By
A.G. Noorani[1]
Abstract
During the Jinnah-Mountbatten meeting at Lahore on I November 1947, the latter proposed: “The Governments of India and Pakistan agree that, where the ruler of a State does not belong to the community to which the majority of his subjects belong, and where the State has not acceded to that Dominion whose majority community is the same as the State’s, the question of whether the State should finally accede to one or the other of the Dominions should in all cases be decided by an impartial reference to the will of the people.” In his note of the discussion, Mountbatten recorded: “Mr. Jinnah then went on to say that he could not accept a formula if it was so drafted as to include Hyderabad, since he pointed out that Hyderabad did not wish to accede to either Dominion and he could not be a party to coercing them to accession.” Eventually on 13 September 1948, the Indian army moved into Hyderabad. What they destroyed was much more than the Nizam’s Dominion. The Sunderlal Report documents the massacre of Muslims in parts of the State. It is tragic that a wrong policy on Hyderabad wrecked the most promising attempt at a Kashmir settlement on 1 November 1947. The subcontinent would have been spared a lot had it succeeded. Author.
No two persons could have been more dissimilar than Quaid-e-Azam Mohammed Ali Jinnah and the Seventh Nizam of Hyderabad, His Exalted Highness Mir Osman Ali Khan. Jinnah was polished and straight forward; culturally westernized and politically anti-British; a constitutionalist and democrat. The Nizam’s language was coarse, his conduct was devious. He was proud to be a “faithful ally” of the British and scorned democracy. The man was the orientalists’ quintessential “oriental despot.” Wilfred Cantwell Smith aptly described him as “a clever man utterly destitute of wisdom.”[1]He was as critical of Jinnah: “Mr. Jinnah is regarded, by Pakistanis at least, as a brilliant leader. That he was a clever dialectician and lawyer seems clear. Yet is it not perhaps time to bring into question his statesmanship, his political sagacity, in view of his apparent failure to foresee – apparently even to try to foresee – the concrete outworking of his proposals? …. If he is to be credited with all of Pakistan’s achievements, as is customary, should he be exempted from responsibility for its problems?”[2]
Jinnah and the Nizam of Hyderabad did not have a high opinion of each other. The Nizam’s Constitutional Adviser, Sir Walter Monckton, met Jinnah in New Delhi on 3 May 1947 and recorded in a note: “He spoke of political differences with Sir Mirza but was warm in his praise of his personal courtesy and kindness to Mr. Jinnah. He was not friendly in his references to H.E.H. He said that Hyderabad was dead and buried as far as he (Jinnah) was concerned. But the rest of his conversation gave a very different impression. If Hyderabad joined the Hindu (sic.) Union it would be committing suicide. Now was the time to decide Hyderabad’s future course. There were two real alternatives; the State could either come to the Pakistan Constituent Assembly or make a treaty or agreement with Pakistan. In either case, Pakistan would not thereafter stand by and see the Nizam, the principal Muslim ruler in India, driven from his throne. Jinnah was clearly against the obvious course – relationship with India.”[3] Jinnah strenuously opposed Sir Mirza Ismail’s appointment as President of the Nizam’s Executive Council. In a letter to Sir Mirza on 6 July 1946 the Nizam referred to Jinnah as “this impertinent fellow.”[4]
Their interaction was not confined to affairs of state. In 1944 the Nizam enquired whether Jinnah intended “disposing of your Malabar Hill house in Bombay,” and asked for permission to his agent Zain Yar Jung to inspect the property. The Nizam’s offer of Rs. 850,000 drew a testy reply from Jinnah on 3 June 1944, then in Srinagar. The offer was “impossible.”[5]
By the mid-forties, Jinnah and the Nizam had forged a liaison based on mutual dependence which was to inflict great harm on both states, Pakistan and Hyderabad. Its consequences are still with us. Hyderabad was made a deal-breaker in the Jinnah-Mountbatten talks on Kashmir, in Lahore on 1 November1947.[6] In September 1948 the State of Hyderabad was extinguished. In its train followed the annihilation not only of the aristocracy and an entire accomplished elite, but also a massacre of Muslims whose enormity is set out in a neglected document, the Sunderlal Report.
The accord, aborted in Lahore, would not have protected the Nizam’s throne from democratic upsurge. But it would have saved him from humiliation; the Muslim minority, from sudden decline and resolved the Kashmir dispute in the early stage leaving India and Pakistan to face the future without that albatross around their necks. The historian Sir Lewis Namier cautioned against arguing with history; but not against drawing lessons from the past. The result was pre-eminently foreseeable in 1947 and was foreseen by some. Not involvement but a measured detachment would have spared Pakistan and Hyderabad from the side effects of an ill-conceived embrace.
Jinnah and the Nawab of Bhopal, Hamidullah, were personal friends and political allies. In a letter to Jinnah on 2 August 1947 he wrote: “Bhopal stands alone with an 80% Hindu majority in the midst of Hindu India, surrounded by my personal enemies as well as by the enemies of Islam. Pakistan has no means of helping us. You rightly made this plain to me last night.”[7] Surely Pakistan had no stronger means of helping Hyderabad which was right inside India’s “belly” and had an 86 percent Hindu majority. The Nizam’s view of the majority of his people was as pathetic as was the Nawab’s. But Jinnah made an utterly unrealistic assessment of Hyderabad’s survival which was reflected in two heavy financial investments he made in the State after the principle of the partition of India was accepted by all. On 20 February 1947 the British Government announced its decision to quit India by the end of June 1948. On 8 March 1947 the Congress Working Committee demanded the partition of Punjab and Bengal; tacitly, of India. On 18 March 1947 Jinnah’s share broker in Bombay informed him that on his order, he had bought 300 shares in Osman Shahi Mills and 200 in Azam Jahi Mills worth, respectively, Rs. 98,700 and Rs. 60,400 totalling Rs. 159,100.[8] Evidently this careful investor fancied that his investments (worth approximately Rs. 160 million today) would be safe. The Nizam’s Hyderabad was viable and would survive.
Jinnah’s first visit to the State in 1919 as his last in 1946 brought him into conflict with the Nizam. In between as his stature rose, his mediation was sought by the Nizam as well as the premier Muslim Party, the Majlis-e-Ittehad-ul-Muslimeen, which was founded in 1939.
