DECLASSIFY REPORT ON 1948 HYDERABAD MASSACRE -- S A AIYAR
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Aijaz Zaka Syed
Nov 25, 2012, 11:40:03 PM11/25/12
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http://blogs.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Swaminomics/entry/declassify-report-on-the-1948-hyderabad-massacre
SWAMINOMICS
Declassify report on the 1948 Hyderabad massacre
Swaminathan Ankleshwar Aiyar
25 November 2012, 04:29 AM IST
The Gujarat election will revive charges that Narendra Modi killed a
thousand Muslims in the 2002 Gujarat riots, with the BJP accusing
Rajiv Gan dhi of killing 3000 Sikhs in the 1984 Delhi riots. To get
a sense of perspective, i did some research on communal riots in past
decades. I was astounded to find that the greatest communal slaughter
occurred under neither Modi nor Rajiv but Nehru. His takeover of
Hyderabad in 1948 caused maybe 50,000-200,000 deaths. The Sunderlal
report on this massacre has been kept an official secret for over 60
years. While other princes acceded to either India or Pakistan in
1947, the Nizam of Hyderabad aimed to remain independent. This was
complicated by a Marxist uprising. The Nizam's Islamic militia, the
Razakars, killed and raped many Hindus. This incensed Sardar Patel and
Nehru, who ordered the Army into Hyderabad. The Army's swift victory
led to revenge killings and rapes by Hindus on an unprecedented scale.
Civil rights activist AG Noorani has cited Prof Cantwell Smith, a
critic of Jinnah, in The Middle Eastern Journal, 1950. "The only
careful report on what happened in this period was made a few months
later by investigators - including a Congress Muslim and a sympathetic
and admired Hindu (Professor Sunderlal)- commissioned by the Indian
government. The report was submitted but has not been published;
presumably it makes unpleasant reading. It is widely held that the
figure mentioned therein for the number of Muslims massacred is
50,000. Other estimates by responsible observers run as high as
200,000." A lower but still horrific estimate comes from UCLA
Professor Perry Anderson. "When the Indian Army took over Hyderabad,
massive Hindu pogroms against the Muslim population broke out, aided
and abetted by its regulars. On learning something of them, the
figurehead Muslim Congressman in Delhi, Maulana Azad, then minister of
education, prevailed on Nehru to let a team investigate. It reported
that at a conservative estimate between 27,000 and 40,000 Muslims had
been slaughtered in the space of a few weeks after the Indian
takeover. This was the largest single massacre in the history of the
Indian Union, dwarfing the killings by the Pathan raiders en route to
Srinagar which India has ever since used as the casus belli for its
annexation of Kash mir.
"Nehru, on proclaiming Indian victory in Hyderabad, had announced that
'not a single communal incident' marred the triumph. What action did
he take on receiving the report? He suppressed it, and at Patel's
urging cancelled the appointment of one of its authors as ambassador
in the Middle East. No word about the pogroms, in which his own troops
had taken eager part, could be allowed to leak out. Twenty years
later, when news of the report finally surfaced, his daughter banned
the publication of the document as injurious to national interests."
Perry Andersen is accused by some of anti-Indian bias. This cannot be
said of author William Dalrymple. In The Age of Kali, Dalrymple says
the Sunderlal report has been leaked and published abroad, and
"estimates that as many as 200,000 Hyderabadi Muslims were
slaughtered."
Our textbooks and TV programmes show Sardar Patel and Nehru as
demi-gods who created a unified India. The truth is more sordid. You
will not find any mention of the Hyderabad massacre in our standard
history books (just as Pakistani textbooks have deleted reference to
the East Pakistan massacre of 1971). The air-brushing of Patel and
Nehru is complete. My friends ask, why rake up the 1948 horrors now?
You sound like an apologist for Modi's killings of 2002.
I can only say that the killings of 1948 cannot possibly justify the
killings of 2002, or 1984, or any others. Modi has blood on his hands,
whether or not he was directly culpable. But why pretend that others
had spotlessly clean hands? There is a macabre logic in the praises
Modi has recently heaped on Patel: the two were not entirely
dissimilar. Nations need to acknowledge their past errors in order to
avoid them in the future. Germany acknowledged the horrors of fascism
and militarism, and this helped it build a new anti-war society
focused on human rights.
Something is terribly wrong when Indian citizens are kept in dark
about the biggest pogrom since Independence, even after foreign
sources have lifted the lid. India's jihadi press is fully aware of
the 1948 massacre, and projects its censorship as evidence of Hindu
oppression . This is not how a liberal democracy should function.
India cannot become a truly unified nation on the basis of suppressed
reports and sanitized textbooks. The Sunderlal report must be made
public.
