by Jerry Pinto
Asaf Jahi’s successors ruled as the Nizams of Hyderabad. Historians point out that they transformed Hyderabad in many ways and managed political alliances strategically; they tried not to wage war unless it was absolutely necessary. When the British and the French spread their hold over the country, successive nizams won their friendship without giving up their power. The nizams allied themselves with each side at different times, playing a significant role in the wars that involved Tipu Sultan of Mysore, the British and the French. They tackled the water scarcity that had always plagued the city by building massive reservoirs like the Nizam Sagar, Tungabhadra, Osman Sagar and Himayat Sagar.
It was during the reign of the third nizam, Sikandar Jah, that Hyderabad’s sister city, Secunderabad, was founded in 1806—specifically to station French and subsequently, British troops. It turned out to be one of the largest British cantonments in India.
The construction of the ‘Residency’ in Hyderabad was completed in the early nineteenth century and saw the establishment of the armed Russell Brigade. This was later known as the Hyderabad Contingent. Despite the British Resident at Hyderabad and their troops at Secunderabad, the state continued to be ruled by the nizam.
The British treated it as the ‘senior-most’ princely state and within the elaborate protocols of the Raj, its ruler was accorded the highest honour: a twenty-one gun salute. The state was allowed its own currency, mint and postal system. The late nineteenth century saw the establishment of the government’s central printing press and the Nizam State Railways.
Although the Nizam’s territories were surrounded by British India, his state was politically isolated from the rest of the country. The nizams pledged allegiance to the King of England. By the early twentieth century, they had been awarded the title ‘His Exalted Highness’ or HEH. Of course, this political isolation did not mean that ideas of revolution did not seep into the city. Many revolutionary student groups operated from the Nizam College. They were even known to publicly parody the nizam’s initials HEH, by referring to his title as ‘His Exhausted Highness’! By that time, the city of Hyderabad had many modern educational institutions. In 1917, the seventh and last nizam, Mir Osman Ali Khan founded the Osmania University. This was the first modern university to teach in an Indian language (Urdu). In fact, even the official language of the state was changed from the elitist Persian to the popular Urdu. Rabindranath Tagore wrote the following words in praise of these decisions: ‘I have long been waiting for the day when, free from the shackles of a foreign language, our education becomes naturally accessible to all our people.’
Up to 11 per cent of the Nizam’s budget was spent on education. Primary education was made free for the poorer sections of society. Perhaps this is why the city had always been the centre of important social and political transformations. Hyderabad implemented the prohibition of sati as soon as it was outlawed in British India. Capital punishment was suspended and replaced with life imprisonment in the early twentieth century, something that was introduced in Britain only in 1964! Around the same time, the judiciary was separated from the executive.
The City Improvement Board was set up with a focus on health and hygiene. Incidentally, in the nineteenth century, in Begumpet, a township in Hyderabad, a British officer and scientist, Sir Ronald Ross, discovered the links between the malarial parasite and the anopheles mosquito. He later went on to win the Nobel Prize for Medicine!
The early twentieth century saw the establishment of the Hyderabad Electricity Board, an archaeological department, a Bureau of Translation and Compilation, and a medical college, the holding of the first Bachelor of Arts examination in Osmania University, the setting up of an Industrial Trust Fund, a radio broadcasting service and even an aero club!
The Nizam’s Museum in Hyderabad houses replicas of the magnificent Buddhist frescos from the Ajanta Caves. Italian experts were specially invited for restoration and recreation of these works on canvas to preserve them with the necessary skill required.
When India gained independence in 1947, the Nizam declared his intention to remain independent, either as a sovereign ruler or by acquiring dominion status within the British Empire.
In August 1947, Charles Gordon Herbert, the last British Resident, left Hyderabad. In November of that same year a Standstill Agreement was signed with the government of India. This was in order to keep essential trade and supplies flowing. However, the law and order situation soon deteriorated, with escalating violence between the private Razakar army fighting for continuation of the nizam’s rule and the communists of Telangana fighting for a merger with the Indian Union. As the violence spiralled out of control and refugees flowed into the coastal regions of the state of Madras, the Indian government under Home Minister Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel initiated a police action titled Operation Polo.
On 17 September 1948, Hyderabad was merged, after five days of police action. The nizam signed, under threat of force, the Instrument of Accession to the Indian Union and Hyderabad was finally integrated into the Indian Union as a state, more than a year after India gained independence.
On 1 November 1956 the states of India were reorganized on linguistic lines. Consequently, the territories of the state of Hyderabad were divided between the newly created Andhra Pradesh, Bombay (later Maharashtra) and Karnataka. Hyderabad city became the capital of Andhra Pradesh.
Today the city is known for its information technology, pharmaceutical and entertainment industries. A number of call centres, business process outsourcing (BPO) firms dealing with IT and other technological services were set up in the 1990s making it one of the major regions for call centre companies in India. Ramoji Film City, the largest film studio in the world, is located on the outskirts of the city.