A popular figure that he was, Jinnah’s visit anywhere for professional work invited requests for a public speech. The trip to Hyderabad in April 1919 was no exception. He was invited to deliver a talk on “The India of Today.” A police officer tried to dissuade him, but Jinnah insisted on a written order of the Government. The speech in fact compared the States favorably with British India. On the Nizam’s personal instructions, the Political Member of the Executive Council wrote to Jinnah on 18 April 1919, on his return to Bombay, requesting him “not to visit any part of His Exalted Highness’s Dominions on any account whatsoever, professional or otherwise” without permission from HEH. A correspondence followed, Jinnah objecting to the “impertinent tone and language of the letter” which, he was sure, could not have been sanctioned by H.E.H.[9]
The order was rescinded in 1930. Jinnah visited Hyderabad early in 1937 after the Nizam’s Silver Jubilee celebrations. During this visit he met Muhammad Bahadur Khan more famous as the legendary orator Nawab Bahadur Yar Jang.
It was a fateful encounter, Jinnah’s biographers neglected it because their closeness was recorded in a collection of articles in Urdu by Saadat Hasan Manto, titled Ganje Farishte (“Bald Angels”); a collection of pen portraits which included one by Jinnah’s chauffeur, Mohammed Hanif Azad, titled Mera Saheb (“My Boss”). Azad told Manto “He was the only person I saw with whom the Saheb would talk intimately. One felt as if they were childhood friends. One would hear them laugh uninhibitedly. Apart from him, other League leaders like the Raja Saheb of Mahmudabad, I.I. Chundrigar, Maulana Zahid Husain, Nawabzada Liaquat Ali Khan and Nawab Mohammed Ismail often visited him. But the Saheb talked business with them. The informality was reserved for Bahadur Yar Jang alone.”[10]
Bahadur Yar Jung died in mysterious circumstances on 25 June 1944 when he was only 39. He was the founder President of the Majlis-i-Ittihad-ul-Muslimeen in 1939, and of the All India States Muslim League, 1940. The friendship was cemented when Jinnah spent a fortnight in Hyderabad in August 1941. It also deepened Jinnah’s involvement in the internal politics of the State.
In a letter to Gandhi on 17 September 1944 Jinnah said: “The Lahore resolution (on Pakistan) is only confined to British India.”[11] He nonetheless took a keen interest in the States in which Muslims were in a majority (Kashmir) or wielded power. In no other State was the interest as deep and continuous as in Hyderabad; not even in Kashmir.
The lines were blurred, as is revealed by the scholar Margrit Pernau in her excellent work The Passing of Patrimonialism: Politics and Political Culture in Hyderabad 1911 – 1948 which draws on the archives in London and Hyderabad. In 1938 Jinnah had “in vain called upon Bahadur Yar Jang to join the Muslim League.”[12]
The Nawab was a member of the Khaksar movement and was active in tabligh and tanzim movements. V.K. Bawa holds that the establishment of the Majlis “was largely a reaction to the activities of the Aryan Samaj missionaries from northern and western India who had begun to spread their faith in Hyderabad.” [13] From the mid-thirties, writes Pernau, the Arya Samaj had begun providing weapons and uniforms to its adherents in the State.[14] Lucien D. Benichou records in his book From Autocracy to Integration: Political development in Hyderabad State 1938 – 1948, that it had “engaged in a forceful programme of conversion” since the turn of century.[15] He also draws on the archives.
Jinnah referred to them in his presidential address to the Patna Session of the League on 26 December 1938: “Why all this agitation in the States? Why are all the forces being let loose in the name of the Arya Samajists and the Hindu Mahasabha in Hyderabad State? I would ask the Congress, what is it doing in Kashmir? The Arya Samajists, the Hindu Mahasabha and the Congress nationalists, as also the Press, the subservient Press of the Congress, why are they silent about the affairs of the Kashmir State. Is it because Kashmir is a Hindu State? Is it because the vast majority of the Indian subjects of Kashmir State are Muslims? … According to the present constitution of Muslim League, the League cannot interfere in the affairs of the Indian States. But I want to make it clear that if the Congress pursues its campaign in Muslim States like Hyderabad with the ulterior motive which undoubtedly is inspiring it at present, the Muslim League would have to consider afresh the question of interference with the affairs of Indian States”[16]
On 10 April 1939 the League’s Council passed a resolution censuring the Arya Samaj.[17]In October 1941, Bahadur Yar Jang participated in the Council’s meeting as a member.[18]Jinnah and he were as dissimilar as the Quaid and the Nizam. Their outlooks differed fundamentally. But as Ali Yavar Jang wrote in a series of articles in The Times of India after “the police action” in Hyderabad in September 1948, “he had the great gift of retaining friendship, despite differences of view” (published in a brochure Hyderabad in Retrospect under the pseudonym “An Ex-Official of Hyderabad”. He was Minister for Constitutional Affair).
Far more ambiguous was the Nawab’s relationship with his ruler. On 22 March 1943 the Nizam issued a firman prohibiting him from making any public speech or statement within or outside the State. It was ignored. Jinnah brought about a compromise and drafted the subject’s apology. He, however, renounced his jagir and title and sought the Nizam’s permission to speak, which was readily granted since he was now a free man. The British resident remarked “The Nizam has double crossed everyone.” It was a charade to impress the British – the Nawab was anti-British. The Political Department noted on 14 April 1944 “the real truth is that the Nizam is afraid of Bahadur Khan’s influence and is always trying to propitiate him.”[19]
The same was true of Qasim Razvi in 1947-48. He was a poor successor to Bahadur Yar Jang in every respect. But, as happens all so often in history, the leader propounds an ideology of baleful consequence which successors pervert to their ends. The Nawab’s ideology lent itself readily to perversion. It is important to understand it for it was an important dimension in Jinnah’s relations with the Nizam, a dimension whose pernicious implications he seemed to have ignored.
