The real story of 'Police Action' against Nizam in 1948 -- Revisiting Hyderabad Liberation Day on 17 September

This post is continuously updated, last updated 29 Sept, 2013

•  Ghosts of police action resurface, Mir Ayoob Ali Khan The Times of India
• An Alig's Armchair: The So Called Hyderabad Police Action of 1948

T S Sudhir | India Today | Hyderabad, September 10, 2013

It is one of the best-kept secrets in the annals of Indian history.

What exactly happened in Hyderabad on and after 17 September 1948 when the might of the Indian Army forced the Nizam of Hyderabad to surrender and merge his kingdom with the Indian Union, 13 months after India had become an independent country?

The day is celebrated every year by the votaries of Telangana -- that is pretty much the old Hyderabad state geographically, barring districts that became part of present-day Maharashtra and Karnataka -- as Hyderabad Liberation Day.

Except that if they knew the bloodshed that took place then, they would realise there isn't much to celebrate about.

After reports that the Nizam's Army was committing atrocities on innocent civilians, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru and Sardar Patel decided enough was enough and ordered the Army into Hyderabad.

Though its technical names were "Operation Polo" and "Operation Caterpillar", it was more commonly referred to as "Police Action".

Read more at: India Today

On the same shelf:

• Hyderabad 1948: India's hidden massacre, By Mike Thomson BBC
• Hyderabad: After the Fall (HHS Monograph Series, No 4)
  Omar Khalidi
• The British Residents at the court of the Nizams of Hyderabad (Monograph series)
  Omar Khalidi 
•  Pandit Sunderlal Report --info courtesy, Mohammed Ayub Ali Khan 
• Operation Polo: The police action against Hyderabad, 1948 (Armed Forces of the Indian Union)
  Sri Nandan Prasad
• The Colors of Violence: Cultural Identities, Religion, and Conflict
  Sudhir Kakar
• Ethnic Conflict and Civic Life: Hindus and Muslims in India
  Ashutosh Varshney
• India's police action against Hyderabad
  V Veerabhadra Rao
• Kingship and Colonialism in India's Deccan: 1850-1948
  Benjamin B. Cohen
• Islamic literature in the Deccani languages: Kannada, Marathi & Telugu (Monographic series / Hyderabad Historical Society)
  Omar Khalidi
• State Violence and Punishment in India (Royal Asiatic Society Books)
  Taylor C. Sherman
• Muslims in Indian Cities: Trajectories of Marginalisation. Laurent Gayer and Christophe Jaffrelot (Eds)
  Laurent Gayer
• The Shiites
• A Military History of India and South Asia: From the East India Company to the Nuclear Era
  Daniel P. Marston
  David Pinault
• Romance of the Golconda Diamonds
  Omar Khalidi
• Khaki and Ethnic Violence in India: Army, Police and Paramilitary Forces During Communal Riots
  Omar Khalidi
• Indian Muslims Since Independence
  Omar Khalidi
• An Indian Passage to Europe: The Travels of Fath Nawaz Jang (Oxford in Asia Historical Reprints)
  Omar Khalidi
• Dakan (Monograph series / Haydarabad Historical Society)
  Omar Khalidi
• The British Residency in Hyderabad: An Outpost of the Raj: 1779-1948
  Omar Khalidi
• The Last Nizam - The Rise and Fall of India's Greatest Princely State
  John Zubrzycki
• White Mughals: Love and Betrayal in Eighteenth-Century India
  William Dalrymple