Hyderabad: Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MLA Goshamahal Raja Singh on Wednesday praised Prime Minister Narendra Modi after the Union government formally announced it will celebrate September 17 every year as ‘Hyderabad Liberation Day’.
On March 12, the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) issued a statement declaring that the Union government has decided to celebrate September 17 every year as ‘Hyderabad Liberation Day’. The term however is contested as the annexation of Hyderabad to the Indian union on that day in 1948 was also marked with violence as thousands of Muslims were killed in its aftermath.
After the creation of Telangana, the BJP has been pressing to observe ‘Liberation Day’, which is what the right-wing in India uses to demonise Muslims and also to attack the last Nizam of Hyderabad. Hyderabad’s last monarch, Mir Osman Ali Khan, had refused to India along with a handful of other states.
The Hyderabad state and the Indian union had signed an agreement on November 29, 1947 for a year for negotiations. However, the Indian army was sent after talks fell through.
Raja Singh’s views
Applauding the decision, the MLA stated that the government led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi has made a commendable decision to celebrate September 17 every year as “Hyderabad Liberation Day.”
He further emphasized that this will help in conveying the glorious history of the Hyderabad Liberation War to the young generation across the country.
Gazette notification on celebrating ‘Hyderabad Liberation Day’
The notification highlighted that Hyderabad did not achieve freedom for 13 months after India’s independence on August 15, 1947, and remained under Nizam’s rule.
“The region got liberated from Nizam’s rule on September 17, 1948, after police action namely ‘Operation Polo’. Whereas, there has been a demand from the people of the region that September 17 may be celebrated as “Hyderabad Liberation Day”. Now, in order to remember martyrs who liberated Hyderabad and to infuse the flame of patriotism in the minds of the youth, the Government of India has decided to celebrate September 17 every year as “Hyderabad Liberation Day”,” reads the notification.
The BJP has long demanded the official celebration of September 17 as “Hyderabad Liberation Day.”