The Nawab wanted an Islamic State in Hyderabad, despite its Hindu majority, under the kingship of Nizam. Jinnah was an astute tactician, but a straight forward man with contempt for low intrigue. But that was the very stuff of politics in Hyderabad. Jinnah’s mediation between the Nizam and the Ittehad encouraged the worst in both. He alone could have steered them on a sensible course. His neglect of the Nawab’s ideological excesses, in contrast to his sternness with the Raja of Mahmudabad’s Islamism, set Hyderabad on a wrong course. The Nawab left a baleful legacy when he died in 1944. “In 1940-1, Bahadur Yar Jang began to have a short statement of faith (kalima) recited at all the meetings of the Ittehad: We are the king of the Dekkan. H.E.H.’s throne and crown are the symbols of our political and cultural domination. H.E.H. is the soul of our kingship, and we are the body of his kingship. If he were no more, we would cease to exist, and if we were no more, he would cease to be.”[20]
In a speech on 12 January 1941 he said “The Ittehad ul Muslimin will certainly try to ensure that H.E.H. will select Ministers who share its views. This it is the duty of the Majlis to do so. The Majlis desires that the right type of men should constitute the Government. What kind of men should enter the Government, the Majlis knows; all do not know. The Majlis will determine who the right kind of men are. The Majlis is in a position to present to H.E.H. for appointment and the exercise of his choice, the right kind of men.”[21]
On 31 May 1941 he delivered a clear warning to the ruler “Don’t think that I am dying for the sake of the King of the Dekkan, and giving my life for him. I am not Abdul Malik (the slave of the king), but Abdullah (the slave of God). And in this world, no believer can be anything but Abdullah. I am not going to sacrifice myself for the throne and the crown of the Asafias because they are the throne and crown belonging to Mir Osman Ali Khan, the glory of the state. … The reason why I am willing to sacrifice myself for the throne and crown of the Asafias and for their royal power is that I look upon this power as a symbol of the power of the Islamic community…”
In June 1941 the Nizam denounced expressions of loyalty of the Nawab as “hollow and insincere.” In November 1941 he declared his support for the Ittehad, recognized the loyalty of Bahadur Yar Jang by a firman, and in an audience presented him and the secretary of the party “in token of their services” with a set of gem studded buttons.[22]
He asked the British to recognize the Nizam as “His Majesty.” Shortly before he died, he warned the government on 18 March 1944 that “its very existence depends on the cooperation of the Muslims.”[23] Qasim Razvi picked up these very themes when he became leader of the Ittehad. He said on 4 December 1947 that he wanted an Islamic State.[24]
This pantomime was being played out in a constitutional setting unflattering to the Nizam but which enabled – from his point of view, provoked – him to intrigue against his own Ministers. One of his Prime Ministers, Sir Mirza Ismail, described the real state of affairs in his memoirs My Public Life “The Nizam was the ultimate authority in the State in all administrative and political matters, but only theoretically, for in reality the control of administration was vested in his Executive Council, which consisted of a Prime Minister appointed by the Nizam, in consultation with and with the approval of the Viceroy, and six to eight members. The Nizam could not overrule his Council. He laughed heartily when I once said to him – “When I tell people that Your Exalted Highness is the most constitutional ruler in India, they do not believe me.” It was so as a matter of fact. If the Nizam overruled the Executive Council, the (British) Resident could intervene.”[25]It led Walter Monckton to remark “in Hyderabad the benign Ruler was the leader of the Opposition.”[26] The bar was withdrawn by the Viceroy Lord Wavell only on 20 March 1947.
The Nizam had long contemplated appointing Sir Mirza as his Prime Minister. His entire outlook was antithetical to Jinnah’s ideas and schemes. Honest as ever, Sir Mirza recognized, as none of the Nationalist Muslims did, that the Muslim League represented the Muslims and Jinnah was their “only accredited spokesman.” This prompted Jinnah to invite him in a letter of 17 July 1941, to join the League. Sir Mirza’s reply was tactless. He cited “my lifelong association with a Hindu Maharaja and my long service in a Hindu State” and the League was “avowedly anti-Hindu in its aims and objects.” Jinnah sharply dismissed this.[27]
When Jinnah learnt of the Nizam’s intentions he pleaded against the appointment not only with the Nizam but also with the British Resident, Arthur C. Lothian, and with the Viceroy. The correspondence between the Nizam and Sir Mirza reveals the former’s ambiguities. Jinnah’s exertions reveal not only his lack of tact and restraint in 1946, but a willful disregard of the realities; traits that were accentuated in the decisive year that followed.
On 10 November 1945 Jinnah first wrote to the Nizam, forwarding his correspondence with Sir Mirza in 1941 “to impress on you what his mentality and character is.”[28] He renewed this in a letter of 27 April 1946 and proposed the names of Khwaja Nazimuddin and Ghulam Mohammed. The Nizam rejected their names. His letter, of 1 May 1946, should have alerted Jinnah for the Nizam made it plain that the choice of the Prime Minister was “entirely his and of nobody else.” Another letter put the onus on the Viceroy. By the time Jinnah arrived in Hyderabad, Wavell had accorded his consent. In June 1946 Syed Ali Bux, former private Secretary to Bahadur Yar Jang, wrote to Jinnah and Sir Mirza in a vain effort to bring them together.[29] On 19 June he urged Jinnah to accept the appointment. Jinnah refused to meet him during his visit to Hyderabad. His sharp blunt letter to Jinnah on 12 July is a remorseful record of how a leader whom he respected went wrong, spurning good advice. “My greatest handicap was that in spite of my efforts I could not secure an interview with you before you saw H.E.H.”[30]
Jinnah’s interview with the Nizam was a disaster. Sir Mirza’s account is based on Hosh Yar Jang’s testimony. “He told me that Jinnah entered the room smoking a cigar, and seated himself in the chair in front of the Nizam with his legs outstretched. Immediately there was an explosion. H.E.H. exclaimed, “Do you know who I am? Is this the way you behave towards the Nizam of Hyderabad?” The attack was so sudden and unexpected that the visitor was completely flabbergasted; he withdrew his legs, threw away the offending cigar and apologized. But the storm having burst, apology did not ease the situation. The Nizam swamped him with angry questions. “What do you want? What do you want to tell me?” and so on and so forth. Jinnah sought to say something against the appointment, but before he could utter a few words, the Nizam cried – “I do not want any outside interference in my affairs. I can take care of the interests of my own people. I do not wish to discuss this matter with you.”
“I was told that “the whole Palace resounded with his angry voice, so much so that the oldest retainers said that they had never seen the Nizam in such a temper before.” In between the explosions, Jinnah somehow managed to play his last card by uttering the warning that the Muslim League would never extend any support to Hyderabad, either in its internal affairs or in the Constituent Assembly, if his advice was disregarded. That only made matters worse. “What do I care? You were never helpful. I am not going to ask for your help.” Jinnah then said something about constitutional reforms. The Nizam cut him short: “I am a busy person, Mr. Jinnah. I cannot go into details with you. If you wish to discuss the reforms, please go and see the minister in charge. Anything more? No? Then good-bye.”[31]
On 20 July Jinnah shot off a letter to the Viceroy appealing to him to intervene as “the Nizam is under some undesirable influences.” Wavell declined and approved of Sir Mirza’s appointment.[32]
Even more revealing is the correspondence between the Nizam and Sir Mirza. He acquired a formidable reputation as an able, upright Dewan of Mysore (1926-41) and Jaipur (1942-46). As early as in 1941 the Nizam thought of recruiting him as the Finance Member of his Executive Council. The offer was declined. The Nizam sensed why and wrote on 15 August 1941 explaining why he did not offer the Premiership. That explanation provides a clue to the subsequent course of events. “Firstly, you have spent a large portion of your service as the Dewan of only one State which was the Hindu State of Mysore; I mean that, except for this Hindu State, you have never had an opportunity of working in a Muslim State as well. Now, in these circumstances the Muslims of Hyderabad who are in a minority in my Dominions and who are not satisfied as to the attainment of their just rights and have been unable to arrive at an understanding with the Hindus, would not feel satisfied with your appointment, and they would not look upon it with any confidence … they would have believed that your long service as the Dewan of a Hindu State must have given you a Hindu outlook and mentality and that your aim in Hyderabad would be to give preferential treatment to the Hindus as forming the majority in the State.”