SWAMINOMICS
Declassify report on the 1948 Hyderabad massacre
Swaminathan Ankleshwar Aiyar
25 November 2012, 04:29 AM IST
The Gujarat election will revive charges that Narendra Modi killed a
thousand Muslims in the 2002 Gujarat riots, with the BJP accusing
Rajiv Gan dhi of killing 3000 Sikhs in the 1984 Delhi riots. To get
a sense of perspective, i did some research on communal riots in past
decades. I was astounded to find that the greatest communal slaughter
occurred under neither Modi nor Rajiv but Nehru. His takeover of
Hyderabad in 1948 caused maybe 50,000-200,000 deaths. The Sunderlal
report on this massacre has been kept an official secret for over 60
years. While other princes acceded to either India or Pakistan in
1947, the Nizam of Hyderabad aimed to remain independent. This was
complicated by a Marxist uprising. The Nizam's Islamic militia, the
Razakars, killed and raped many Hindus. This incensed Sardar Patel and
Nehru, who ordered the Army into Hyderabad. The Army's swift victory
led to revenge killings and rapes by Hindus on an unprecedented scale.
Civil rights activist AG Noorani has cited Prof Cantwell Smith, a
critic of Jinnah, in The Middle Eastern Journal, 1950. "The only
careful report on what happened in this period was made a few months
later by investigators - including a Congress Muslim and a sympathetic
and admired Hindu (Professor Sunderlal)- commissioned by the Indian
government. The report was submitted but has not been published;
presumably it makes unpleasant reading. It is widely held that the
figure mentioned therein for the number of Muslims massacred is
50,000. Other estimates by responsible observers run as high as
200,000." A lower but still horrific estimate comes from UCLA
Professor Perry Anderson. "When the Indian Army took over Hyderabad,
massive Hindu pogroms against the Muslim population broke out, aided
and abetted by its regulars. On learning something of them, the
figurehead Muslim Congressman in Delhi, Maulana Azad, then minister of
education, prevailed on Nehru to let a team investigate. It reported
that at a conservative estimate between 27,000 and 40,000 Muslims had
been slaughtered in the space of a few weeks after the Indian
takeover. This was the largest single massacre in the history of the
Indian Union, dwarfing the killings by the Pathan raiders en route to
Srinagar which India has ever since used as the casus belli for its
annexation of Kash mir.
"Nehru, on proclaiming Indian victory in Hyderabad, had announced that
'not a single communal incident' marred the triumph. What action did
he take on receiving the report? He suppressed it, and at Patel's
urging cancelled the appointment of one of its authors as ambassador
in the Middle East. No word about the pogroms, in which his own troops
had taken eager part, could be allowed to leak out. Twenty years
later, when news of the report finally surfaced, his daughter banned
the publication of the document as injurious to national interests."
Perry Andersen is accused by some of anti-Indian bias. This cannot be
said of author William Dalrymple. In The Age of Kali, Dalrymple says
the Sunderlal report has been leaked and published abroad, and
"estimates that as many as 200,000 Hyderabadi Muslims were
slaughtered."
Our textbooks and TV programmes show Sardar Patel and Nehru as
demi-gods who created a unified India. The truth is more sordid. You
will not find any mention of the Hyderabad massacre in our standard
history books (just as Pakistani textbooks have deleted reference to
the East Pakistan massacre of 1971). The air-brushing of Patel and
Nehru is complete. My friends ask, why rake up the 1948 horrors now?
You sound like an apologist for Modi's killings of 2002.
I can only say that the killings of 1948 cannot possibly justify the
killings of 2002, or 1984, or any others. Modi has blood on his hands,
whether or not he was directly culpable. But why pretend that others
had spotlessly clean hands? There is a macabre logic in the praises
Modi has recently heaped on Patel: the two were not entirely
dissimilar. Nations need to acknowledge their past errors in order to
avoid them in the future. Germany acknowledged the horrors of fascism
and militarism, and this helped it build a new anti-war society
focused on human rights.
Something is terribly wrong when Indian citizens are kept in dark
about the biggest pogrom since Independence, even after foreign
sources have lifted the lid. India's jihadi press is fully aware of
the 1948 massacre, and projects its censorship as evidence of Hindu
oppression . This is not how a liberal democracy should function.
India cannot become a truly unified nation on the basis of suppressed
reports and sanitized textbooks. The Sunderlal report must be made
public.
Zubair H Shaikh
Nov 26, 2012, 1:45:30 AM11/26/12
to BAZMe...@googlegroups.com
Dear Brother Aijaz, you have astutely epitomized the horrific events of post independent India and asked for Sunderlal report to be published. The so-called pseudo secular will never publish any such reports.
Kind Regards
Zubair
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HASAN CHISHTI
Nov 26, 2012, 6:36:43 AM11/26/12
to BAZMe...@googlegroups.com, Aijaz Zaka Syed
Bhai Aijaz Zaka Syed Saheb:
Is mazmoon ko sari duniya kay akhbarat mEn sha'ya hona chahiyay. MaEn yehan kay
kuch akhbarat aur websites ko forward kar raha hUn.
Hasan Chishti
Chicago
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