Operation Polo - Background

Background

The State of Hyderabad, located over most of the Deccan Plateau in southern India, was established in 1724 by Nizam-ul-Mulk Asaf Jah after the collapse of the Mughal Indian Empire. As was the case in several Indian royal states, the Nizam was a Muslim, while a majority of the subject population was Hindu. In 1798, Hyderabad became the first Indian royal state to accede to British protection under the policy of Subsidiary Alliance instituted by Arthur Wellesley. When the British finally departed from the Indian subcontinent in 1947, they offered the various princely states in the sub-continent the option of acceding to either India or Pakistan, or staying on as an independent state.

The State of Hyderabad under the leadership of its 7th Nizam, Mir Usman Ali, was the largest and most prosperous of all princely states in India. It covered 82,698 square miles (214,190 km2) of fairly homogenous territory and comprised a population of roughly 16.34 million people (as per the 1941 census) of which a majority (85%) was Hindu. Hyderabad State had its own army, airline, telecommunication system, railway network, postal system, currency and radio broadcasting service.

Nizam decided to keep Hyderabad independent. The leaders of the new Union of India however, were wary of having an independent - and possibly hostile - state in the heart of their new country and were determined to assimilate Hyderabad into the Indian Union, even if it were by compulsion, unlike the other 565 princely states, most of which had already acceded to India or to Pakistan voluntarily.