The second ground was his endorsement of an Indian Federation. This was well before Jinnah sent him Sir Mirza’s letters of 1941. (all the quotes are from Sir Mirza Ismail Papers; NMML, New Delhi). Instead, Mohammed Said Ahmed Khan, the Nawab of Chhattari was appointed Premier. He served till 1946. In 1945 the Nizam invited Sir Mirza to succeed him; but, with reservations. Sir Mirza warned him “you should be prepared to meet the coming storm which is bound to affect all the States, and particularly Hyderabad, with its vast Hindu population. Hyderabad will have to face it in the near future. If at such a time Your Exalted Highness were to take a false step or make a wrong choice or accept wrong advice, it will certainly cause serious anxiety to all well-wishers of Hyderabad, especially to the Muslims of India, who regard its sovereign as their natural leader.” The Nizam dropped the matter citing the objections of “the Muslim community” (letter of 27 December 1945). Yet on 7January he pleaded with his future PM to give “some assurance” to the Muslims “that their misgivings are groundless … for this community is the backbone of the State and the Ruler’s Dynasty.” In this view the Nizam never wavered.
That Mirza Ismail accepted the job, nonetheless, is hard to understand. By June 1946 the ruler had made up his mind with full knowledge of Jinnah’s strong objections. On 24 June he referred to “the intrigues of your enemies among whom Jinnah is the most badkhwa (written in Urdu in the original) of yours.”
Jinnah arrived in Hyderabad on 9 July. Chhattari quit on the 11th. Sir Mirza assumed office in August 1946. His letter of resignation dated 15 May 1947 revealed the rot in the system. “I have had the misfortune to find myself opposed at every turn, by a certain section of the local Mussalmans, who, in my opinion, are set on a course that is suicidal to the State … It has been my further misfortune to find that I have lost the confidence of Your Exalted Highness. The intrigues and agitation to which I refer are, I firmly believe, directed as much against the interests of Your Exalted Highness as against myself. But, while a word from you would have stopped the campaign at once, you have maintained silence, and the agitators have given the impression that they enjoy Your Exalted Highness’s goodwill and patronage … I shall always pray that God, in His mercy, may protect the Asafiahi Crown from the dangers that I see looming ahead.”
This was a shorter, politer version of a draft which described the situation more vividly. “The most unwelcome and unhappy disclosure brought home to me during the last few months is the fact that Hyderabad Mussalmans, steeped as they are in utter selfishness and greed, are totally blind to all that is happening beyond the borders of the State and that in their utter blindness they are pursuing a suicidal course which can only land them in ruin … I pray that there may not come a day (though it appears almost inevitable) when this glorious heritage will be in great danger from the very men on whose advice Your Exalted Highness relies so much.”
Chhattari was nominated as his successor. A few weeks later came the Partition Plan of 3 June 1947 which both the Congress and the League accepted. However even when the Cabinet Mission’s Plan of 16 May 1946, which envisaged a loose federation, held the field, the Nizam wrote to Wavell on 11 June 1946 that Hyderabad “cannot join any Indian Union” and sought British protection.[33]
After the Partition Plan he issued a Firman on 12 June 1947 declaring that Hyderabad would “live in the closest friendship and amity with both” the States. (Hyderabad’s Relations with the Dominion of India; Vol. I April 1948 p. 1; Vol. II, June 1948 and Vol. III, August 1948 referred to as HWP. India published a White Paper in August 1948 and its Supplement in September 1948, referred to as W.P. The HWPs are far more comprehensive).
As we have seen on 3 May 1947 Jinnah had in a talk with Walter Monckton written off Hyderabad and this drove the Nizam to heal the breach of July 1946. He wrote to Jinnah on 12 May 1947: “I want to take your opinion as to my joining the Constituent Assembly and also what attitude I should adopt as to my sovereignty.” Federation was “out of the question.”[34]
In his meeting with Monckton, Jinnah advised declaration of independence. “He also emphasized the necessity of taking the people into closer association in the government of the State without which it would be difficult for the States in the near future to survive.” Sound advice; but it contradicted the counsel for independence. The Hindus of Hyderabad, the majority, were for union with India.[35]
They met again on 15 June. On 17 June and 30 July Jinnah issued his famous Statements on the States’ right to independence. He warned the Viceroy, Lord Mountbatten, on 12 July that “if Congress attempted to exert any pressure on Hyderabad, every Muslim throughout the whole of India, yes, all the hundred million Muslims, would rise as one man to defend the oldest Muslim dynasty in India.” Mountbatten pointed out that isolation “could only end in the quiet disruption of the dynasty from within.”[36]
Hyderabad’s champion acquired a veto from its ruler on 15 July “I shall decide my affairs with your concurrence and knowledge.” Jinnah seized on this sentence in his reply on 21 July: “Please do not take any final decision; and I hope, as you say in your letter you will do so with my ‘concurrence and knowledge.”[37]
Jinnah was sent a draft letter from the Nizam to the Viceroy for his approval on 24 July. The Quaid-i-Azam did not approve it.[38]On 26 July a Hyderabad Delegation comprising Chhattari, Ali Yavar Jang, the Minister for Constitutional Affairs, and Monckton met Jinnah on his summons when he suggested a League of Free States.[39]
They reported to the Nizam who bared his heart to Jinnah on 28 July. It warrants quotation in extenso. The Nizam was all for Pakistan. Geography alone compelled him to deal with India. He could get no better terms after 15 August 1947. Precisely what help could he expect from Pakistan? Not surprisingly the letter displeased its recipient. “H.E.H. would of course much prefer to have close relations with Pakistan rather than with the Dominion of India. It is the landlocked position of Hyderabad in the belly of the most Hindu part of Hindustan which makes it inevitable for H.E.H. with his vast Hindu population to make, if possible, some friendly arrangement with Hindustan.
