Guest post by R UMAMAHESHWARI.

First part of a two part article. Part II But What About Love? is available here.

[From a painting (artist not mentioned) in Narendra Luther, Prince, Poet, Lover, Builder Muhammad Quli Qutb Shah, The Founder of Hyderabad, Publications Division, Government of India, 1991]

Backdrop

This is a two-part article on the current electoral battle for the Hyderabad constituency between what is ostensibly being perceived (in some circles) as a contest between majority and minority fundamentalism, represented by BJP’s Madhavi Latha and AIMIM’s Asaduddin Owaisi, respectively. But this is a staid and limited perspective. More to it lies in its history being re-configured in a linear and straitjacketed manner by the Hindutva politics, to the exclusion of all else. Hence, this essay is in two parts: the present electoral contest set in context and second part (the final word) being that which always troubles Hindutva: Inter-faith Love, plural histories, of what made the city which is now contested, yet again.

Part 1 – Setting the Context

The entire stretch of Hyderabad between Golconda and Malakpet, approximately 20-25 kms, on the southern bank of the now slushy Musi River, is perceived as the ‘old’ city. The term itself has a relatively new genesis. Roughly 5 kilometers of road divides Charminar (in the ‘old’) from Abids (a commercial hub in the ‘new’ city), 5 kms from Golconda (in the ‘old’) to Mehdipatnam (in the new) and around 4 kms from Malakpet to Koti.

There are 16 revenue mandals in the Municipal Corporation of Hyderabad area, 6 of which are in the old city. These are – Charminar, Bandlaguda, Bahadurpura, Sayeedabad, Asifnagar and Golconda. Back in 2004, 500 of the 811 notified slums (of the 1800 squatter settlements) were in the old city.  Their numbers seem to have increased in recent times.

The BJP, nay, Narendra Modi, has fielded from this Hyderabad a woman candidate named Madhavi Latha, a Brahmin, ultra-religiosity-waving entrepreneur, managing director of a corporate hospital, called Virinchi hospitals, whose license, incidentally, had been revoked during the pandemic times on charges, among others, of negligence and over-charging of patients, as reported in various media during that time. She is pitched against the AIMIM leader, Asaduddin Owaisi. In every way, she is the consciously chosen anti-thesis: flowers in her hair, saree-clad, with a large bindi on her forehead and an epitome of the bharatiya nari that they want to project. On the face of it, they want to prove a point by pitching a ‘strong’ woman in the old city against the ‘’backward’ and ‘anti-women’ Muslim leadership, and on the larger plank called ‘development’ of the old city and its residents. I will return to Madhavi Latha shortly, and her brand of (anti-) feminism, gleaned from various interviews of hers over the internet. But it is important to contextualise the historical trajectory of how we got here, where outwardly it seems that the people of the ‘old city’/ Hyderabad constituency are to choose between two ends of a spectrum. But more importantly, is the AIMIM and the old city / Hyderabad the same as it always has been in all these years, giving itself to a singular linear perception about its political discourse (in every moment of time) and the cultural, social space it is perceived to represent? Another question arises, as to whether the “development’’ plank of BJP (via Madhavi Latha) is indeed value-neutral? Does it not essentially establish itself upon the condition of ‘sanitising’ Hyderabad of its, firstly, Muslim, and thereafter, multi-cultural and modern (in several aspects) pasts, based, as it is, on ahistorical allusions to myths such as Musi river’s real name being Muchukunda (after a certain temple), or a Bhagyalakshmi temple (hence Bhagya-nagaram), among several such? In all her public meetings (readily available on YouTube) and her social media PR exercises, she questions the very foundation of the city of Hyderabad by focussing on one singular moment in historical time – the ‘liberation’ of Hyderabad from the Nizam – thereby negating the entire trajectory of the preceding timeline 400 years (or according to some, 1000 years) of history, starting from Golconda and Charminar. It is this singular focus which is also behind the release of a film on the Razakars, again aiming at shrinking the entire historical trajectory of Hyderabad state to the religion of its rulers. So, other aspects such as the city built upon foundations of love and plurality, reflected in the conscious settlement of plural speech communities (Tamil, Marathi, Marwadi, Gujarati, Telugu, etc), religious communities (Christians, Parsis, Sikhs, Jains, Buddhists, Iranians, etc) and cuisines (Arab, Persian, the mixed Dakhni amalgam of various flavours that mixed populations give each other) and plural architectural influences, is not to be invoked, as it upsets their homogenous ‘’Haindatvam”’ (a phrase Madhavi Latha constantly uses).

