police action or mass murder

In the history of the subcontinent, the most drama ever created was when the partition turned from a dream into a reality and two separate states namely, Pakistan and India came into existence. Following the British rule that slowly diminished, two separate countries with different mentalities and an overwhelming cultural strength were formed. Talking in the context of what really happened and why it happened, the conclusion derived from an outsiders point of view is that two major religions followed by the Muslims and Hindus could simply not co-exist which in-avertedly led to two separate states being formed. But what about the people stuck in the wrong state at the time of partition. What could a Muslim do if he was stuck in Indian borders? History leads us to believe that the Muslims were granted immigration from Indian lands into the borders of Pakistan but there is another twist into this history that not many are aware of. In the concept of partition, it was decided that the whole subcontinent would be divided into states and that each state would be free to choose whom to join, either Pakistan which was a Muslim state or India which was dominated by the Hindus.

When the decision came towards Hyderabad of whom the ruler at the time was Nizam ul Mulk Mir Osman Ali Khan more importantly a Muslim, he chose to join Pakistan as Hyderabad was in fact a Muslim region. This was the natural motive to take as it would guarantee the Muslims the right to join the Muslim state. Talks were placed and the idea soon began taking shape when word got out that a major chunk in the center of India was shifting towards becoming a Muslim state. The position can be seen in the map at the time.

When the Indian Prime Minister (Nehru) came to know of this and that this would soon be in effect, he ordered the Indian Army to seize control over Hyderabad and to stop this from happening. Documented Proof has recently been unveiled from a report by Pundit Sunderlal who was the man Nehru had sent to lead the team to discover the activities going on in Hyderabad. The report thought to have never come out in the past has now been found in the confines of the Indian government that proves that they did not want this to be found out.

The report contained instances of the actions taken by the Indian army on the inhabitants of Hyderabad. Besides the killings and murders, other methods were used to eliminate all traces of Muslim culture from Hyderabad. The first thing to be targeted was the language. Urdu, the national language was deemed something unholy and Indian languages were made the norm of the population. Teachers were given a small time period to learn the new language and Muslim employees forced to adopt the new barrier. Many Muslims were forced to swear that they were not part of any Muslim Rebellion after endless tortures while other employees were kicked out from their jobs just because of the religion they followed. The rich and wealthy Muslims managed to migrate to Pakistan and away from the carnage whereas the ones left behind faced the wrath of the Indian army and the Local police.

There were few uprisings from local Muslim Public figures such as Kasim Razvi (founder of MIM) rose to try and promote the idea that Muslims be allowed to either join Pakistan or remain independent. But after being jailed for his efforts, the Muslim opposition began living in fear. This is when the Indian army took over. The report takes us to many villages in Hyderabad where Muslim killings were the common thing and the Indian army and Local police were behind it. The property of the Islam followers were seized. Muslim adult males were taken out in public and massacred. Firearms were taken away from the Muslims while Hindus were left alone. Muslim shops and houses were getting robbed and the women getting shamed and brutally murdered. And what was worse, that the Army encouraged the local Hindus to join in the rioting against the Muslim’s and took the area under siege.

Rotting corpses and burnt bones were the norm in Hyderabad in the late months of 1948. It is of no doubt to whom these bodies belonged. A total amount of around 40,000 Muslim killings were stated in the report whereas the Indians claimed it as a police action with minimal casualties due to the rioting by the Muslims. Since slaughtering forty thousand people including women and children was in the Indian Governments claims to be for the annexation of Hyderabad, why was the report being hidden. This leads to a lot of other questions being raised against the Indian Government as to why such an action was taken against vulnerable Muslims and why it was kept secret for so long.