People take part in a rally organized by BJP Minority Morcha in ‘Har Ghar Tiranga’ campaign ahead of Independence Day, at Charminar, in Hyderabad, on Tuesday, August 13, 2024. | Photo Credit: PTI
On October 2, 1942, Hyderabad witnessed a revolutionary form of protest. A women’s march that says: ‘Gandhi ka charkha chalana padega, Goron ko London jana padega (When Gandhi’s wheel turns, the white man must go to London).’ In the region where the writ of Nizam Osman Ali Khan ran, this is no less than an explosive challenge to the authorities. Hours before this protest, Sarojini Naidu was arrested. But other women staged a peaceful protest to be arrested. Among them was Padmaja Naidu who unfurled the flag near the Residence Hall.
The event was proof that the people of Hyderabad knew that the British were the real rulers even though Nizam Osman Ali Khan was sitting on the yellow masnad in the Chowmahalla Palace. And in contrast to the 17 July 1857 attack on the British Residency when the minister Salar Jung saved the day for the British and the Nizam. Times have changed. Challenges to the Nizam’s authority and support for merger with India were more widespread even before Operation Polo which became a fait accompli.
The spirit of the Indian independence movement passed through Hyderabad on August 15, 1947. But it did not end. The Congress called for the ‘Join Indian Union Movement’ in the major state of Hyderabad to be observed on 7 August 1947.
The country with these three linguistic regions was in ferment before and after India’s Independence. It took the form of Satyagraha and the Join Indian Union movement crystallized it.
The Satyagraha which began in 1938, was a simple affair with five members who declared themselves members of the banned Congress organization. The police will collect the group (jatha) to the nearest police station and later jail them.
The Join Indian Union movement led to a mass awakening where political activists would unfurl the Indian Tricolor in public knowing the serious consequences. The princely police machinery of the Nizam could not control the groundswell backing for the merger with India.
The dramatic hero of this war was the ordinary Indian who disappeared when Hyderabad was annexed by India.
The brothers Padamati Mala Kanakayya and Padamati Mallayya brought Independence to Warangal before August 15 when they unveiled the Tricolor on July 29, 1946. The Tricolor in its current form was only adopted by the Constituent Assembly on July 22, 1947. Nizam’s police. The first to fall was Kanakayya. His brother survived for six hours and was killed during a raid on his village.
The following week, on August 11, 1946, Veerabattina Mogalayya climbed the eastern gate of the Warangal Fort and unfurled the Indian Tricolour. He resisted the terror of the Nizam’s storm troopers called Razakars and the police to show their strength. This is the same site where he lost his leg during a fight with communal elements who had come to disrupt the Andhra Saraswat Parishat meeting. Mogalayya was then tracked down and killed by the Razakars in front of his mother.
When the memories of these freedom fighters have been almost erased, in the village of Begumpet in Nalgonda, the Tricolor flutters high over the years. Here, in the village square where the Nalgonda-Rangareddy Pala Utpathidarula Paraspara Sahayaka Sahakara Sangham (Milk Producers Cooperative– NARMUL) Chigulla Mallaiah, Jitta Ramachandra Reddy, and Baddam Narasimha Reddy hoisted the flag on August 15, 1947. The flag was changed on Independence Day and again in Dasara. In 1979, a statue of Mahatma Gandhi next to the flagpole was added.
The freedom struggle in the Nizam’s Dominion was not confined to the Telangana region. Ganpati Amrite fell under the bullets of Razakars while hoisting the Indian National Flag at Umari village in present day Maharashtra in September 1947.
“The time has come for forgiveness for all those who have sinned badly before and after the police action. Without it, there is no chance of lasting peace and security for the people of any community here,” Padmaja Naidu wrote to Prime Minister Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru. on October 1, 1950. It has been eight years to the day he planted the flag at the Residency Building in Hyderabad.
