When border skirmishes triggered the inevitable war

Only 13 months after declaring that he would join neither India nor Pakistan, the Nizam of the Princely State of Hyderabad had to surrender to the Indian Army in the war rendered inevitable by the clashes at multiple points on the border

In every war, the casus belli is as important as the war itself.

Seventy-five years ago, the Indian Armed Forces overran the Princely State of Hyderabad. The Hyderabad forces surrendered on September 18, 1948, ending the months of sabre-rattling and trading of charges and counter-charges that began with a Standstill Agreement.

The Princely State of Hyderabad was vast, stretching from the Satpura range to the two broad rivers of Godavari and Krishna. Its border stretched over 2,600 miles.

Speckled along this long border were villages and enclaves that were part of British territory but became Indian on August 15, 1947. Living in these villages were families with relatives scattered throughout without concern about borders or identities.

However, this changed once the British announced their departure and Nizam Osman Ali Khan, the Nizam of Hyderabad, issued a firman declaring that he would not join Pakistan or India.

Following this, skirmishes broke out in the hundreds of villages on the borders of India and Hyderabad.

The Indian Army wanted to patrol the borders, while the Razakars and Nizam’s army wanted to test its patience.

In less than six months, in January 1948, the Prime Minister of Madras, Krishna Bhavsinhji, sent a telegram to the Indian Defence Minister, seeking immediate action to safeguard the borders of Madras State adjoining Hyderabad.

The Bombay Presidency officials, too, wanted the Indian forces to be deployed at the Indian enclaves in Hyderabad.

This led to the Indian Army holding flag marches in Ahmednagar and Sholapur near Hyderabad borders.

Meanwhile, rumours spread about an attack on Bhadrachalam in East Godavari district of Madras Presidency.

All these parry-and-thrust of words and deeds had a cascading effect on the tempers in Hyderabad and in power centres in India.

One year after the Indian Independence, on August 17, 1948, Hyderabad Prime Minister Laik Ali wrote to Prime Minister Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru claiming that the border incidents breached the Standstill Agreement, which was still in force.

He used this as a prop to take Hyderabad’s case to the United Nations. This was the last straw.

The plan drawn up by British General Eric Goddard months earlier for the eventuality of a war with Hyderabad was a two-way thrust from the East in Vijayawada and from the West on Sholapur.

The main thrust was planned with border-wide smaller breaches to prevent hostile raids into India. The Indian Army finally used this plan successfully.

On May 10, 1948, the Nizam’s forces and Razakars fired on an Indian police vehicle inside the Barsi enclave. This was matched with rumours about firing on Indians. The Indian Army appeared to get the go-ahead for the attack on Hyderabad after this.

Instead, there was a strict line drawn up at the Defence Committee of the Cabinet meeting on May 13: “Under no circumstances whatsoever will any Indian troops enter Hyderabad territory unless orders to do so are issued personally by the C-in-C (Commander-in-Chief). Any order received to do so will be personally verified over the phone by GO-in-C (General Officer in Command), Southern Command, from the C-in-C.”

But a repeat of the Barsi incident occurred in Hadalgi, where Indian troops were fired at. The Indian army regiment 1 Bihar, which wasin position for war, counterattacked and killed 25 persons. This was followed by an attack on a train coming from Vijayawada by pulling the chain and robbing the passengers of their valuables.

The Indian Army’s main thrust on September 13 was in the Sholapur area on the western front. Part of the reason was that in at least 254 villages, the displaced Hindus from Hyderabad were turned into defence squads.

Some of these young men underwent military-style training and were raring to go. On the other side of the border, the Razakars were waiting for a fight. The result was that the strong Indian Army became unstoppable.

The 1948 monsoon was vigorous over central India, with a deviation of over 15% from the long-term average, and most rivers were in spate. This gave the Indian army, which was prepared with a long-term plan for conquest, a decisive edge.

This was enough for the Indian army to launch an attack. On September 13, 1948, Indian army tanks rolled into Hyderabad, and the war was over in about 100 hours. The border incidents had triggered the war, which nobody was keen to fight.

Published - September 21, 2024 01:43 pm IST