“H.E.H. has definitely made up his mind not to accede but he may be driven to closer unity by treaty in regard to External Affairs than he would have wished. But a treaty, as the British have shown, can be denounced. If and when Pakistan and Hyderabad are in a strong enough position to enable Hyderabad to resist political and economic pressure by the surrounding Hindustan, H.E.H. would review the position to make his ties closer with Pakistan and less close with the Dominion of India…
“So far as Defence and Communications are concerned, it is difficult to resist the view that Hyderabad must, at least by treaty, accommodate itself to the policy of the Dominion of India … With regard to External Affairs, in the light of Mr. Jinnah’s criticism, the draft letter has been modified. It is of course difficult to dissociate External Affairs from defence … H.E.H. would instead agree to conduct the External Affairs of his State in conformity with the foreign policy of the Dominion of India. Mr. Jinnah will see that this leaves the conduct of Foreign Affairs in the hands of the State, although the direction of this policy will be similar to that of the Dominion of India. … But it is, in H.E.H’s view, certain that when the British go, that is to say on and after the 15th August, there would be no chance of making anything like so favourable an arrangement with the government of the Dominion of India as would be probable on the present basis. … Otherwise, H.E.H. feels sure that Congress will make every effort by means that are indirect and not manifestly provocative to make the economic and political position of Hyderabad intolerable and, as Mr. Jinnah knows, with a large Hindu population there would be limits to the State’s power of resistance to such a pressure.” The Nizam admitted that “Hyderabad never had the conduct of its External Affairs in the sense in which that term is being used … he is offering to give no more than in practice he cannot help giving.”
There followed a demand for precise assurances: “In these circumstances, before making up his mind what attitude to adopt at this vital juncture, H.E.H. must know in black and white what steps Mr. Jinnah could take to assist and rescue Hyderabad if this pressure were adopted. Could Mr. Jinnah guarantee to get supplies of food, salt and kerosene oil and other goods in which Hyderabad could be made a deficit area, introduced into the State. To what extent could Mr. Jinnah provide the State with arms and equipment and, if necessary, with troops? If economic pressure can be shown to be used against Hyderabad, what effective steps could be taken by Pakistan in time to rescue the State from its predicament? If Congress supporters inside the State revolted and were indirectly assisted by Congress forces in the Dominion of India, what assistance could H.E.H.s expect from Pakistan? How could Hyderabad hope to get an outlet to the sea without the cooperation of the Dominion of India?”
The Nizam pressed Jinnah for his opinion on his draft letter to the Viceroy. His delegation met Jinnah in New Delhi on 4 August. He strongly advised the State not to accede to India. It was a historic encounter. These extracts set the seal of his endorsement on the course Hyderabad should adopt. “There was some such thing as standing for one’s own right, despite every threat or provocation. If it came to the worst, one should die fighting rather than yield on a point of fundamental principle. Mr. Jinnah gave the illustration of what he called the greatest martyrdom in history, the example of Imam Hussain standing for what was right and giving his life for it. All the sanctions in the world then existing were applied against him and his followers but they withstood them and suffered wholesale butchery … That should be the attitude which the Nizam and his advisers and people should adopt … In our own times, England had done the same against the heaviest odds…”
After the sermon, he came into his own form as a shrewd lawyer. “As regards His Exalted Highness’ question as to how far Pakistan would be able to assist Hyderabad economically or politically or with troops or arms and equipment and the like, Mr. Jinnah said that it was not possible for him at present to give any specific undertaking but that, generally speaking, he was confident that he and Pakistan would come to the help of Hyderabad in every way possible. There should be no doubt on that point. He said that even countries with long-established governments could not give specific undertakings of the nature desired except by reference to the situation as it developed. The United States could not give any such undertaking when it was first approached by the United Kingdom for help during the last war, but the United States gradually began helping on different fronts until they ultimately came into the war itself.”
Jinnah added: “If Hyderabad was short of petrol or kerosene, it would not matter, if, on the other hand, Hyderabad had abundance of firmness, perseverance and courage. The Russians were threatened by a blockade against them but they won the war. If Hyderabad was similarly threatened, there would be other ways to fight, not necessarily with guns if there were no guns, and not necessarily with mechanized transport if there was no petrol.”[40]
On August 8 the Nizam wrote to Mountbatten declining accession to India. Jinnah had resented the surrender of External Affairs to New Delhi in the Nizam’s draft letter to Mountbatten. Monckton pleaded “the State is in a tricky position.” The letter was revised – the Nizam also wrote to Jinnah. A mere Standstill Agreement would not be acceptable to India. He had to write to Mountbatten without Jinnah’s approval in order to meet the 15 August deadline.
The Hyderabad delegation met an angry Jinnah at Karachi on 9 August. He was given the Nizam’s letter. Jinnah wanted to be sure that no decision had been taken. He was glad to note “no accession.”[41] They met again the next day, 10 August. Jinnah repeated his advice “the Hindus of the State should be more and more associated and made to feel that loyalty was the right course.”[42]While he sought and acted on Jinnah’s advice, the Nizam had no qualms in denouncing Jinnah before Mountbatten, Qasim Razvi and the Ittehad “all these people are the followers of a certain gentleman who used to be in Delhi and who has now made Karachi his headquarters. They consult him in all matter and are his disciples.”[43]
Monckton warned the Nizam in September that he is “entirely mistaken in being led by Jinnah for after all whatever advice Jinnah tendered would always be coloured by that which would be beneficial to Pakistan and not to his (Nizam’s) state. He will merely make him (the Nizam) the instrument for achieving something good for Pakistan.”[44]
Jinnah’s counsel continued after the partition.[45] He was displeased with the Nizam for equating Pakistan with India in the grant of Rs. 200,000 (15 October 1947).[46]
It is unnecessary to trace in detail the course of the negotiations between the Nizam and the Government of India in an analysis of Jinnah’s policy towards Hyderabad. It is documented in the rival White Papers. Hyderabad Prime Minister Mir Laik Ali’s account is belied by the record on important points.[47]His suggestion that Jinnah had “more than once” assured help in the event of use of force by India is untrue.[48] But the claim that the Nizam relied on “positive action that Jinnah might take” is unworthy of credence.[49] He went to Quetta to seek Jinnah’s opinion, but failed. The Quaid-e-Azam was on his death bed. The incongruity of Laik Ali as a delegate of Pakistan to the UN General Assembly in 1947, while serving as the Prime Minister of Hyderabad, escaped both him and the Nizam.
The destinies of Kashmir and Hyderabad were linked at a precise moment in time. The Maharaja of Kashmir signed the Instrument of Accession to India on 26 October 1947. That very day, the Nizam of Hyderabad was expected to sign the Standstill Agreement with India, but did not. It had been approved by his Executive Council by six votes to three on 25 October after three days of debate. The draft Agreement and a draft collateral letter from the Nizam to the Governor General of India, Lord Mountbatten, had been negotiated in New Delhi for days. Benichou records: “The documents were taken back to Hyderabad on 22 October with the undertaking by the delegation that they would be returned to Delhi, duly signed by the Nizam by 27 October. A strange incident in Hyderabad, however, was to upset all plans and seriously affect future negotiations between the State and India.” The Nizam avoided signing them on 25 October and also on 26 October. The next morning, the Ittehadul-Muslemeen’s leader Qasim Razvi’s goons surrounded the homes of members of the Hyderabad delegation and prevented them from leaving. They promptly resigned.
