Much ado about Telangana Liberation!

Hyderabad: The state is facing a peculiar situation this year. While the Centre has issued a notification announcing that it would be officially celebrating the Telangana Liberation Day to commemorate the liberation of the people of Hyderabad Samsthan after a sustained and spirited struggle for years from the “brutalities” of the Nizam and his private army of Razakars, the state government also decided to celebrate September 17 as the ‘official day’ but has renamed it as ‘Praja Paalana Dinotsvam.’

Interestingly, the Centre sent an official invitation to Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy to attend the Liberation Day celebrations at Parade Grounds and the Chief Minister sent an official invitation to Union Minister G Kishea Reddy to attend the state function at Public Gardens.

Thanking the state government for the invitation, Kishan Reddy declined it saying that the government’s intent seems to deflect the attention of the people from the core aspects of the struggle which is evident in the very name given to the day.

He took objection to describe the liberation of Hyderabad as just another transition of power from a monarchy to a democracy and this amounts to subverting the heroic struggle and propagates politics of appeasement. The Chief Minister expressed his inability to attend the Centre’s programme due to his preoccupation with official functions.

What is more interesting is that the BRS which during its ten-year rule did not celebrate it as official function on Sunday accused the Congress government of politicising state’s history by renaming September 17 as “People’s Governance Day” (Praja Paalana Dinotsavam).

BRS leader Dasoju Shravan claimed state’s decision reflects a distortion of historical facts and aligns with the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) approach to revising history. September 17, 1948, is a significant date in Telangana, marking the integration of the Hyderabad State in India after Operation Polo. Various political parties commemorate this event differently. The BJP calls it Hyderabad Liberation Day, while the Communists term it “Telangana Betrayal Day.” The BRS calls it Telangana National Integration Day, and the Congress traditionally refers to it as Telangana Merger Day.

However, BJP MP and OBC Morcha national president K Laxman claimed that both the BRS and Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy were scared of the AIMIM and hence during its 10-year regime the BRS had never celebrated it as official function and the Congress was also following the same policy of appeasement.