Hyderabad State
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- This article is about Hyderabad State. For other uses, see Hyderabad.
Hyderābād and Berar pronunciation (Telugu: హైదరాబాదు Urdu: حیدر آباد) under the Nizams, was the largest princely state in India. Its area was as big as the United Kingdom.
It was located in south-central India from 1724 until 1948, ruled by a hereditary Nizam, and an Indian state from 1948 to 1956. Its capital city Hyderabad was for most of that time one of India's four largest cities and the widest and cleanest roads in India, apart from several amenities.[1]
Hyderabad was founded by the Qutb Shahi dynasty of Golconda. It was built by Persian architects and was known as Isfahan-e-Nau, The New Isfahan due to its beauty and architectural style. The basic architectural design of the city was based upon the Quranic model of Paradise.1
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[edit] Origins
In 1686 the Mughal emperor Aurangzeb campaigned in the Deccan to tame the Marathas and conquer the independent Deccan states. Before the campaign, the Mughals had controlled the northwestern Deccan, including Khandesh and Berar, but Mughal control ended at the Godavari River. Aurangzeb conquered Golconda and Bijapur in 1687, extending Mughal control south of the Krishna River.
The Mughal Empire began to weaken during the reign of Aurangzeb's grandson, Muhammad Shah. A Mughal official, Asif Jah, defeated a rival Mughal governor to seize control of the empire's southern provinces, declaring himself Nizam-al-Mulk of Hyderabad in 1724. The Mughal emperor, under renewed attack from the Marathas, was unable to prevent it.
The seniormost (21-gun) princely state in British India, Hyderabad was an 82,000 square mile (212,000 km²) region in the Deccan ruled by the Asif Jah dynasty of Muslim rulers, who had the title of Nizam and style of His Exalted Highness. The Nizams ruled over the wealthiest state in India at that time, controlling some 16,500,000 people. During the height of Hyderabad's wealth in the 1930s the Nizam was the world's richest man, famous for employing 11,000 servants and using the Jacob Diamond as a paperweight. Administratively, it was made up of sixteen districts, grouped into four divisions. Aurangabad division included Aurangabad, Beed, Nander, and Parbhani districts; Gulbargah (Gulbargah) division included Bidar District, Gulbarga, Osmanabad District, and Raichur District; Gulshanabad District or Medak division included Atraf-i-Baldah, Mahbubnagar, Medak, Nalgonda (Nalgundah), and Nizamabad districts, and Warangal division included Adilabad, Karimnagar, and Warangal districts.
[edit] Indian independence
When India became independent on August 15, 1947, the Muslim Nizam refused to accede to the Indian Union, although it entirely surrounded his territory, demanding the right as ruler of 18 million (overwhelmingly Hindu) subjects to rule a separate state. The resulting standoff ended a military invasion by Indian troops under the rubric of a 'police action' called Operation Polo between September 13 - September 17, 1948 and its incorporation as a state of India the next year. The present Nizam (the eighth), Nawwab Mir Barkat Ali Khan, Mukarram Jah Bahadur, currently lives in Turkey.
- See also: Telengana Rebellion
Hyderabad state in 1909
In November 1956 the State of Hyderabad was divided along linguistic lines, with Telangana, the northeastern Telugu-speaking region including the city of Hyderabad, assigned to the newly created Andhra Pradesh state, the Kannada-speaking western districts assigned to the state of Karnataka, and Marathwada, the Marathi-speaking northwestern region of the state, assigned to Bombay state, later Maharashtra.
Due to the long rule of the nawabs and the muslim rulers, there is still a long lasting cultural impact that continues to this day. For instance many of the local dialects of Telugu and Kannada are laced with Urdu - the official language during the Nizam rule. The cuisine too incorporates the Biryani a popular main dish and several other influences.
