I promise you this is going to be a short post. That is because even though the subject is big, it has been dealt with many times at different points in the blog in conjunction with the question of who developed Hyderabad. The other day the famous Telugu poet and participant in the original Telangana Armed Struggle, Dasaradhi Rangachari was quoted by the Hindu as having said that he was disheartened by the attempts being made to project the Nizam of Hyderabad, especially the last Nizam, Mir Osman Ali Khan as a person who was responsible for the development of the city. He is also quoted by the Hindu as having said that the only thing that the Nizam had done was set up the Osmania University and that too with the money of the people which he had collected as taxes.
Without in anyway questioning the credentials of the great poet and his contribution to the reduction of feudalism in the Telangana region, I would like to join issue with his reported utterances. I am aware that he is an octogenarian and has seen more of life and the region than I have, but I have on my side an octogenarian (yes, my father, I will invoke his experience here again) and also more than forty years of living in Hyderabad to know what was the contribution of the last Nizam to the development of the city of Hyderabad and also perhaps to some areas of the region which was once the Hyderabad State. After having read the reports in the newspaper cited above as usual it became a subject of discussion between my father and me. While we have different views on the Telangana question (he believes in separation and I don't) we have agreements on many other things pertaining to Hyderabad.
After reading the report I sat back thinking and the first thought that came into my head was that when I was a child going to school we were taught that Hyderabad was the fifth biggest city in India. The other four cities were (in the order then) Calcutta, Delhi, Bombay and Madras. Delhi was the Capital of not only the British Empire but also of the other big empire that preceded it; the Mughal Empire. Calcutta, Bombay and Madras were port cities that were developed by the British as connection to the hinterland of India so that they could carry out trade through shipping. So in effect we are talking of these four cities having been developed due to the necessities of colonialism. But the fifth biggest city Hyderabad, thanks to the policies of the Nizam was never directly under British Colonialism even though it hosted a British Resident for my years. Yet it had developed. It was in the hinterland, not a port, did not have any solid agriculture, but it had started nascent industrial development. Hyderabad always had wide roads, an underground drainage and sewerage system and an architectural style that was uniquely its own. Most constructions used the now famed Indo-Sarcenic style and more importantly the city had a unique character that was derived out of its tehzeeb or loosely put hospitality (I cannot find a better word and therefore the loose translation). It also had a system of drinking water which was a form of rain harvesting and this was done by linking various tanks that were created to hold water.
So where did this all come from? Obviously it came from the Nizam's rule. Dasaradhi Rangachari is not right in believing that it was only the Osmania University that was the contribution of the Nizam to development. And which ruler of any kind would do things without collecting taxes from the people? Let me put it this way; it was possible for the Nizam to collect taxes and do nothing for the people. But he did do something for the people. The Osmania University was set up and along with it a translation bureau to translate technical terms of medicine, engineering and agriculture from English to Urdu. My father tells me that the bureau was fully functional, unlike the Telugu Academy which was set up in the 1970s, which has done nothing except bring out English textbooks now. One cannot forget that even prior to the setting up of the Osmania University, there was the Nizam College set up in 1887 (hope my date is right) which was offering courses in English medium and was affiliated to the Madras University till 1948-49 when it was made a part of Osmania University when the university had switched over to offering education in English.
The Nizam also gave scholarships to students to pursue higher studies in other regions with the rider that they come back and serve him. My grand father and his brothers were beneficiaries of this. The Nizam set up the Hyderabad Administrative Service and paid salaries that were higher than what the British were paying to the Indian Civil Service officers to attract good talent to his state. He enlisted the services of the famed Mokshagundam Vishweshwaraiah who not only plotted the course of the Isa and the Musi river and created the Himayat Sagar and Osman Sagar (Gandipet) reservoirs but also created a system of interlinked tanks from Medchal tank through the Fox Sagar tank to the Hussain Sagar tank. I am not even talking of other linkages here since I do not remember them too well. Then he tried to create a circular railway and did create it actually much like the ring roads of today. So where is the question of his not bringing about development? My father tells me there was no religious bigotry either and that many jagirdars were not even Muslims.
I am not lionising the Nizam, but I think it is extremely invidious to accuse someone of having contributed only to backwardness when there are glaring examples of conscious contribution to development. This post also does not belittle the greatness of people such as Dasaradhi Rangachari. It has only been made because of a fervent desire to project things as they should be; sometimes even people that we may not like do good things and just because we do not like them we cannot say they never did any good. This post will also not deny the excesses of the Razakars. That is also a true piece of history. But this is about the contribution of the Nizam to development and therefore I have only limited myself to it. The State of Andhra Pradesh is passing through a critical phase and at this juncture it is imperative that we do not distort history and create unnecessary antipathies between people.
P.S: I only seem to make these posts in great haste and therefore not proof read. Errors may please by excused.
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