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 terrorizing 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.
The details of this uncovered truth can be found in pundit sunderlal's report that was recently made public.
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