September 17 is special as the day resonates with a wide spectrum of people and stakeholders. Based on various ancient Hindu texts, Lord Vishwakarma is said to have been born on this date. As the divine architect and the creator of the universe he is venerated as the ancestor for all artisans. On the same date in 1948, after an agonising wait of 13 months, the princely State of Hyderabad was liberated — after Independence, it had remained under the Nizam of Hyderabad, Mir Osman Ali Khan, and his militia, the Razakars. India’s first home minister, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, had ordered police action under Operation Polo, and the entire Hyderabad Deccan was liberated on September 17 after five days of the operation. On the same date in 1950, Prime Minister (PM) Narenda Modi was born. As India’s first PM to be born after Independence, and the only one in six decades to win three consecutive national elections, his tenure has been nothing short of a trailblazer.
What connects these three events of September 17? The link between PM Modi’s emphasis on skilling and promoting artisanship and craftsmanship is rooted in our ancient texts. In the Puranas, Vishwakarma is believed to have had five faces and each of these faces created a son. Each son became the forefather of one of five major artisan communities — blacksmiths, carpenters, bronze (brass) smiths, stonemasons, and goldsmiths. For millennia, India’s craftsmanship was globally coveted. In 2014, after being voted into office, the Modi government created a separate ministry of skill development and entrepreneurship (MSDE) to address the huge mismatch between education, employability, and employment. The formulation of the Pradhan Mantri Viswakarma Yojana was a logical extension to improve the quality as well as the reach of products and services of artisans and craftspeople so that they could be seamlessly integrated into the domestic and global value chains. Therefore, the inspiration from Vishwakarma is not accidental but a well-designed and carefully crafted action plan.
Lord Vishwakarma is believed to have been an epic builder; he created Dwarka (on the request of Lord Krishna), Hastinapur (the city of Pandavas and Kauravas), apart from designing Lord Vishnu’s Sudarshan Chakra. Similarly, the Modi government is also continuously focusing on building modern infrastructure. This focus on capital investments has led to a 60% increase in the length of national highways over the past decade, the doubling of the number of operational airports to 160, and the modernisation of 1,275 railway stations across the nation. Aspirationally, there is a focus on building Viksit Bharat — a developed India, free of poverty with ample opportunities for everyone is akin to Vishwakarma’s own magnum opus, Swarg Lok or the abode of the Gods.
On August 15, 2022, as India celebrated 75 years of Independence, PM Modi spoke of the ‘pancha praan’ or ‘Five Resolutions’. These five resolutions emphasised on focus to build a developed India (Viksit Bharat), eradicating colonial mindset, taking pride in our heritage and legacy, strengthening unity and fulfilling the duties of citizens. If building a developed India takes cues from Lord Vishwakarma, then the resolution to decolonise our minds can fructify. In fact, it is this deeply ingrained colonial mindset, in a large majority of the political leadership and intellectuals of that time, that led to the heroic story of the liberation of Hyderabad being lost from our national consciousness.
The story is a straightforward one: In 1947, when India attained independence, the Nizam who ruled over a landmass of about 7% of India and 5% of population, with a large majority being Hindus, did not want to merge with India. Hyderabad then consisted of the modern day Telangana, north-eastern districts of Kalaburagi, Bellary, Raichur, Yadgir, Koppal, Vijayanagara and Bidar in Karnataka and the Marathwada region in Maharashtra that included the districts of Aurangabad, Beed, Hingoli, Jalna, Latur, Nanded, Osmanabad, and Parbhani. The Nizam was supported by Qasim Rizvi, the founder of the Majlis Ittehadul Muslimeen (MIM). Rizvi supported the Nizam in his quest for establishing Hyderabad Deccan as an independent Islamic nation and provided about 150,000 MIM volunteers to augment the Nizam’s regular army of 24,000. The Razakars rampaged villages, molested and raped Hindu women, wantonly killed the menfolk, and destroyed everything in sight. Former PM PV Narasimha Rao described the massacres by the Razakars in Rangapuram and Laxmipuram villages as South India’s Jallianwala Bagh. The massacres committed by the Razakars at Bhairanapply and Parkal villages are a part of the region’s oral history and are painfully narrated from one generation to another. It was under these circumstances that Patel took decisive action and on September 17, 1948, the people of Hyderabad State were liberated and became a part of the Indian Union.
It is these inconvenient truths that successive governments at the national level and, more recently, at the state level have tried to suppress. People forget that it was Muslim journalists such as Shoebullah Khan who were at the forefront of the agitation against the Nizam’s rule and were killed by the Razakars for advocating uniting the State with India. By not celebrating this historic day, they actually turn a blind eye to the sacrifices made by common folk — Hindus and Muslims alike — of the erstwhile princely State of Hyderabad.
In March 2024, after 76 years of the Liberation of Hyderabad, the Union government, under PM Modi issued a gazette notification to celebrate September 17 as Hyderabad Liberation Day. Over the last decade many such old, outdated frameworks have been set aside and new idioms for governance have emerged. Our past heritage has become an anchor as we catapult to a future that delivers on our potential, on our own terms.
(G Kishan Reddy is Union minister of coal and mines and represents Secunderabad Lok Sabha constituency. The views expressed are personal)
