Hyderabad Liberation Day: The Razakar Legacy Of Owaisi's AIMIM

While India is firmly moving in towards removing all vestiges of a colonial past, one outfit that evades such scrutiny is the All India Majlis-E-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM).

The less talked about history of the (AI)MIM includes its legacy of pre-independence brutality.

Although India got independence on 15 August 1947 from British rule, the princely state of Hyderabad had to wait 15 more months to really enjoy this freedom.

It was only on 17 September 1948 that Hyderabad was finally liberated by military action.

But what necessitated such an action in the first place?

Hyderabad

In 1947, the outgoing British administration handed over only 60 per cent of the country's land to the new Indian government. The remaining 40 per cent of the country belonged to the rulers of the 565 princely states. At the time of independence, they were given three options - join India, join Pakistan or remain independent.

One such state which was overwhelmingly Hindu but was headed by a Muslim ruler was Hyderabad. As reported in Swarajya earlier, the Nizam of Hyderabad had the intention to become independent. He issued a firman (vetted by Muhammad Ali Jinnah) on June 11 1947 that he was entitled to assume the status of an independent sovereign on 15 August 1947.

He wanted a treaty with India and not accession to it. Jinnah, the creator of Pakistan, encouraged this intransigence but stopped short of militarily, or otherwise, supporting the Nizam. He was content in receiving a “loan” of Rs 20 crore which, in effect, was a donation to Pakistan by the Nizam.

The Nizam's confidence, that he could stop the Indian military from forcefully integrating Hyderabad with India arose from the fact that the Nizam had a well-trained and well-armed militia of his own. The Razakars.

The Majlis-e-Ittehad-ul-Muslimeen (MIM)

The MIM was founded in 1926/27 under Nawab Mahmood Nawaz Khan as a platform for the Muslim community to unite under the rule of Hyderabad Nizam Mir Osman Ali Khan. The Razakars were the Islamist paramilitary force of the MIM, established by its President Bahadur Yar Jung.

Bahadur Yar Jung founded the Majlis Tabligh-e-Islam in 1927 to encourage conversion of Hindus to Islam. Today, the official website of the AIMIM hails Yar Jung as "the tallest leader of the community".

In 1944, the MIM took a more militant turn under the leadership of Syed Qasim Rizvi, who commanded a force numbering anywhere between 50 thousand to 2 lakh men. The stated goal of the Razakars was to perpetuate Islamic rule in Hyderabad and later, to violently prevent the merger of Hyderabad with India.

When the Nizam expressed his desire to remain independent, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, India's Minister for States Affairs had reportedly sent a warning to the Nizam saying "Accede or die". The Nizam, however, had a counter-threat. Qasim Rizvi had threatened to start another series of India-wide communal massacres.

The atrocities of the Razakars

The Razakars clamped down on any dissent against the Nizam. In their frenzy, they went about murdering Hindus, communists and even progressive Muslims who advocated a merger with India.

There was also a violent clampdown on organisations like the Arya Samaj, Hindu Mahasabha and Hyderabad State Congress.

The Razakars went from village to village, killing, raping, ransacking Hindu properties, slaughtering cattle and essentially carrying out a genocide - while being led by Qasim Rizvi.

The documentary evidence of these brutalities is spine-chilling. In the village of Bhairanpally, the lone authentic survivor, N. Mallaiah, 90, spoke about the atrocities committed by the Razakars. “They plundered everything. The armed men molested women, killed sheep and killed able-bodied men just for pleasure. They looted every village en route,” he was quoted in The Hindu.

Another such village was Veera Bairanpalli, where the horrors were reminiscent of the Jallianwala Bagh killings of 1919.

Men were shot dead indiscriminately while women were stripped and paraded naked, raped and their gold ornaments looted. Some villagers even died by jumping in wells in agricultural fields. This information was told to The Hindu by another survivor, 89-year-old Challa Chandra Reddy.

GoI's dilly-dallying

While these ghastly atrocities were on, the Nizam had entered into an agreement with the Communists, who sought to overthrow the Nehru government and establish the dictatorship of the proletariat. The communists then publicly declared that the Nizam state should not accede to capitalist India but be independent.

After a series of failed negotiations for a treaty between India and the Nizam, Mountbatten entered into an agreement with the Nizam which granted the latter considerable freedom. Sardar Patel rejected this agreement.

Patel decided upon the use of force.

Codenamed Operation Polo, the Indian forces began their march into Hyderabad, as ordered by Sardar Patel, on 13 September in three directions. The Nizams Razakars were easily beaten. General El Edroos surrendered before General Chaudhuri on 18 September 1948.

MIM After Independence

After Operation Polo, the MIM was banned. Its leader, Qasim Rizvi was jailed from 1948 to 1957, when he was released on the condition that he would leave India and go to Pakistan, where he was granted asylum.

Before leaving, Rizvi met with some of his former associates from MIM and handed over the reins of the Majlis to a lawyer who re-wrote its constitution.

This lawyer was Abdul Wahid Owaisi. He organised the MIM into the All India Majlis-E-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM). His grandson, Asaduddin Owaisi is the current leader of the party.

Following this, the party remained a marginal player in Hyderabad's politics. In 1976, Abdul Wahid Owaisi's son Salahuddin Owaisi took control of the party after his father's demise. Salahuddin's followers call him "Salar-e-Millat" (commander of the community).

AIMIM made its debut in Parliament when Salahuddin Owaisi was elected to the Lok Sabha from Hyderabad Constituency in 1984. The party has held that seat since then, first Salahuddin (1984 - 2004) followed by his son Asaduddin (2004 - present day).

The links between the Razakars and the present-day political outfit - AIMIM - couldn't be clearer.