Between Yan'an, Pakistan & Hindustan: Communism, Islamism, and Indian Nationalism in Hyderabad, 1935-1952

FAIN: FEL-282529-22

Venkat Dhulipala
University of North Carolina at Wilmington (Wilmington, NC 28403-3201)

Research and writing leading to a book on the history of Hyderabad, India (1935-52), focusing on the rise of Indian nationalism and the integration of Hyderabad as a province of India. 

My monograph examines the momentous last thirteen years of Hyderabad State, which ended with its invasion by the Indian army in 1948, a move widely welcomed by its population that desired Hyderabad’s merger with India. It provides a granular account of how Indian nationalism triumphed in Hyderabad against competing attempts to establish it as either an independent Islamic State or as southern Pakistan, and an armed peasant rebellion to inaugurate it as a Communist republic, while also marginalizing Hindu nationalists in this process. It analyzes how each of these movements in Hyderabad mobilized popular support through the press, public meetings, and cultural conferences, using a variety of messages invoking popular signs, symbols, slogans, and sentiments. My book concludes by examining how Hyderabad was integrated as a province in India, and how its Communists, (and later Muslim separatists) were "pacified" and coopted into India's democratic process starting with its first elections in 1952.