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Hyderabad Liberation Day is observed on September 17 to commemorate the integration of the erstwhile princely state of Hyderabad into the Indian Union in 1948.

On the occasion of the anniversary of the integration of Hyderabad to the Indian Union, it is of seminal significance to debunk the orchestrated plan of the Bharatiya Janata Party to claim that the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh played a role in making Hyderabad a part of India. Here, it is necessary to recognise the arduous efforts of  Sardar Patel and Jawaharlal Nehru in ensuring the unification of Hyderabad with India.

It is well documented that RSS had no role either in the freedom struggle of India nor in the integration of the princely states to the Indian Union. The Hindutva leader V.D. Savarkar, in fact, supported the Hindu Kingdom of Travancore’s stand against joining the Indian Union, as stated by Vikram Sampath in his two-part biography of Savarkar, wherein he wrote:

“Here, Savarkar’s ill-advised support to the dewan of Travancore, Sir C.P. Ramaswamy Iyer, who was planning to declare autonomy and independence of the Hindu princely state, was unfortunate and detrimental to the integration process of the new Indian Union.”

Mahatma Gandhi while speaking at  a prayer meeting in Delhi on June 13, 1947 cautioned that if Hyderabad followed the example of Travancore rulers not to join the Indian Union, it could not survive. Referring to the Nizam, the ruler of Hyderabad, he asked from whom he wanted to keep Hyderabad independent:

“Ninety per cent of the population of Hyderabad consists of Hindus and they include among them some well-known figures. If the independence contemplated by either Hyderabad or Travancore is not such as can make the people feel that they are free, then these States cannot survive.”

Those observations of Gandhi in 1947 brought out the........

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