a theocratic state to be ruled by priests with a divine mission - Jinnah
          https://twitter.com/AgnosticMuslim

          Comment


          • #6
            Originally posted by Tronic View Post
            Shows how flawed of a concept this partition was. Pakistanis celebrate Jinnah and this partition because they were able to carve out their Islamic utopia, while Indians despise the partition, precisely because Pakistan was built on the blood of millions of innocent people.
            How was an event (partition) responsible for the 'blood of millions of innocent people'?

            I would argue that responsibility for the massacres rests with the people who perpetrated them, and perhaps with the political leadership on all three sides (British, Indian and Pakistani) because they either did not anticipate the chaos that would ensue or did not care, and therefore did not arrange for the needed security and transportation measures needed.
            Pakistan is not going to be a theocratic state to be ruled by priests with a divine mission - Jinnah
            https://twitter.com/AgnosticMuslim

            Comment


            • #7
              Originally posted by Agnostic Muslim View Post
              Are you suggesting that posters from a particular nationality restrict themselves to starting threads only about their own countries?
              You're deliberately posting flame bait. But you know that already.

              Please use discernment when choosing future thread topics.
              “He was the most prodigious personification of all human inferiorities. He was an utterly incapable, unadapted, irresponsible, psychopathic personality, full of empty, infantile fantasies, but cursed with the keen intuition of a rat or a guttersnipe. He represented the shadow, the inferior part of everybody’s personality, in an overwhelming degree, and this was another reason why they fell for him.”

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