Editorial Column :: Why Didn't You Just Go To Pakistan?
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| With Historian and author Daneesh Majid at Akshara Books (2026) |
Why Didn't You Just Go To Pakistan?
Imagine a state, one of the richest in the world, trying to retain its autonomy. There are political tensions, restrictions on the movement of goods, shortage of petrol and other essentials, attempts to procure arms through clandestine routes, and eventually a military operation. It sounds almost contemporary, perhaps like the ongoing US-Iran dispute?
Well, it isn't. This
was Hyderabad between 1947 and 1948. Ironically, there are some remarkable
parallels in the India of then and now.
Today, Donald Trump
thunders: ‘Iran must surrender’, while Jawaharlal Nehru had said: ‘Hyderabad
must surrender’. Should one conclude that they all want Muslim states to
surrender?
While on the subject,
September 17 has emerged as a momentous day in the annals of history.
This year, it is tied
to the SIR exercise in Telangana, bringing questions of citizenship,
documentation, and who gets to be counted as an “Indian.”
And, of course, it
also marks ‘Hyderabad Liberation Day’, the day the Princely State was
integrated into the Indian Union.
A recent fiction work
by author Zeenat Khan titled, ‘The Sirens of September,’ which has
been heavily researched for six years, throws light not only on ‘Operation
Polo’ or ‘Police Action,’ it builds a world of the Hyderabad Princely State.
Another non-fiction work by Daneesh Majid, ‘The Hyderabadis: From 1947 to the
Present Day’ dissects what happened to the people on the ground and how they
rebuilt their life after losing it all.
That, perhaps, is the problem with history when it is reduced to dates and political outcomes. We remember September 17. We forget about what life was before and after it.
During the time of the seventh Nizam, Mir Osman Ali Khan, Hyderabad figured among the most prosperous princely states in India, thanks to his being the richest man in the world.
So why, then, was
Hyderabad so militarily vulnerable? Because wealth is not the same as military
power. Being landlocked, Hyderabad had no access to arms and strategic
supplies. The problem was compounded as the Indian government had imposed
restrictions on the movement of goods, except for food, salt, and certain
medical supplies. There was a blockade on arms and strategically important
commodities. Contemporary accounts describe shortages of petrol and other
essentials.
Hyderabad attempted to
procure arms through clandestine routes. There were efforts involving Pakistan
and the Australian pilot Sydney Cotton. But by September 1948, Hyderabad simply
did not possess anything remotely comparable to India's military capability.
The Nizam's massive wealth could not manufacture an air force overnight.
The other side of
Nizam’s legacy:
For all the political
arguments surrounding Osman Ali Khan, there is a reason why his name still
carries a peculiar weight and commands an awe, even in today’s Hyderabad. His
political project to preserve Hyderabad's sovereignty failed but his institutional
legacy did not. Education is perhaps the clearest example.
Osmania University,
Nizam College, and several other institutions became part of the educational
architecture of Hyderabad. The pride associated with studying at Osmania, or
earning a degree from Nizam College, still exists in families far removed from
the city's old aristocracy. That is a remarkable legacy. A ruler can lose a
state and still leave behind institutions that generations continue to identify
with.
Perhaps that is why
the memory of the Nizam is so complicated. It is possible to question his
politics, his stubborn insistence on sovereignty, and the shortcomings of his
administration, while acknowledging the institutions and cultural
infrastructure that continue to shape Hyderabad.
And then the
bloodshed:
The surrender on
September 17 did not mean that violence simply stopped. Violence surrounding
the accession, including attacks on civilians, reprisals, killings and looting,
continued beyond the five-day military operation. The Telangana Communist
Rebellion added another layer to an already fractured landscape.
This is the slice of
history part of the story that is rarely conveyed when we recall the run up to
‘Liberation Day.’ Liberated from what? For whom? And what did liberation look
like to the person standing on the street rather than reading about it decades
later?
A character in Khan’s
novel asks a Muslim: Why didn’t you just go to Pakistan? It is such a simple
question. And yet, in the context of Hyderabad in 1948, it sounds absurd. Go
where? Hyderabad was home.
The people being asked
why they did not go to Pakistan were not immigrants sitting on the other side
of the border. They were people whose families, homes, and memories existed in
Hyderabad long before the map around them changed.
And perhaps that is
why the question continues to haunt many. 80 years down the line, that question
still exists in our political vocabulary.
Who belongs here? Who
is Indian per e? Who has the documents to prove it? Who gets counted as a
citizen?
Contemporary debates
around citizenship, electoral rolls, and documentation are not identical to the
political crisis of 1948. They can never be equated. But the anxiety
surrounding the question of belonging is not difficult to recognise.
The world has changed dramatically at the turn of the millennium. Technology, migration, economics, geopolitics, and even the way we understand identity have changed. Should an 80-year-old wound continue to determine how a 30-year-old sees his neighbour? Or should history be something we understand enough to ensure that we do not repeat it?
Do millennials and
Gen Z need to know all of this?
Do we need to know
every death, every humiliation, every political betrayal, and every act of
violence from the freedom struggle and the years that followed? Yes and no. We
need to know enough to understand what happened. But we also need to ask what
we are going to do with that knowledge.
The people who shaped
much of our political landscape lived through Partition and its immediate
aftermath. Their fears, loyalties, and politics were formed by that world. But
the youngest millennials and oldest Gen Z are living in an entirely different one
that bear no resemblance to the then Hyderabad, India and Pakistan for that
matter.
The world has changed
dramatically at the turn of the millennium. Technology, migration, economics,
geopolitics, and even the way we understand identity have changed. Should an
80-year-old wound continue to determine how a 30-year-old sees his neighbour?
Or should history be something we understand enough to ensure that we do not
repeat it?
Perhaps in that
context, historical fiction and non-fiction has a place. Because sometimes a
fictional character can make you ask the question that a textbook never did.
‘Did this really happen?’
When you go looking,
you discover what is documented, what is contested, what was embellished, and
what was forgotten. Perhaps that is the most useful way for a younger
generation to approach history.
Not as an inheritance
of grievances or an instruction manual for whom to hate. But, as a mirror.
Because if September
17 makes us look back at Hyderabad, and Hyderabad makes us look at the present,
then perhaps the real question is not whether we should remember what happened
78 years ago.
It is whether we can
build a future that does not need another September 17 to teach us the same
lesson. And perhaps, before asking an Indian Muslim, ‘Why didn’t you just go to
Pakistan?’ we should ask a much simpler question: What was need then? Why must
they now?
They were already home. And so are they now.
