Sardar Patel’s resolve to teach the Nizam of Hyderabad a lesson made him unleash a flurry of actions that culminated in the obstinate ruler’s surrender. KM Munshi, then India’s Agent-General in Hyderabad, provides a definitive account of the events in one of his books
The Hyderabad Nizam’s fate was sealed in December 1947 when Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel asked his confidant and lawyer KM Munshi to assume charge as India’s Agent-General in Hyderabad. But the real countdown to the end of the Nizam’s rule and the integration of Hyderabad into the Indian Union began after lord louis Mountbatten left India at the end of his eventful tenure as independent India’s first and only English Governor General in the middle of 1948. Sardar Patel thereafter let loose a flurry of events in quick succession that not just caught the conceited Nizam off guard but also eventually compelled him to pathetically surrender as the Indian Army took control through what is euphemistically called Police Action.
Many historians and writers have in the decades recorded the momentous developments which led to the Nizam’s ouster, but few have had the ringside view that KM Munshi was privileged to, both by virtue of his proximity to Sardar Patel and the position he held as India’s representative during the Nizam’s defiance and eventual capitulation. His book, The end of an era: Hyderabad Memoirs, the first edition of which was published in 1957, is, therefore, among the most authentic and detailed accounts of the event. At a time when there a political controversy is raging over the confrontation between Jawaharlal Nehru and Sardar Patel on how they viewed the Hyderabad problem, Munshi’s book can be relied upon to offer us a bipartisan insight into the issue. The End of an Era has also been over the years a valuable source of reference for various writers who have attempted in the later years to cast light on the subject.
If the reader is looking for passages on fireworks between Nehru and Sardar Patel on Hyderabad, he will not find it in Munshi’s book. This is not because no difference existed between the two titans of the Indian freedom movement or that they did not clash, but because Munshi confined himself to telling the story as it happened, without indulging in sidelights. But it is pertinent to note that Sardar Patel dominates his narrative and those such as Nehru, lord Mountbatten and other prominent players flit in and out of the story. This is understandable because Munshi reported to the Home and States Ministry that Sardar Patel headed, and which was in charge of the accession of the princely outfits (barring Jammu and Kashmir) to India.
There were many sympathisers of the Nizam those days, both in the country and in England — not to mention within sections of the Indian and foreign media, including Desmond Young, a former editor of The Pioneer, who, in Munshi’s words, “went to the USA with unlimited funds at his disposal to plead the cause of Hyderabad” — who played games to propagate the Nizam’s despotic regime. They were enraged that India should have coerced the Nizam into a surrender and that the Indian Army should have taken over Hyderabad with almost no resistance from the Nizam’s own army and the notorious Razakars led by Kasim Razvi. They called it an attack on the sovereign rights of a ruler whom the British had promised protection. But, as Munshi’s book elaborates in great detail, the cost of not ousting the Nizam would have been enormous for India. The despot had been flirting with nearly everyone who could stem the Indian tide, and that included Pakistan. He had launched a virtual programme of ethnic cleansing — subjugating the large Hindu population and getting Muslims from other parts of India to settle down in Hyderabad with an aim to tweak the demographic balance. The Nizam, with the help of his private militia, had launched a blatant communal programme that rallied and provoked the Muslims to violence against the Hindus in the name of Islam. The “cancer in India’s belly”, as Sardar Patel termed the Nizam’s Hyderabad, had to be taken care of.
The Nizam and his men were living in a fool’s paradise, and it became evident after Sardar Patel decided to crack down. Munshi quoted Razvi in a rabble-rousing speech: “Muslims have always created a new geography for themselves. Very soon the boundaries of Hyderabad will expand far beyond Delhi, and the Asafia flag will fly over Delhi.” This was in May 1948, barely four months before the Razakars’ His Exalted Highness surrendered and disowned Razvi and the latter’s hooligans.
That the Nizam was privy to all such hate-mongering and protected and encouraged the likes of Razvi, is evident from Munshi’s book. In fact, the Razakar leader drew upon the Nizam’s hatred for India, which is why he seemed to reflect his ruler’s opinion when he rhetorically denounced Delhi and held up Pakistan as a shining example in the following words: “What kind of freedom have you (India) achievedIJ You presume to deliver sermons on freedom to the world. But just look at yourself, look at your condition… There is Pakistan in your neighbourhood; take a lesson from it. It can teach you Constitution and law…Everywhere in India you find anarchy…”
His fiery outbursts did nothing to melt Sardar Patel’s resolve; on the contrary it steeled the Iron Man further. On one occasion when Razvi met the Sardar and delivered one of his vitriolic speeches, the latter calmly responded that he (Patel) could do nothing if the Razakars (and Hyderabad) were bent upon “suicide”. Sardar Patel suggested that Razvi must see the light when he can and not hanker for it when darkness came.
In the nine months that Munshi stayed in Hyderabad — a tenure which ended after the Nizam surrendered and the Indian Army took effective control — he was in the midst of not just historical developments swirling around him but also people who aided and advised him and others who vilified and humiliated him. Besides Sardar Patel, there was VP Menon who provided him rock-solid support. Hyderabad’s Prime Minister Mir laik Ali blew hot and cold while England’s adviser to the Nizam, Walter Monckton, played all ways.
Those who believe that Sardar Patel had shown more haste than diplomacy in tackling the Hyderabad crisis, should not forget that, as Munshi pointed out, “The Nizam, by his letter of October 31 (1947), threatened to accede to Pakistan if the negotiations with the Government of India broke down.” He believed that such threats would pressure India (which his minions told him was weakening as a result of its problems along the borders with Pakistan) into accepting his terms and conditions. That, as Munshi observed, was a completely wrong assessment. In any case, threat was the worst weapon that one could use against Sardar Patel.
Munshi relinquished office (which in any case ceased to exist with Hyderabad’s accession) with a satisfaction that comes from having done a job well. The Government of India and Sardar Patel especially, heaped praise on him. But Munshi had one grouse in the midst of the happy ending: That he and his officers were not treated by sections of the Army and the civilian establishment with the regard they deserved’. For the trying emotional moments he went through as a result, Munshi had this to say: “My greatest solace during these days was that I continued to enjoy the confidence of the Sardar.”