The BJP insists on Hyderabad Liberation Day. The Congress opposes it. The BRS wants to continue its National Integration Day celebrations.
Union Home Minister Amit Shah attends the Hyderabad Liberation Day celebrations in Telangana on 17 September, 2023. (Supplied)
The BJP appears to be keeping its powder dry ahead of Lok Sabha elections.
The latest in its armoury is the issue of gazette notification that Hyderabad Liberation Day would be officially celebrated on 17 September every year.
The BJP leaders are already preparing the ground to ensure the consolidation of Muslim votes across the nation with the consecration of Ram Temple at Ayodhya and the issue of rules for the implementation of the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, or the CAA.
After the issue of the notification, Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Wednesday, 13 March, described it as a befitting tribute to freedom fighters and a move that would ignite the flame of patriotism among the youth.
In a message on X, he said that it was a historic day in honour of the martyrs of what he said was the Hyderabad Liberation Movement.
It is a historic day as PM @narendramodi Ji has decided to celebrate the 17th of September every year as Hyderabad Liberation Day in honour of the martyrs of the Hyderabad Liberation Movement.
The decision is a befitting tribute to the freedom fighters and the martyrs who made…
— Amit Shah (Modi Ka Parivar) (@AmitShah) March 13, 2024
Union minister G Kishan Reddy and former governor of Maharashtra Governor Ch Vidyasagar Rao also hailed the notification.
The anniversary always stirs up controversy.
The BJP is intent on celebrating it as Hyderabad Liberation Day. The saffron party says it marked the end of the tyranny of Nizams.
The party wanted the previous BRS government to declare it as Hyderabad Liberation Day and organise celebrations. Its appeals, however, fell on deaf ears.
The BRS tried to overlook the event and did not take sides. So did the Congress, as it did not want to hurt any religious sentiments.
When the BJP government at the Centre celebrated it as an official event last year, the BRS organised what it said was “National Integration Day” celebrations, while the Congress called it the anniversary of the merger of the Hyderabad state with the Indian Union.
The BJP has been insisting that the anniversary deserves celebration. According to it, the day marks the end of the Nizams’ tyranny through Operation Polo — the military operation that led to the annexation of Hyderabad into India in September 1948.
The Congress has been claiming that the BJP is using the event for political purposes.
“Where is the need for issuing a notification ahead of the Lok Sabha elections? On 17 September last year, Union Home Minister Amit Shah was in Hyderabad and attended a Central-government-sponsored event. Then, why issue a notification now, unless you have some ulterior political motive?” asked TPCC senior vice-president G Niranjan when speaking to South First.
He said that the Congress celebrated the occasion for a very long time as the anniversary of the merger of Hyderabad with the Indian Union. “We do not call it Liberation Day, as it was the anniversary of a merger,” he said.
The TPCC leader said that in 2009, when the late K Rosaiah was the chief minister of undivided Andhra Pradesh, the occasion was celebrated as the anniversary of the merger.
Though it was not done officially, the chief minister attended the celebrations organised by the party at Gandhi Bhavan in Hyderabad.
“The issue of notification for observing Hyderabad Liberation Day officially now is no doubt politically motivated. The Centre issued the notification keeping in mind the Lok Sabha elections,” said Niranjan.
Meanwhile, the BRS has been looking to stress that its celebration of National Integration Day last year was a move in the right direction to strengthen the nation.
“There are a lot more issues at stake. The Centre, instead of focusing on them, is obsessed with calling the event Liberation Day and celebrating it officially,” said BRS leader Dasoju Sravan Kumar.
He said that the BRS differed from this line of thinking of the BJP, which always wanted to reopen the wounds inflicted in the forgotten annals of history.
“All rulers, without exception, exploited the poor. They built mansions with their sweat and blood. No doubt that injustice was done. But do we now have to avenge the injustice by hitting at the descendants of the feudal class? The answer to violence is never violence,” said Sravan Kumar.
He said that the notification had clear political overtones. In the name of religion, the BJP wanted to create divisions in society, he alleged.
“Ours is a dynamic and evolving society. Yesterday is not today. We should be forward-looking,” he said, disapproving of the Janus-faced approach of the BJP.
(Edited by Arkadev Ghoshal)
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