A new delegation arrived in New Delhi on 30 October. Its plea for revisions was refused. On 29 November, the Nizam signed the documents. The Standstill Agreement was to last a year. It provided in Article 1: “Until new agreements in this behalf are made, all agreements and administrative arrangements as to matters of common concern, including External Affairs, Defence, and Communications, which were existing between the Crown and the Nizam immediately before the 15 August 1947, shall, in so far as may be appropriate, continue as between the Dominion of India (or any part thereof) and the Nizam.”
However, the Nizam had forfeited New Delhi’s trust completely. The siege of 27 October was not a Qasim Rizvi “coup” against the Nizam but an action taken with his connivance. The Nizam had consistently sought independence for the state and also perpetuation of his personal rule, flying in the face of the realities. “Faced with such bleak prospects, the Nizam had turned to Karachi (then capital of Pakistan) for advice. Although what passed between the emissaries of the Ittihad and Jinnah remained a well-kept secret, it can be supposed that Jinnah, waiting for the outcome of developments in Kashmir, welcomed the opportunity to render the life of Indian leaders a little more difficult. He may have advised Hyderabad not to give an inch until at least the Kashmir issue had been settled.”[50]
V. P. Menon recorded that later the Nizam’s emissary “Sir Sultan Ahmed told Lord Mountbatten and myself that the Nizam had sent two persons to Karachi who had returned on 29 October. He attributed the Nizam’s volte-face to some message which he must have received from Karachi.[51]Mountbatten mentioned the names of the two emissaries – Yamin Zubeiri and a companion – to Jinnah when they met at Lahore on 1 November 1947: “Jinnah assured me categorically that he had merely seen these two men out of courtesy, for a matter of five or perhaps seven minutes.”[52]
Mountbatten gave Jinnah this remarkable proposal at Lahore on 1 November: “The Governments of India and Pakistan agree that, where the ruler of a State does not belong to the community to which the majority of his subjects belong, and where the State has not acceded to that Dominion whose majority community is the same as the State’s, the question of whether the State should finally accede to one or the other of the Dominions should in all cases be decided by an impartial reference to the will of the people.”
Mountbatten recorded his host’s response in his Note of the discussion: “Mr. Jinnah then went on to say that he could not accept a formula if it was so drafted as to include Hyderabad, since he pointed out that Hyderabad did not wish to accede to either Dominion and he could not be a party to coercing them to accession.” Thus was the last chance for a Kashmir accord wrecked on the vain hopes of an independent Hyderabad.[53] Jawaharlal Nehru repeated this formula to Prime Minister Liaquat Ali Khan in a cable on 8 November: “… the principle that, where Ruler of a State does not belong to the community to which the majority of his subjects belong, and where the State has not acceded to that Dominion whose majority community is same as State’s the question whether the State has finally acceded to one or other Dominion should be ascertained by reference to the will of the people.”
Mountbatten went so far as not only to offer a plebiscite in Kashmir under the supervision of the United Nations, but also that “a joint India-Pakistan force should hold the ring while the plebiscite is being held”[54] – this, at a time when militarily India’s position in Kashmir was improving by the day.
A quarter century later, on 27 November 1972, the President of Pakistan, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, told a tribal jirga at Landikotal that India’s first Home minister and Minister for the States, Sardar Patel, had, at one stage, offered Kashmir to Pakistan in exchange for Junagadh and Hyderabad. But, he added, Pakistan “unfortunately” did not accept this offer with the result that it not only lost all the three native states but East Pakistan as well.
This is fully corroborated by the memoirs of Chaudhary Mohammed Ali.[55]Patel asked Liaquat Ali Khan: “Why do you compare Junagadh with Kashmir? Talk of Hyderabad and Kashmir and we could reach an agreement.” Patel repeated this offer publicly at a meeting in Junagadh on 11 November 1947. “Our reply was that one could agree to (sic.) Kashmir if they agreed to Hyderabad.”
Meanwhile, after the shoddy events in October the Nawab of Chattari resigned as President of the Executive Council. The Nizam appointed Mir Laik Ali as his successor; this time, against Jinnah’s advice.[56]He was Pakistan’s delegate to the UN General Assembly. More, even while Moin Nawaz Jung, Laik Ali’s brother-in-law, incidentally, was negotiating the standstill agreement with India, he was also negotiating with Pakistan a loan of Rs. 200 million in the form of Government of India securities of equivalent value.[57]The Nizam and his new set of ministers earned New Delhi’s distrust by one action after another.
India’s distrust of the Nizam was confirmed when he rejected the final draft of the “Heads of Agreement” sent to him on 15 June 1948, redrafted three times since 26 May, it was the best offer in the circumstances. It did not provide for accession to India in law; but did so in effect on defence, foreign affairs and communications leaving Hyderabad considerable leeway. A draft Firman by the Nizam, which bore V.P. Menon’s imprint, provided for responsible government and for a plebiscite on the issue of accession to be held under the auspices of some impartial and independent body. It had Patel’s full approval, of course. To the Nizam, responsible government spelt his suicide.
All that the draft of 15 June 1948 provided was that Hyderabad would “on the request of the Government of India, pass legislation similar to the legislation of the Government of India” on any of the matters comprised in those three subjects. If it failed to do so the Nizam would enact the law by an ordinance “under his own powers.” This was a major concession, a departure from the accepted principle that Central laws override State laws. This was an Agreement, not an Instrument of Accession. The draft Firman envisaged an Interim government established “in consultation with the leaders of the major political parties” and a Constituent Assembly early in 1949. On 17 June, Monckton sent a terse telephonic message to Mountbatten from Hyderabad: “LOST.” The Nizam’s wire of 17 June to the Viceroy raised three objections: “fiscal freedom and control over Hyderabad’s overseas and export trade;” stationing of troops in the State during an emergency, and the absence of an arbitration clause. He said he agreed with his Council’s decision to reject the draft. All issues hardly worth risking a break.
They would, doubtless, have facilitated the inevitable – Hyderabad’s accession to India. The Nizam and Hyderabad’s Muslim elite tried foolishly to avert the inevitable and inexorable. They could have bargained for a comfortable transition to the inevitable. They decided to fight and lost all.