Hyderabad’s home-grown cosmopolitanism brings together the most divergent and radically opposed traditions and treats them as part of a common history. It is a fine example of linguistic syncretism with its Telugu–Urdu combination and rare ability to absorb Tamil, Marathi and English, cutting across religious and caste distinctions in all kinds of ways. Its cuisine too is a complex fusion of north and south Indian, Hindu and Muslim food!
Balancing act
Kaumudi Marathé
When I was fourteen, my family moved to Hyderabad on a parched, hot June day. As our bus slowed at an intersection, I saw a swishing, flapping russet sea—hundreds of women in sun-faded brown burqas milled around, rushing for buses, hurrying home with children and groceries. Underfoot, the earth was startlingly brick red. I soon discovered it left its mark on feet and stained clothes permanently.
The bus moved down narrow streets through chaotic traffic to the city’s outskirts. Past the magical Golconda fort, past old havelis, vineyards, lush trees and still lakes. I saw ancient grey rocks. Like building blocks of all shapes and sizes arranged by a giant child, then scattered in haste, they were piled helter-skelter across the landscape.
These granite formations defied logic. Multi-ton boulders balanced on tiny pebbles. In their strange forms, one saw elephants, mushrooms, footballs, towers. Some, split in two, sheltered saplings in the cracks. Millions of years ago, there was a seabed here. Ebbing and flowing waters eroded the stone, creating extraordinary balancing acts.
Kaumudi Marathé is a writer who lives in America. She has written books on subjects as diverse as cookery and temple architecture.
For years I travelled that shaded road, admired the surreal rockscape. As Hyderabad grew and construction increased, the thunderous sounds of dynamite daily signalled the quarrying of those rocks. After withstanding the elements for millennia, in the last quarter century, our breathtaking rock formations were turning to gravel, cement and finally dust.
History is not just text in books about events that happened a long time ago. In my lifetime, Hyderabad’s monumental rocks, once a sign of the grandeur of nature and evolution, have become history instead.
Kolkata/Calcutta
We have even more culture
Th
ree hundred and a few years ago, the eastern bank of the River Hooghly was a fertile and somewhat soggy strip of land. The city of Kolkata grew there bit by bit from a cluster of three villages: Kalikata, Sutanuti and Gobindapur. They lay on the fringes of a Mughal kingdom ruled from the town of Murshidabad, around eighty kilometres away.
The Hooghly—as the Ganga is called in this part of the country—was part of many ancient trade routes that connected several townships and trading villages that existed on the fertile banks of the river’s tributaries, all the way from the Himalayas into the Bay of Bengal.
The smell of money and business attracted many global travellers and traders to this region from the sixteenth century onwards. There was money to be made but there was danger as well. There were mosquitoes in the marshes. There were pirates in the ocean. And the traders themselves were not above a little skulduggery if they thought it would suit their interests. Besides the French, the Dutch and the Portuguese, there were the powerful British traders. Their company was the richest and so it was the most resilient. It was called the British East India Company.
In time, although the city became a vibrant commercial centre, no other company had as much influence as the British East India Company and so it came to be called, simply, the Company.
The Company was particularly keen to set up base in this region as it connected well to the rich fertile soil of the hinterlands, which they eyed for the cultivation of poppies. These would be processed into opium and then sold all over China and the peninsulas of the region. Kolkata was perfectly situated at the base of the tributaries that connected it to the agricultural hinterland up north and the trade-friendly sea linking it to southeastern Asia. It was the ideal setting for the growth of a magnificent and charismatic city.
Some historians date the founding of the city to the year 1690 by Job Charnock who was an agent with the Company. However, others doubt that he had any vision of establishing a city. He was just doing his bit to set up base for the Company’s activities. It was an excellent site for a settlement: protected by the Hooghly River on the west, a creek to the north, and salt lakes about two and a half miles to the east. Soon, the Company bought the three villages from a local landlord, Sabarna Chowdhury. Then it made a trade arrangement with the Mughal ruler Farrukh Siyar. According to the pact, the Company had to make an annual payment of Rs 3000 in return for which the emperor would allow it to trade in the region as long as they stuck to trading.
This of course was not to be. Soon, the Company had already built Fort William, a protected settlement, and stationed Company soldiers there. By the early eighteenth century, a civil court too was established and the city’s first mayor appointed. At that time though, the city was no more than a handful of hamlets housing the quarters of the Company officials and soldiers with their native servants and their families.
Slowly the fort began to look like it was not defending the people within but ready to do battle. The reigning monarch Nawab Siraj-ud-Daula started to protest. He became particularly agitated when the Company started bringing in more troops, ostensibly to protect itself from the French. In 1756, he attacked the outpost and captured it in a bloody battle. After he had captured the fort, he is said to have imprisoned 146 people in a small room. The next morning, 123 were dead. This is known as the tragedy of the Black Hole of Calcutta, named after the small room in which the people were imprisoned and where they suffocated to death. However, later historians have come to doubt the truth of this story. All that we know about the Black Hole, we know from the account of one of the survivors, John Zephaniah Holwell. For instance, Holwell says that the room in which they were held measured 24 feet by 18 feet. This would not have been enough room for nearly 150 people. It is now almost universally accepted that Holwell exaggerated his story. Some historians say that the nawab was not involved; others say that only sixty-nine people died; still others maintain that it never happened at all.
