the wave of Hyderabadis who went to Saudi Arabia to make a living for themselves in the 1980s.

What followed before and after the annexation was one of independent India’s closely guarded secrets. According to the recently declassified Pandit Sunderlal Committee Report, 30,000–40,000 Muslims were massacred—sometimes on the mere claim that they were Razakars.6 At the time, Home Minister Sardar Patel dismissed these reports as ‘lacking balance

Umar remembered, ‘When I was in the eighth grade, my father was taught to master the reading of Quranic Arabic. He did so with such zeal because he realized that he was so backward in terms of his own education. He felt that he was not “civilized”. In order to better himself, he knew that he needed to learn those languages.’ It was around this time

Residential areas acquired their own economic character. The uber-rich had begun moving to Banjara Hills, while middle-class enclaves like Himayat Nagar and Vijaynagar Colony were preferred by the office-going class.

Sometime in 1920–21, for the first time, an organization was established in Hyderabad by the name ‘Jana Sangham’. The term ‘Andhra’ used here at that time represented symbolically an awareness of one’s own language, for example Telugu. You see Telugu, Telangana and Andhra—these distinctions are so prominent today. They are at the forefront. But the

the pre-1948 ruling dispensation was not entirely benign for the majority of Osman Ali Khan’s population. And with the state being home to different political ideologies and aspirations that cut through religious, ethnic and linguistic lines, not every Telanganite remembers Police Action as completely tragic.

been too different from Pirzada’s. I was a direct beneficiary of the post-1948 Hyderabadi Muslim renaissance in the Gulf, as my father worked a white-collar job with Saudi Airlines for a long time. Khan, who had his own Saudi connection (Chapter 5), was keen for more of these ordinary stories to be told, particularly in a climate that is communally

The states’ reorganization in 1956 meant that the Marathi- and Kannada-speaking parts of the erstwhile Nizam’s dominions went to Maharashtra and Karnataka respectively. Telangana was merged with the Telugu-speaking regions that were once a part of the Madras Presidency to form the state of Andhra Pradesh. Hyderabad became its capital city. But the

In one of his interviews, well-known communist activist Burgula Narsing Rao provided historical and present-day context to the term ‘Andhra’. Sometime in 1920–21, for the first time, an organization was established in Hyderabad by the name ‘Jana Sangham’. The term ‘Andhra’ used here at that time represented symbolically an awareness of one’s own