After independence, the campaign to integrate various princely states into India was ongoing. Hyderabad at that time was an autonomous state that had remained a vassal under the British rule. After the departure of the British, the process of merging all princely states into India began. Generally, there were no major difficulties; the accession of Junagadh and Kashmir was also managed, but the issue of Hyderabad became complicated. Among the states that were freed from British suzerainty, Hyderabad was the largest and the strongest. It comprised the territories of present-day Maharashtra, Karnataka, Telangana, and Andhra Pradesh. The Government of India wanted Hyderabad to merge just like the other states, but the Nizam of Hyderabad desired to remain independent. In such a sensitive situation, propaganda began to spread that the Nizam wanted to merge Hyderabad with Pakistan.
The fundamental policy of Nizam Mir Osman Ali Khan was to retain Hyderabad as an independent sovereign state. After the partition of India and Pakistan, the Nizam neither acceded to India immediately nor to Pakistan. His primary policy was to remain independent. According to reliable references, on 29 November 1947, a Standstill Agreement was signed with India so that the existing administrative arrangements would continue for one year—meaning there would be no immediate accession.
The Standstill Agreement (29 November 1947) was concluded under the supervision of Governor-General Lord Mountbatten. The purpose was that matters such as defense, foreign affairs, and communications would temporarily continue under the previous arrangements while final decisions would be discussed later.
At the same time, in August–September 1948, the Hyderabad government submitted a letter to the United Nations Security Council stating that after the end of British supremacy (15 August 1947), Hyderabad had become “independent.” The government also expressed willingness to hold a plebiscite under UN supervision, while appealing to stop Indian military action.
In September 1948, the Nizam also appealed to the President of the United States for mediation. This communication is recorded in the U.S. State Department’s publication FRUS. This is evidence that the Nizam sought an independent arrangement through external mediation, not immediate accession to Pakistan.
At the state level, the Nizam’s official stance was independence, not merger with Pakistan. Evidence of this lies in the Standstill Agreement, correspondence with the UN, and appeals for international mediation. However, in internal politics, Qasim Razvi and the Razakar movement used pro-Pakistan and hardline rhetoric, but that should not be confused with the Nizam’s official state policy.
Hyderabad was geographically located in the middle of India. For both Nehru and Patel, the existence of a semi-independent Muslim state inside India was unacceptable. Patel had threatened the Nizam: “Accede or perish.” Nehru too had issued warnings to Hyderabad. He sarcastically remarked that wars are fought with sovereign countries, but if necessary, India would resort to military operations against Hyderabad. Patel often compared Hyderabad to an ulcer in the belly of India.
Eventually, before the Standstill Agreement had expired, India invaded Hyderabad. The Indian side claimed that the Razakars were arming themselves and that their atrocities and violence against Hindus in Hyderabad were increasing. This, they argued, was causing large-scale migration of Hindus toward Indian border areas, creating unrest in Indian territory. Therefore, a military operation was considered necessary to restore peace and order in the region.
The Hyderabadi side argued that India had long been carrying out subversive activities against the state. In the border districts, semi-military groups of Congress, Socialists, Arya Samajis, and Mahasabha had been specially organized to disrupt peace and stability in Hyderabad. These groups carried out guerrilla operations and would retreat into Indian territories where they received protection and support.
In 1948, Sunil Purushottam, in a pamphlet published from the Bombay office of the State Congress titled Thus Fought for Marathwada, wrote in detail that their people targeted 42 Hyderabad state policemen, 205 constables, 361 Razakars, 36 Rohillas and Arabs, a total of 844 individuals. In this campaign, only 17 of their own were lost. They destroyed 182 customs posts, 47 police stations, 60 Razakar centers, looted three government grain warehouses and distributed the food among people, damaged railway lines in 35 different locations, derailed two carriages, set fire to two government buses, blew up four bridges, destroyed four government buildings and six railway stations, and set off five bombs near police stations.
Regardless of how many of the Nizam’s soldiers, policemen, or Razakars were killed in India’s action, it was of little consequence because they stood against India. The real question arises when civilians were massacred—specifically Muslim civilians. Their properties were looted, homes, mosques, and shrines were set ablaze, Muslim women and young girls were abducted and sexually assaulted. In all these heinous acts against Muslims, the Indian Army, Congress, Arya Samaj, Socialists, Communists, and members of the Hindu Mahasabha participated.
