Manas Dasgupta
NEW DELHI, Sept 17: The celebration for the annexation of Hyderabad on this day in 1948 became another occasion for slugfest between the BJP-ruled centre and the Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS) (TRS)-ruled Telangana on Saturday with the union home minister Amit Shah attacking the TRS for following “vote bank politics” and the chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao accusing the centre of “doing divisive politics.”
It was another day of Centre-state confrontation as both government celebrated the annexation day at different events and the two sides also named the day of the celebrations differently, the centre celebrating it as the “Hyderabad Liberation Day” from the clutches of a “cruel Nizam”, KCR called the day as “Telangana national Integration Day” marking it a three-day long celebration and addressed parallel rallies at two different places.
Accusing the BJP-ruled centre of “doing divisive politics” at a rally in Hyderabad countering the BJP in a rally-versus-rally battle, KCR raised the demand for clearing 10 per cent reservation for tribals in Telangana. “The Bill (proposed law for 10 per cent tribal quota) is pending with the Centre. I am asking Amit Shah, who is doing divisive politics here; I am folding hands and asking PM Narendra Modi, whose birthday it is today, to please approve that Bill,” he said at a public function organised by the state government. “Even the President of India is an Adivasi (tribal) woman. She won’t stop the move,” he added. He also unilaterally announced that his government would issue an order for the quota next week. “Will Narendra Modi accept it, or will he make it a noose around his neck?” he said.
KCR’s focus on tribal community demands — posing another question to the BJP government — is his latest move as he tries to gather Opposition forces at the national level for a united push in 2024. He even spoke of possibilities of going national himself: “People from Maharashtra came to me today and asked me to start a national party.”
It was in response to Amit Shah’s swipe at the TRS which he said was avoiding the central government programme only for the Muslim votes. Shah said “those who turned their back” on celebrating the day “due to vote bank politics” need no longer to “fear” the “Razakars,” a reference to the private militia who’d defended the erstwhile Muslim Nizam rule in a largely Hindu-majority state. This event was attended by several leaders, including Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde.
When India gained independence, the Razakars called for the Hyderabad State — spread over present-day Telangana, and parts of Karnataka and Maharashtra — to either join Pakistan, or to become an independent dominion. But, on September 17, 1948, it was annexed into the Union of India in military action, credited mainly to the then union Home Minister Vallabhbhai Patel.
Crediting the Sardar for ‘liberating’ Hyderabad, Union Home Minister Amit Shah said “After so many years, there was a desire in this land that the Hyderabad Liberation Day should be celebrated with the government’s participation. But unfortunately, 75 years have passed and those who ruled this place could not dare celebrate Hyderabad Liberation Day due to vote bank politics,” Shah said.
He greeted the people of Telangana, Hyderabad-Karnataka, and Marathwada on ‘Hyderabad Liberation Day’ and praised them for their courageous fight against the “atrocities” of the ‘Razakars’ to merge the region into the Union of India.
“They celebrate, but not as Hyderabad Liberation day, they still have fear. I want to tell them, remove fear from your heart and Razakars cannot take decisions for this country as it got independence 75 years ago,” the Home Minister said in an apparent dig at Telangana Chief Minister KCR’s parallel event. “People here now are celebrating it every year, but many still live in fear – I urge all to come out and celebrate in large numbers,” he said in Secunderabad.
“I want to congratulate prime minister Narendra Modi because he understood the aspirations of the people of Karnataka, Maharashtra and Telangana and decided to celebrate Hyderabad Liberation day,” he said.
The TRS government has accused the BJP of playing divisive politics, insisting on celebrating the day as one when the Telangana people’s dream of integrating with India was realised. Rao cautioned the people against the forces that are attempting to snap the secular fabric by dividing people on the communal lines and it is neither in the interests of the country nor the State.
“Telangana society has exhibited great maturity in its agitation for statehood and it’s time it shows the virtues one more time to rebut the attempts to alter the history and pollute the society with their selfish political motives by those who have not even an iota of role in the decades-long fight against the monarchy in this part of the country”, Rao said addressing a gathering after unfurling the national flag in Hyderabad.
Recollecting the struggle underwent by the Telangana society for its rights and existence, the Chief Minister said such times should not recur and it was possible with continuous awareness and keen observation of the developments around. He alleged that “communal forces were on the prowl across the country including in the State and they were trying to fan passions with divisive talk, poisonous comments and trying to erect thorny fences between people of different faiths.”
The Chief Minister said Telangana was merged with Andhra against its people’s wish to make Andhra Pradesh and the discrimination of the region continued all along reigniting the urge for separate statehood one more time. After coming into being in 2014, Telangana had made rapid strides in power, irrigation, health, education, agriculture, information technology, industries, and other welfare areas as also in the development of villages. He appealed to people not to patron the forces that were trying to disturb the peace and push the State into turmoil so that progress could go ahead unbridled.
Rao, who was also invited for Amit Shah’s event, organised by the Union Ministry of Tourism and Culture, however, skipped the function. He unfurled the Tricolour at Public Gardens, a few kilometres away.
For the first time, the All-India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) also organised an event marking the occasion as ‘Hyderabad State’s integration with the Indian Union’. The AIMIM took out a `Tiranga’ bike rally in the old parts of Hyderabad. AIMIM chief Asaduddin Owaisi participated in the event and hoisted the national flag at the party headquarters.