Sir Mirza tried to help. He wrote to the Nizam on 1 May 1948, advising a compromise. He went to Delhi on 28 July but to no avail. He persisted till the end of August 1948. So did C. Rajagopalachari the Governor General who succeeded Mountbatten.[58]
Imagine the impact of a Hyderabad settlement in 1948 on the Kashmir dispute: The impact, specially, of a plebiscite there.
In retrospect, Ali Yawar Jang posed questions to which answers are hard to find. “The possibility of armed conflict with India had been the subject of constant discussion between the Nizam and his Prime Minister, the Nizam asking what hope there was of any result but defeat and disaster. The question arises; did these Ministers who, unlike Kasim Razvi who was a blind fanatic and had never seen the world, occupied positions of responsibility and had access to every information, two of them experienced administrators, two of them judges, three of them shrewd business men and investors out of whom one, the prime Minister, was the most successful businessman of all of them, an engineer not unacquainted with administration, a man of the world, widely traveled and known for his balanced views – did they fail to realize the consequences of the policy they were pursuing? Did they think they could stand against the Indian Army or did they wish to offer only a token resistance, registering a sort of protest with a few human lives, or did they believe in a fight to the last man, a whole community choosing to suffer annihilation rather than surrender the State it ruled?”[59]
The tragic aftermath, predictable as it was, followed. “Operation Polo,” launched on 13 September 1948, settled the issue, but at great human cost. On Maulana Azad’s persuasion, Nehru sent to Hyderabad a Committee of Inquiry, comprising Pandit Sunderlal, Yunus Saleem and Abdul Ghaffar. It documents the massacre of Muslims in parts of the State. The rich Nawabs suffered far less than the poor, emotionally and physically.
There was, however, no consistency in India’s policy on the States either. The Government of India’s White Paper on Hyderabad (1948) said: “Plebiscite without an interim government representative of and satisfactory to the majority population will only be a fraud on the people.” Nehru’s stand on this point throughout the negotiations on plebiscite in Kashmir (1947-53) was the direct opposite. On 9 June 1948, V.P. Menon told the Nizam’s delegation: “In the ultimate analysis, sovereignty can only vest in the people and situated as Hyderabad was and the large majority of the population were Hindus and the ruler was a Muslim, the Government of India cannot disclaim interest in this matter.[60]
There is ample evidence to prove that Nehru had decided to resile from his pledge on a plebiscite as early as in 1948. After the successful Operation Polo in Hyderabad the determination hardened.
Operation Polo was conceived as early as on 3 February 1948 by H Q Southern Command in an appreciation by Lt. Gen. Goddard.[61]Eventually the army was ordered to move any time after 10 September. On 11 September 1948 Quaid-e-Azam passed away. Two days later the Indian army moved into Hyderabad in “a police action” as it was falsely called.
What they destroyed was much more than “the Nizam’s Dominions.” It was the virtual destruction of a culture and way of life which Hyderabadis of all ranks and hues mourn to this day. Omar Khalidi, Hyderabad’s devoted chronicler, published a compilation aptly titled Hyderabad after the Fall.[62]It includes W.C. Smith’s essay, quoted earlier in which he recorded “in some areas all the men stood in a line and done to death’… somewhere between one in ten and one in five of the adult males may have lost their lives in those few days.”[63]
Syeda Imam has edited The Untold Charminar: Writings on Hyderabad.[64] It covers a fascinating range, from culinary art to the historical, political and cultural aspects. It includes translations of the great poet Makhdoom Mohiuddin’s works. It is, however, Prof. Karen Isaksen Leonard’s volume, Locating Home: India’s Hyderabadis Abroad, that brings home even more poignantly the treasures that were lost.[65] The praise it has received from scholars is richly deserved. “A unique ethnographic work on the diasporas with Hyderabadi roots that juxtaposes the historical with the contemporary.” This work of stupendous research traces Hyderabadis in Pakistan, Britain, the United States, Canada, Australia and the Gulf, conducting over 500 interviews and collecting a mass of literature.
The work centres on the diaspora as it exists today. “The extent of the changes in Hyderabad itself also helped to explain the generational rupture, but the chief reason was that the children of the immigrants identified strongly as citizens of the new nations. Indo-Muslim culture was in sharp decline, yet elements of Hyderabadi culture might continue if they appeared useful to the children’s futures – for example, multicultural values in a plural society, respect and courtesy in everyday relations with others, or the winning tastes of foods like bagara baigan and Hyderabadi biryani as they entered the “multicuisines” of the destination countries. In this study, interrogating transnationalism, globalization, and cosmopolitanism pointed to the continuing importance of nation-states, yet the power of culture was evident. The nation-states in which the Hyderabadi emigrants resided and worked set the parameters for their participation in the new sites, marking members of the first generation and definitively shaping the identities of members of the second and subsequent generations. While constrained and shaped by their sites of settlement, Hyderabadis everywhere simultaneously participated in an emergent structure of feeling that was global and flowed across national boundaries.”[66]That wealth would have resided at home but for 9/13. Hyderabadis enriched the societies in which they settled.
What of the cultural oasis of composite culture that flourished in Hyderabad itself? Time would have affected it; for the worse, perhaps. But, unlike Delhi and Lucknow, it could have survived the ravages of the partition. It could have remained a centre of learning in Urdu and its prosperous middleclass could have provided leadership and help to the Indian Muslims who lost leaders of rank in 1947-49. That was not to be. The ones who guided Hyderabad in 1947-48 had no interest in such matters. Power was all that mattered.
Their apologists would find it hard to believe that a Prime Minister of Hyderabad wrote these lines: Kafir hun ya momin hun, khuda jaane main kya hun / main bunda hun un ka jo hain Sultan-e-Madina (Be I infidel or true believer, God alone knows, what I am/I know that I am the servant of one who is the ruler of Medina). The writer was Sir Kishan Prasad Shad; Prime Minister of Hyderabad.
In a brilliant article, Prof. Dushka H. Saiyid documents the problems Jinnah’s legalistic stand on Kalat’s independence created for Pakistan. Even the British were dismayed.[67]The British High Commissioner reported on 27 March 1948: “There is good reason to believe that he (the Khan of Kalat) has been flirting with both India and Afghanistan.” He acceded to Pakistan only on 27 March 1948 when his schemes were exposed. Similarly the Nizam had been in contact with the Portuguese. Dileep Partwardan’s researches in the archives enabled him to record the “Nizam Portuguese Negotiations 1947-48.”[68] The quest was for an outlet to the sea. Goa was the coveted prize.
