Marathwada Mukti Sangram Din

1 Thirteen months of a freedom still to come

When British paramountcy over India's princely states ended in 1947, each ruler was left to decide whether to accede to India, to Pakistan, or to try to remain independent. The Nizam of Hyderabad, Osman Ali Khan, ruled over one of the largest princely states in the subcontinent — including the Marathwada region, home to Nanded district and Mukhed itself — and chose to resist merger with India altogether. In the months that followed, the Nizam armed a paramilitary militia known as the Razakars, who spread terror across Marathwada and Telangana, suppressing local demands for accession to India through violence, killings and forced labour. Nanded district, Mukhed included, lived through this period of unrest directly.

On 13 September 1948, the Indian Army launched a five-day military campaign — codenamed Operation Polo — to bring Hyderabad state into the Union. Indian forces overcame the Razakars within days, and on 17 September 1948, the Nizam surrendered. Marathwada, along with the rest of Hyderabad state, formally joined India — thirteen months after the rest of the country, and only after a military campaign rather than a transfer of power.

2 Eight districts, one September date that's still their own

Marathwada now comprises eight districts — Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar, Beed, Hingoli, Jalna, Latur, Nanded, Dharashiv and Parbhani — and Nanded, home to Mukhed and its taluka, is one of them. Each year on 17 September, the region marks its own liberation with flag-hoisting and civic observance, a date that belongs specifically to Marathwada's history rather than to the country's Independence Day a year and a month earlier. For a region under the Nizam, freedom simply did not arrive on schedule with the rest of India — and this is the day that closes that gap.

3 The resistance's leadership — Swami Ramanand Tirth and the Hyderabad State Congress

The struggle against the Nizam's rule did not spring up overnight. As early as 1938, the Hyderabad State Congress had begun demanding responsible, democratic government within the princely state, and Swami Ramanand Tirth — a teacher and freedom fighter — emerged as its principal leader. Alongside associates such as Govindbhai Shroff, Vijayendra Kabra, Ramabhau Parikh and P. H. Patwardhan, he built an underground network, organised meetings and endured repeated imprisonment. After 1947, when the rest of India became independent and the Nizam refused to accede, this same leadership turned to armed resistance, organising local militias in villages and building local resistance against Razakar repression. Many villages across Marathwada — including some in Nanded district — sheltered underground workers and ran information networks against the Nizam's police, making the struggle as much a grassroots movement as one directed from above.

4 Operation Polo — the five-day campaign

Operation Polo, launched on 13 September 1948, was the Indian Army's campaign to enter Hyderabad state, led by Major General J. N. Chaudhuri. The operation took its name from Hyderabad's reputation for having more polo grounds than any other Indian city at the time. The Nizam's forces and the Razakar militia could not hold out against the Indian Army, and within just five days — on 17 September 1948 — the Nizam, Osman Ali Khan, surrendered. Home Minister Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel directed the operation at the political level, and Hyderabad's accession to the Indian Union became a decisive chapter in Patel's wider campaign to integrate the princely states, ranking alongside the more widely known cases of Kashmir and Junagadh.

5 Remembered, and contested

In Marathwada, the day is officially observed by the state government, with flag-hoisting, government functions and school commemorative programmes. In recent years, some political groups have called for the day to be given the name "Hyderabad Liberation Day" or wider national recognition, since the observance currently remains largely confined to Maharashtra, and particularly to the Marathwada division — even though the erstwhile Hyderabad state was also divided into parts of present-day Karnataka and Telangana. Behind this demand is the point that Marathwada's separate, thirteen-month struggle is often overlooked in the mainstream narrative of India's independence.

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