However, the Company used this ‘incident’ to retaliate fiercely. Robert Clive recaptured the fort within a year, defeating the nawab in the battlefield of Plassey. It was in 1772 that the site was formally referred to as Calcutta and declared the capital of British India. Its first Governor General, Warren Hastings, moved all important offices from Murshidabad to Calcutta. The British even printed the first currency bill in a city mint and the city saw the publication of a newspaper, the Bengal Gazette.
By then, Robert Clive had also captured the whole of Bengal, Bihar and Orissa. These were fertile areas with rich soil, good rains and many rivers. The crops were good every year and the Company grew rich. The city prospered, even though the countryside saw the first famine in centuries. Not surprisingly, many protested against the violence of the Company’s policies. A local landlord called Nandkumar was hanged as punishment for his outburst against the British.
Around that time, Calcutta was developing into a major city. The marshes on the banks were drained off and the city’s landscape started to form along the Hooghly—building by building.
Richard Wellesley, who was the city’s Governor General between 1797 and 1805, nurtured the growth of the city and shaped much of its public architecture. By the early nineteenth century, Calcutta was already being referred to as the City of Palaces. Many local traders and businesspersons, landlords and chieftains, kings and aristocrats who lived in the kingdoms along the river all the way into the hinterland, built magnificent homes. Calcutta was soon studded with large buildings that housed numerous important institutions. The Asiatic Society was inaugurated and became an important landmark in the history of the city. The early nineteenth century saw the establishment of Fort William College, and the building of the Governor’s House, Shahid Minar and the Town Hall. In roughly the same period, Raja Ram Mohan Roy, David Hare and Radhakanta Dev started the Hindu College, later known as the Presidency College, with just twenty students! David Hare, a watchmaker from Scotland who came to India to make his fortune but soon began to spend his money to work for the poor and for education, also helped publish the first Bengali magazine, Digdarshan, from Sreerampur, a neighbourhood in Calcutta.
By the early nineteenth century, the city was divided into two settlements. The British one—or the White Town—was filled with the standard comforts and luxuries required by the English rulers and their families. It had large promenades for restaurants, many clubs patronized by the English èlites and sports grounds. The Black Town, where Indians lived, had shanties and crowded shops as well as the palatial homes of those Indians who had managed to make some money.
Textile and jute industries were set up. The city had to be connected to the rest of the country and the railways came rolling into town. The roads were improved. Horse-drawn tramcars began to rattle down the streets. By the turn of the century, the trams were run by electricity and the first motorcar appeared on the streets.
Calcutta also became a refuge for the fading kings and nawabs of the previous political era. As it evolved to become the fountainhead of Indian modern life—still struggling with the paradox of being ruled by the British—it also became a home for royal refugees. The most famous was Nawab Wajid Ali Shah, the last nawab of Awadh. He came to Calcutta in 1857, built the town of Metiaburj and died in 1887.
1857, the year of massive political revolt against the East India Company, was also the year that the University of Calcutta was established. It contributed to the bubbling social and political transformation and the atmosphere of rebellion against the Company’s injustice and exploitative behaviour.
The nineteenth century was also the time of reform in society and culture, now known as the Bengal Renaissance. (Renaissance is a French word that means rebirth. When a large number of positive changes take place in society, we use the word ‘renaissance’.) By then Ram Mohan Roy had already been successful in getting the practice of sati banned. This gave enormous confidence to the Indian élite educated in modern institutions. The coming together of the British and Indian social and cultural streams resulted
in the emergence of a new ‘Babu’ class of urbane Indians. These primarily included bureaucrats and professionals. They read English and Bengali newspapers, (the still popular city daily the Statesman was already in circulation by then), were open to an anglicized culture and usually belonged to upper-caste Hindu communities. Incidentally, they took to football in a big way and the later part of the century saw the setting up of the first Indian Football Association.
Thus, the city’s native middle classes started to create a unique modern urban culture that set the trend for many towns and cities all around the country. Northern cantonment and railway towns looked towards Calcutta for the latest trends in music and fashion.
However, the residents of the city were primarily interested in politics, which they passionately discussed in their respective paras or neighbourhood meeting places—all through the day and night. A characteristic feature of Calcutta, the para had a strong sense of community. Typically, every para or neighbourhood had its own community club. People indulged in adda (or leisurely chat), and these sessions became the basis of political participation.
Not surprisingly, Calcutta became a centre of the Indian independence movement. Just three years after the first electric tramcar thundered down the streets of the city—from Esplanade to Kidderpore in the year 1902—Lord Curzon tried to partition Bengal. The intention was to create two large provinces based on Hindu and Muslim dominated districts. This stimulated such massive protests that he simply could not succeed in his aim. The city tasted political success and its citizens were encouraged to continue provoking the government.