News of the genocide of Hyderabad’s Muslims was completely suppressed. The media was kept entirely away. Even Maulana Abul Kalam Azad was prevented from visiting Hyderabad. When the Sunderlal Committee was formed to investigate the massacres, it was tasked with preparing a report. Members included Pandit Sunder Lal, Qazi Abdul Ghaffar, and Ferozuddin Ahmad. After touring the affected areas, they produced a report. Patel flatly refused to accept it. Congress never presented it in Parliament. It was kept secret for 65 years until it was finally made public in 2013.
According to the Sunderlal Committee, between 27,000 and 40,000 Muslims were killed. Those involved in the genocide included villagers, revivalist Hindu organizations, semi-military wings of Congress, Socialists, Communists, Arya Samajists, as well as members of the Indian Army and Home Guards.
The Committee clearly stated that the anti-Muslim violence was not spontaneous but fully planned and organized. Entire Muslim settlements were wiped out. Villages were erased from existence.
In Godigaon, 200 Muslims were massacred—all of them. In Bhainsa, more than 200 Muslims were killed. In different villages of Warangal district, thousands of Muslims were killed. In Gulbarga, thousands were killed in various villages; in Kalur alone, 800–900 were slaughtered. In Jangaon, 1,200 were massacred.
The city of Latur, a major hub of Muslim petty traders, witnessed violence for 20 days. Out of a population of 10,000 Muslims, the Committee found only 3,000 survivors. Two to three thousand had been killed, while the rest had fled for their lives, utterly ruined economically.
The Commission wrote that in Gulbarga 5,000 to 8,000 Muslims were killed, and similar was the case in Bidar. In Nanded, around 2,000 to 4,000 deaths occurred. Many people fled into forests and remained there for months. In one village, 11 bodies were found in a pond, including that of a woman clutching her child. Corpses were scattered everywhere, some half-burnt. In a village in Osmanabad, young women were subjected to sexual exploitation, including five daughters of Usman Sahib and six daughters of Qazi Sahib. Saiba, the daughter of Ismail the trader, was violated in the house of a Chamar. Army men regularly came, raped Muslim girls through the night, and returned them home in the morning. Umar Khalidi’s book Hyderabad: After the Fall contained reports, albeit incomplete, that revived the wounds of Hyderabad’s fall.
In Lohgaon, hundreds were killed, and the remaining survivors were forcibly converted to Hinduism. The Committee confirmed that large-scale abduction and sexual exploitation of Muslim women took place.
The Committee acknowledged that vast numbers of Muslims fled from villages, their homes and religious sites burned, their properties looted, and many were forcibly converted to Hinduism.
Later in the report, the writers stated that they found clear evidence of armed and trained men belonging to certain Hindu communal organizations, who had come from Sholapur and other Indian border states, joining with local Hindus in looting and killings. In many cases, Indian Army and police were directly involved. Soldiers incited Hindus to loot Muslim homes and shops, and in some cases compelled them. In one district, a Hindu administrative officer told them that Muslim shops were thoroughly looted before being burned. In another, soldiers looted a Muslim’s house and assaulted the Tehsildar’s wife. Sikh soldiers were accused of widespread abuse and abduction of women. According to the report, most of the looted wealth—cash, gold, silver—went into the hands of soldiers, while the rest was taken by mobs. In many places, armed Indian soldiers dragged Muslim men out of homes and shops and shot them mercilessly.
The report shed light on the Congress’s black deeds:
“The Hyderabad State Congress movement was known to be violent. They widely used weapons, ammunition, explosives, and dynamite. Their secretary, in an official report, admitted that as a result of their actions, two thousand of the enemy lost their lives.”
Elsewhere, commenting on the Congress’s lawlessness, it noted:
“We heard widespread complaints that after the Police Action, Congressmen took law into their own hands, as if they were running a parallel administration. We repeatedly heard complaints that they extorted money from Muslims in exchange for sparing their lives.
In one case, we were told that of the extorted money, four annas went to the collector, four to the local police, and eight annas to Congress. At first we could not believe it, but in one district, even the Deputy Superintendent of Police complained that Congress extortions were making administration impossible. When we put these complaints to two prominent Congress leaders in Hyderabad, they admitted that their headquarters had received similar complaints.”
The report described how Muslims’ lands were forcibly taken and leased to local Hindus, on the condition that half the crop would go to Congress.
