Just before the Lok Sabha elections, the Union Home Ministry on Tuesday announced that now every year September 17 will be celebrated as ‘Hyderabad Liberation Day’. In a gazette notification, the ministry said, “To remember the martyrs who liberated Hyderabad and to kindle the flame of patriotism in the minds of the youth, the Central Government has decided to observe September 17 every year as Hyderabad Liberation Day. ”
Citing the dates of independence, the ministry said that the country became independent on August 15, 1947, but Hyderabad could not get independence from the Nizam’s rule till 13 months after this date.
Ultimately, after the action of ‘Operation Polo’, Hyderabad was freed from the rule of Nizam on 17 September 1948. Many soldiers were martyred in this battle.
Hyderabad Liberation Day will now be celebrated every year on 17 September in the memory of those martyrs. The people of that area were demanding this for a long time.
What was ‘Operation Polo’?
‘Operation Polo’ was the ‘code name’ of a military action launched by the Indian Army on 13 September 1948 to unify the princely state of Hyderabad.
When the country became independent on August 15, 1947, the Nizams of Hyderabad were hesitant to join India.
About a year after independence, the then Home Minister Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel conducted a military attack on the Nizam’s princely state to include Hyderabad in India, which was called ‘police action’.
Just five days after this attack, on 17 September, the Nizam’s army surrendered to the Indian Army.
What was the background of Operation Polo?
Mir Osman Ali Shah, the Nizam of Hyderabad, did not want to merge his princely state with India but wanted to keep it as a separate independent country.
For this reason, the Nizam did not include Hyderabad in either India or Pakistan after independence.
In fact, the Nizam had taken advantage of the circumstances when, soon after independence, the Indian government became engaged in the Kashmir War and all attention and resources were focused towards dealing with the Pakistani threat to Jammu and Kashmir.