Professor Reginald Coupland rightly asked “India could live if its Muslim limbs in the North-West and North-East were amputated; but could it live without its heart?” Nor could Pakistan without the strategic Kalat. Neither newly independent nation-state could suffer such defection. It is tragic that a wrong policy on Hyderabad wrecked the most promising attempt at a Kashmir settlement on 1 November 1947. The subcontinent would have been spared a lot had it succeeded. Not only an entire elite but a fine culture was destroyed in Hyderabad. Jinnah alone was not to blame. The blame must also fall on the Nizam and the ones whose support he received. But Jinnah was the one man who alone could have saved them from themselves. Instead, he supported them to the lasting harm of both Pakistan and Hyderabad.
[1] A.G. Noorani is an eminent Indian scholar, legal expert and noted columnist.
[1] Smith, Wilfred Cantwell; The Middle East Journal; Vol. VI, 1950, p.50..
[2] Islam in Modern History, Princeton University Press, 1957, p. 273, fu.22.
[3] Quaid-i-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah: The Nation’s Voice, Vol. VI, Annotated Speeches, Statements , Interviews and Messages, March-August 1947; edited by Waheed Ahmad, Quaid-i-Azam Academy, Karachi, 2002, p.84. (This is the best compilation of its kind. Dr. Waheed Ahmad went beyond Jinnah’s pronouncements to seek further material in the achieves, especially the Moncklan Papers).
[4] Mirza Ismail Papers: Correspondence with the Nizam of Hyderabad; (ii) Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, New Delhi.
[5] Jinnah Papers: Quest for a Political Settlement in India: 10 October 1943 -31 July 1944, Second Series, Vol. X, Editor-in-Chief Z.H.Zaidi, Quaid-i-Azam Papers Property, Culture Division, Government of Pakistan, 2004, pp. 441-2.
[6] Vide the writer’s article, “Bilateral Negotiations on Kashmir: Unlearnt Lesson,” Criterion, Vol. I No. I, October-December 2006, pp.30-31.
[7] Jinnah Papers, First Series; Vol. IV; p. 147.
[8] Jinnah Papers, First Series, Vol. II, pp. 745 and 752.
[9] Bawa, V.K.; The Last Nizam; Viking; 1991; pp. 76-78; based on archives.
[10] Manto, Saadat Hasan; Ganje Farishte; Saqi Book Depot, Delhi, 1953; p.29.
[11] Quaid-e-Azam Jinnah’s Correspondence; edited by Syed Sharifuddin Pirzada; East and West Publishing Co., Karachi; 1977; p. 1134.
[12] Pernau, Margrit; The Passing of Patrimonialism: Politics and Political Culture in Hyderabad 1911-1948; Manohar, 2000; p. 274.
[13] Bawa, V.K.; The Last Nizam; p. 148.
[14] Pernau, Margrit; The Passing of Patrimonialism: Politics and Political Culture in Hyderabad 1911-1948; p. 255.
[15] Benichou, Lucien D.; From Aristocracy to Integration :Political development in Hyderabad State 1938-1948; Orient Longman, 2000, p.38.
[16] The Nation’s Voice; Vol. I, p.31.
[17] Ibid.; p. 366.
[18] Ibid., Vol. 2; p.481.
[19] Bawa, V.K.; The Last Nizam; p.206.
[20] Pernau, Margrit; The Passing of Patrimonialism” Politics and Political Culture in Hyderabad 1911-1948, .p.277.
[21] Ibid.; p. 278.
[22] Ibid.; p. 279.
[23] Ibid., p. 281.
[24] Ibid.; p.334.
[25] Ismail, Sir Mirza; My Public Life; George Allen & Unwin; 1954; p. 97.
[26] Walter, Monckton; A Strange Client, (October 1947); Pernau cites it at p.270.
[27] Pirzada; ed.; p. 227.
[28] Jinnah Papers; Vol. 12; p. 326.
[29] Bawa, V.K.: p. 232.
[30] Vide Jinnah Papers; Vol. XIII, pp. 78, 284, 294 and 431 for the letters.
[31] Sir Mirza Ismail, pp. 98-99.
[32] Jinnah Papers, Vol. XIII, pp. 332 and 342.
[33] The Transfer of Power 1942-47, HMSO, London, Vol. VII, p. 868.
[34] Jinnah Papers, Part I, p.735.
[35] The Nation’s Voice, Vol. VI, p. 173.
[36] Ibid., p. 270.
[37] Jinnah Papers, First Series, Vol. III, pp. 415 and 592.
[38] The Nation’s Voice, Vol. VI, pp. 524 and 528.
[39] Ibid., p. 326.
[40] Jinnah Papers, First Series, Vol. IX, pp 25-17..
[41] The Nation’s Voice, Vol. VI, p.344.
[42] Ibid., p. 350.
[43] Jinnah Papers, First Series, Vol. IX, p. 46.
[44] Ibid., p. 54.
[45] Ibid., p. 537.
[46] Ibid., p.538.
[47] Tragedy of Hyderabad, Pakistan Cooperative Book Society Ltd., Karachi, 1962.
[48] Ibid., pp. 255 and 258.
[49] Ibid., p. 261.
[50] Benichou, p. 191.
[51] The Story of the Integration of the Indian States, p. 314.
[52] Sardar Patel’s Correspondence 1945-50, Vol. I, edited by Durga Das, Navajivan Publishing House, p. 74. This volume contains the record of the Jinnah-Mountbatten talks in 1947.
[53] Ed. Durga Das, pp. 73-74.
[54] Ibid., p.81.
[55] Chaudhary, Mohammad Ali; The Emergence of Pakistan, p. 299.
[56] Menon, p. 318.
[57] Menon, p. 323.
[58] Sir Mirza Ismail, pp. 109-125.
[59] Hyderabad in Retrospect, Bennett Coleman & Co. Ltd., Bombay, The Times of India Offices, 1948, p. 48..
[60] White Paper of Hyderabad, Supplement page 50.
[61] Operation Polo: The Police Action Against Hyderabad, Government of India, 1972, p.25.
[62] Khalidi, Omar; Hyderabad After the Fall, Hyderabad Historical Society, Wichita Kansas, US, 1988
[63] Ibid., p.21.
[64] Imam, Syeda; The Untold Charminar: Writings on Hyderabad, Penguin Books India Ltd. 208.
[65] Leonard, Karen Isaksen; Locating Home: India’s Hyderabadis Abroad, Oxford University Press, New Delhi, 2008.
[66] Ibid., p. 285.
[67] “The Accession of Kalat: Myth and Reality,” Strategic Studies, Institute of Strategic Studies, Islamabad.
[68] Journal of Indian History, Vol. 52 August-December 1954, Parts 2 & 3, pp. 475-492 and Vol. 53, Part 2, pp. 303-322.