The Committee also documented the Indian Army’s anti-Muslim bias:
“Wherever the army went, it ordered disarmament of both Hindus and Muslims. But in practice, only Muslims were disarmed, sometimes with the help of Hindu villagers. Hindus were left untouched, as the army did not consider them a threat.”
The Committee visited places once renowned for Muslim traders and industrialists, but found nothing left. Poor Muslims were in an even more miserable condition. It concluded that the economy of Muslims in large parts of the state had been completely destroyed. Hundreds of thousands were impoverished, thousands of homes destroyed.
The atrocities against women left the Committee members horrified:
“We found undeniable evidence that many women threw themselves into wells to protect their honor, often after throwing in their children first. Many women were abducted, kept for days, then returned. This happened in every district. We also learned that even now, some Muslim women remained in Hindu captivity.”
The Committee also described forced conversions:
“Wherever we went, we saw forced conversions. After men were killed, women and children were coerced into adopting Hinduism. We saw hundreds of Muslim women with Hindu marks carved on their foreheads. Some had new Hindu names tattooed on their arms. We saw children with pierced ears in the Hindu style, their beards shaved, hair styled into Hindu braids, and sacred threads around their necks.”
After the military operation, Muslims were so weakened that Arya Samajis set up their own private prisons. The report stated:
“In one important town, we were saddened to see a well-known Arya Samaji running a private jail inside the Arya Samaj temple. He imprisoned Muslims for days, released them only after extorting money, or handed them to police accusing them of being Razakars.”
From this forty-page report, one conclusion was clear: in the fall of Hyderabad, all Hindu groups—Congress, RSS, Socialists, Communists, Mahasabhaites—set aside ideological differences and united to destroy the Asaf Jahi state. It is more accurate to say that from the very beginning, Hindu leaders of all affiliations envisioned the new India as a Hindu-majoritarian state, built upon the corpses of Muslims.
I also recall Sunil Purushottam’s article on Hyderabad Police Action, in which he quoted a secret police report about Congress goons’ brutality. According to it, a Congress leader named Raghu Reddy, with fifteen men, killed three Muslims by first cutting their throats and then drinking their blood. The Sunderlal Report too was full of such horrors.
For every person killed by Razakars, at least a hundred Muslims were massacred in retaliation. One official report admitting to 40,000 Muslim deaths implied that the true number was likely 400,000. Umar Khalidi estimated the death toll at 200,000. Regardless of discrepancies, everyone agreed that the Police Action wiped out Muslims from villages and towns across Hyderabad. Unlike Punjab’s partition riots, where Muslims at least had the option of fleeing to Pakistan, Hyderabad’s Muslims were surrounded by hostile border states already armed and mobilized. For Muslims of Osmanabad, Gulbarga, Bidar, and Nanded, there was no refuge.
Decades later, in 2013, A.G. Noorani published the complete Sunderlal Committee report in his book Destruction of Hyderabad. But by then, the country had changed. Those in power openly cursed the very existence of Hyderabad.
Reference :
1) Sundarlal committee report
2) Destruction of Hyderabad by AG Noorani
3) Hyderabad : After the Fall by Omar Khalidi
4) LaYahya ( Urdu ) by Rashid Shaaz
5) Sunil Purushotham, “Internal Violence: The ‘Police Action’ in Hyderabad” — Comparative Studies in Society and History, Vol. 57, Issue 2, 2015
6) Mir Laiq Ali, Tragedy of Hyderabad (1962)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_Hyderabad_%28book%29?utm_source=chatgpt.com
7) Operation Polo; the violent history of Hyderabad’s annexation” — South Asia Journal (recent article, 2024)
Sept 17 1948: Operation Polo; the violent history of Hyderabad’s annexation
8) “Communalism and the Census: The Role of Demographic Changes in the 1948 Hyderabad Riots” — research project / paper (Rutgers University)
9) Frontline — “Of a massacre untold” by A. G. Noorani
10) Scroll.in — “Why India must undo its long silence over the massacre … after Hyderabad integration in ’48”
11) https://www.britannica.com/place/Hyderabad-historical-state-India?utm_source=chatgpt.com
12) https://cdn.un.org/unyearbook/yun/pdf/1948-49/1948-49_308.pdf?utm_source=chatgpt.com
13) https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1948v05p1/d287?utm_source=chatgpt.com
14) https://sanipanhwar.com/uploads/books/2024-08-28_13-57-31_eda96d7c8be6df9668f2573df23c2c92.pdf