[edit] Economy
More than half the revenue of the state was derived from the land, and the development of the country by irrigation and railways caused considerable expansion in this revenue, though the rate of increase in the decade1891-1901was retarded by a succession of unfavourable seasons. The generally fertile soil produced millets of various kinds, rice, wheat, oil-seeds, cotton, tobacco, sugar-cane, and fruits and garden produce in great variety. Silk, Lac, gums and oils were found in great quantities. Hides, raw and tanned, are articles of some importance in commerce. The principal exports are cotton, oil-seeds, country-clothes and hides; the imports are salt, grain, timber, European piecegoods and hardware. The mineral wealth of the state consists of coal, copper, iron, diamonds and gold; but the development of these resources has not hitherto been very successful. The only coal mine now worked is the large one at Singareni, with an annual out-turn of nearly half a million tons. This coal has enabled the nizam's guaranteed state railway to be worked so cheaply that it now returns a handsome profit to the state. It also gives encouragement to much-needed schemes of railway extension, and to the erection of cotton presses and of spinning and weaving mills.
[edit] Transportation
The Hyderabad-Godavari railway (opened in 1901) traverses a rich cotton country, and cotton presses have been erected along the line. The currency of the state is based on the hall sikka, which contains approximately the same weight of silver as the British rupee, but its exchange value fell heavily after 1893, when free coinage ceased in the mint. In 1904, however, a new coin (the Mahbubia rupee) was minted; the supply was regulated, and the rate of exchange became about 115 = loo British rupees. The state suffered from famine during 1900, the total number of persons in receipt of relief rising to nearly 500,000 in June of that year. The nizam met the demands for relief with great liberality.
[edit] Rulers
The nizam of Hyderabad is the principal Mahommedan ruler in India. The family was founded by Asaf Jah, a distinguished Turkoman soldier of the emperor Aurangzeb, who in 1713 was appointed subandar of the Deccan, with the title of nizamul-mulk (regulator of the state), but eventually threw off the control of the Delhi court. Azaf Jah's death in 1748 was followed by an internecine struggle for the throne among his descendants, in which the British and the French took part. At one time the French nominee, Salabat Jang, established himself with the help of Bussy. But finally, in 1761, when the British had secured their predominance throughout southern India, Nizam Ali took his place and ruled till 1803. It was he who confirmed the grant of the Northern Circars in 1766, and joined in the two wars against Tippoo Sultan in 1792 and 1799. The additions of territory which he acquired by these wars was afterwards (1800) ceded to the British, as payment for the subsidiary force which he had undertaken to maintain. By a later treaty in 18J3, the districts known as Berar were "assigned" to defray the cost of the Hyderabad contingent. In 1857 when the Mutiny broke out, the attitude of Hyderabad as the premier native state and the cynosure of the Mahommedans in India became a matter of extreme importance; but Afzul-ud-Dowla, the father of the present ruler, and his famous minister, Sir Salar Jang, remained loyal to the British. An attack on the residency was repulsed, and the Hyderabad contingent displayed their loyalty in the field against the rebels. In 1902 by a treaty made by Lord Curzon, Berar was leased in perpetuity to the British government, and the Hyderabad contingent was merged in the Indian army. The nizam Mir Mahbub Ali Khan Bahadur, Asaf Jab, a direct descendant of the famous nizam-ul-mulk, was born on the 18th of August 1866. On the death of his father in 1869 he succeeded to the throne as a minor, and was invested with full powers in 1884. He is notable as the originator of the Imperial Service Troops, which now form the contribution of the native chiefs to the defence of India. On the occasion of the Panjdeh incident in 1885 he made an offer of money and men, and subsequently on the occasion of Queen Victoria's Jubilee in 1887 he offered 20 lakhs (£130,000) annually for three years for the purpose of frontier defence. It was finally decided that the native chiefs should maintain small but well-equipped bodies of infantry and cavalry for imperial defence. For many years past the Hyderabad finances were in a very unhealthy condition; the expenditure consistently outran the revenue, and the nobles, who held their tenure under an obsolete feudal system, vied with each other in ostentatious extravagance. But in 1902, on the revision of the Berar agreement, the nizam received 25 lakhs (L167,000) a year for the rent of Berar, thus substituting a fixed for a fluctuating source of income, and a British financial adviser was appointed for the purpose of reorganizing the resources of the state.
[edit] See also
- History of Hyderabad for a history of the city of Hyderabad.
- Hyderabad (India) for the city.
- Muslim culture of Hyderabad
- Jamia Nizamia
- Nizam for a list of Nizams and other information.
- Operation Polo the military operation that resulted in the annexation of Hyderabad state into India.
[edit] References
This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.
