By Rishabh Diwakar
Telangana was never under British rule, in fact it was a princely state, an entity of British Raj which was governed by an Indian ruler under British government, but not directly by the British. That Indian ruler was Nizam-ul-Mulk of Hyderabad popularly known as Nizam of Hyderabad and Telangana was known as Hyderabad state. British East India Company created a subsidiary alliance to control the external affairs of the Hyderabad state.
In 1947 at the time of Partition British offered all princely states an option to become a part of Pakistan or India or they can be an independent state. At the time of the partition of India, the State of Hyderabad was the largest and most prosperous of all princely states in India. It covered 82,698 square miles (214,190 km2) of fairly homogenous territory and comprised a population of roughly 16.34 million people (as per the 1941 census) of which a majority (85%) was Hindu. Hyderabad State had its own army, airline, telecommunication system, railway network, postal system, currency and radio broadcasting service.
Most of the princely states voluntarily accepted to be part of India or Pakistan but Nizam was not in favor of giving his throne to India and wanted Hyderabad as an independent state. However the new union of India was not in favor of having an independent state in the newly formed country. Nizam decided to keep Hyderabad independent. The leaders of the new Union of India however, were wary of having an independent – and possibly hostile – state in the heart of their new country and were determined to assimilate Hyderabad into the Indian Union, even if it were by compulsion, unlike the other 565 princely states, most of which had already acceded to India or to Pakistan voluntarily In September 1948, a military operation named Operation Polo, led by Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, then Minister of Home Affairs and Deputy Prime Minister of India, was carried out, in which the Indian Armed Forces invaded the State of Hyderabad and overthrew Nizam, annexing the state into the Indian Union.
Post-Independence Muslim Nizam of Hyderabad was forced accede his state to India in 1948 as the Hyderabad state. The Telugu-speaking people were distributed in 22 districts, out of which 9 were in Telangana region of Hyderabad district, 12 were in Madras Presidency and 1 in French controlled Yanam.
In December 1953, the States Reorganization Commission was appointed to prepare for the creation of states on linguistic lines. The commission, due to public demand, recommended disintegration of Hyderabad state and to merge Marathi speaking region with Bombay state and Kannada speaking region with Mysore state. The States Reorganization Commission (SRC) was not in favour of an immediate merger of Telugu speaking Telangana region of Hyderabad state with Andhra state, despite their common language because they feared that the educationally backward people of Telangana might be swamped and exploited by the more advanced people of coastal area. Andhra state assembly passed a resolution on 25 November 1955 to provide safeguards to Telangana. The resolution said, “Assembly would further like to assure the people in Telangana that the development of that area would be deemed to be special charge, and that certain priorities and special protection will be given for the improvement of that area, such as reservation in services and educational institutions on the basis of population and irrigational development.
Andhra state and Telangana were merged to form Andhra Pradesh state on 1 November 1956 after providing safeguards to Telangana in the form of Gentlemen’s agreement.
Rishabhdiwakar@live.com