Hyderabad Liberation Day is observed on September 17 to commemorate the integration of the erstwhile princely state of Hyderabad into the Indian Union in 1948.On the occasion of the anniversary of the integration of Hyderabad to the Indian Union, it is of seminal significance to debunk the orchestrated plan of the Bharatiya Janata Party to claim that the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh played a role in making Hyderabad a part of India. Here, it is necessary to recognise the arduous efforts of Sardar Patel and Jawaharlal Nehru in ensuring the unification of Hyderabad with India.It is well documented that RSS had no role either in the freedom struggle of India nor in the integration of the princely states to the Indian Union. The Hindutva leader V.D. Savarkar, in fact, supported the Hindu Kingdom of Travancore’s stand against joining the Indian Union, as stated by Vikram Sampath in his two-part biography of Savarkar, wherein he wrote:“Here, Savarkar’s ill-advised support to the dewan of Travancore, Sir C.P. Ramaswamy Iyer, who was planning to declare autonomy and independence of the Hindu princely state, was unfortunate and detrimental to the integration process of the new Indian Union.”Mahatma Gandhi while speaking at a prayer meeting in Delhi on June 13, 1947 cautioned that if Hyderabad followed the example of Travancore rulers not to join the Indian Union, it could not survive. Referring to the Nizam, the ruler of Hyderabad, he asked from whom he wanted to keep Hyderabad independent:“Ninety per cent of the population of Hyderabad consists of Hindus and they include among them some well-known figures. If the independence contemplated by either Hyderabad or Travancore is not such as can make the people feel that they are free, then these States cannot survive.”Those observations of Gandhi in 1947 brought out the complexities faced by Sardar Patel to unify India. Even before Patel handled the intractable issue of making the princely states a part of the Indian Union, Gandhi, as early as 1939 wrote to him that, “The problem of the states is so difficult that you alone can solve it.”The deposed Nizam of Hyderabad, Osman Ali Khan, is pictured in an official photo wearing his coronation robes. Photo: Public domain.Apart from presciently flagging Patel’s responsibility to unify India, Gandhi on August 11, 1946, stated that representatives from Hyderabad met him to discuss reform in the Nizam-ruled state and described that reform as something that would be like taking a step backward. He then stated:“The least that any State can do at this time is to recognise the status and influence of the States’ Peoples’ Conference, of which Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru is the President, and secure its endorsement before proceeding with any popular measure.”It is quite clear that eventually the entire task of unifying India fell on the shoulders of both Patel and Nehru and this has been acknowledged by none other than Mahatma Gandhi.So in the context of the anniversary of Hyderabad joining the Indian Union, it is important to recall that the Hindutva forces were trying to fulfil Winston Churchill’s devious plan of dividing India into a Hindustan, Pakistan and Princestan.V.P. Menon in his book, The Story of the Integration of the Indian States, wrote that Patel was incensed by crime committed by private militia of Razakars owing allegiance to the Nizam in the villages and the bordering states. It is illuminating to note that Patel, according to Menon, made it clear to the Nizam that nothing short of an unqualified acceptance of accession and of the introduction of an undiluted responsible government would be acceptable to the government of India.Also read: A Glimpse of What Was Happening in Hyderabad in September 1948Efforts to de-communaliseThe Nizam had been prevaricating when it came to introducing a responsible government in Hyderabad on the ground that it would inevitably lead to accession. When the Nizam refused to budge in spite of several rounds of discussions and negotiations for a peaceful integration of Hyderabad to the Indian Union, Nehru addressed the press in New Delhi on June 17, 1948 and declared an open-door policy to deal with Hyderabad; meaning thereby that military option would be exercised to deal with the situation marked by Razakar leader Razvi who stated that Razakars would march to Delhi and capture the Red Fort and in case Indian troops went there, would massacre all Hindus.In spite of such provocations to trigger communal frenzy, Nehru consistently maintained that the Hyderabad issue was not a communal or religious issue but a political one which would be resolved by establishing a responsible government there with participation of people in the affairs of the state regardless of their religious identities.Exactly the same approach was followed by Sardar Patel when he insisted on the introduction of a responsible government which he firmly believed would pave the way for Hyderabad’s accession to the Indian Union. Such secular statecraft was adopted both by Patel and Nehru to unify India in those trying times when India was divided on religious lines and Pakistan was very vociferously curating a theocracy and defining its identity in terms of Islam and Islamic values. It is instructive to note that as early as January 20, 1939, Gandhi in a letter to Akbar Hydari referred to the work done by the Aryan League and the Hindu Mahasabha in Hyderabad and made it clear that “their activities should not be confused with that of the State Congress.” Thus he clearly disapproved of the communal nature of the activities of Aryan League and Hindu Mahasabha and asked Congress to keep itself away from those organisations while pursuing its objectives of establishing a responsible government under the aegis of the Nizam.This secular vision provided the anchor to launch Operation Polo, the military operation, which lasted for five days. There was no communal incident over this in the rest of the country.On the advice of V.P. Menon, Patel in consultation with Nehru, allowed the Nizam to continue with the understanding that with the establishment of democratic government in the state, the Nizam would be the constitutional head. Menon tendered that advice on the ground that the Nizam had been ruling for over 37 years, had a position not only in the state but also among his coreligionists in the rest of the country and enjoyed a certain prestige abroad. “The abolition of his dynasty immediately in the wake of the Police Action,” Menon argued, “would have a very unsettling effect on the Muslims.”Had RSS played any role in the integration of Hyderabad, it would have dispensed with the Nizam.On November 23, 1949, three days before the Constitution of India was adopted and enacted on November 26 that year, the Nizam accepted it as the Constitution of Hyderabad and, according to Menon, assured him that in spite of all that had happened in the past, he would be loyal to the Indian Union and work in the closest collaboration with the Government of India for the benefit of his people. He told Menon to communicate his thoughts both to Sardar Patel and Nehru.Hyderabad, according to Menon, had passed through a revolution. The approach adopted to integrate Hyderabad teaches lessons to be accommodative with a spirit of reconciliation anchored on secular statecraft to forge the idea of India and take it forwardS.N. Sahu served as Officer on Special Duty to President of India K.R. Narayanan.