In this discourse, even the Telangana Armed Struggle (quintessentially a class struggle against the nature of rule – which included the Nizam as well as the Hindu upper caste landlords and an oppressive feudal regime as its stated aim) has been appropriated by Modi-led Right-Wing forces. In their eyes (and historicising), the narrative begins (and in a sense ends) at (and with) the Razakar violence (against, as they wrongly believe, only the Hindus), and Sardar Patel’s ‘heroic’ police action and liberation. This narrative helps them fit in AIMIM into the schemata that seems to work with certain sections of middle classes of Hyderabad and in mainstream media who are (literally, at times) eating out of her hands in staged interviews. This chronology helps them to build a linear narrative of reclaiming the (only) Hindu past sans the Muslim rulers who actually built the Hyderabad State. Though one need not exoticise, or romanticise it (being a monarchy with its contradictions), at the same time, one needs proportion and perspective, which Hindutva forces do not have, if it is history with any Islamic component to it. Everything and anything Islamic, to them, is either alien, or ‘backward’ or ‘bigoted’, unless, of course, it suits their geo-political commercial interests, as their sudden love for Lakshadweep and its Muslim inhabitants.

Speaking simplistically, if at all, at least one historical fact about the pre-‘annexation’ / pre-‘integration’ / ‘merger’ (depending on the perspective), period of Hyderabad State’s history is that it does not have any recorded instance of communal riots, which began to haunt the city post-independence, and this may be something to ponder about. What were the changing economic, social and political contexts that brought about the incremental impoverishment of Muslims, since that time downwards, alongside increasing identity-based clashes in what became known as the Old City / paatha basti? This, too, needs to be addressed and whether they were all necessarily communal clashes or also social and economic conflicts. Historically speaking, Telangana as a region, idea, and discourse (as put forth during both the agitations, in the 1960s and later from 2009 until the creation of the state) was quintessential to the rule of the Qutub Shahis and Asaf Jahis until the seventh Nizam. The local cults – goddesses such as Yelamma, Pochamma, Mysamma and others; religious festivals such as Bonalu, Bathukamma, as also the Muharram processions, are part of the composite Telangana cultural complex; Bathukamma (a winter festival celebrating water bodies and a moving goddess concept) was declared a ‘state festival’ during the KCR regime. In his time, even the Telangana and Dakhani languages assumed centrality in the mainstream Telugu cinema, never seen before.

In Hyderabad’s history, we may think of the ruptures that created their own significant movements and outcomes in 1948, mid-1950s, late 1960s and 2009 up until the creation of Telangana state. The two-pronged struggle (against feudal zamindari system and rule of the Nizam which were seen as part of the same structural edifice by the Left and liberal socialists, as well as Congress) which was highlighted by the Telangana armed struggle (sayudha poratam); the creation of the state of Andhra Pradesh; the gradual shifting of the administrative and power-base from the ‘old city’ and the rule by (again) upper caste (landed) Andhra (and Rayalaseema) over the next several decades; the Telangana statehood agitation (the initial one); the Singaporean vision of Chandrababu Naidu in the late 1990s and early 2000s, developing one part of the city to the exclusion of the ‘old’; the coming of the Congress under YS Rajasekhara Reddy, the re-emergence of the Telangana statehood agitation in 2009: the city of Hyderabad was central to all these moments in time. In fact, at one point, Hyderabad was the bone of contention between Telangana and Andhra factions during the movement.

It may be pertinent to recount certain debates during the Telangana movement concerning Hyderabad (State and city). In March 2010, at a particular meeting (March 2010) in the old city organised by a media group, scholars (historians, others) and activists evoked Hyderabad’s Muslim past and considered it the heart of Telangana. For instance, historian Anuradha Reddy (herself a descendant of one of the ‘samsthanams’ – under the jagirdari system – in Nizamabad district) said, “Hyderabad had developed railways since Mahbub Ali Pasha’s times…My father-in-law P.L. Reddy took aviation license from England, came here on a private land we owned in Habsiguda, started a private flying club. From there he impressed the Nizam…With his support began the aviation history in Begumpet, which continues till 2010…” Sajjad Shaheed, a numismatist said, “In the 15^th century, the Bahmani rulers appointed Sultan Quli Qutbuddin as the Governor of Telangana. Recognising the strategic importance of this region, Sultan Quli…formed Golconda fort as his base from where he took the administrative reins of Telangana in his hands. From that day it became certain that Golconda and Hyderabad is the most important place in Telangana… Telangana’s heart lies in Hyderabad… Many injustices have been meted out to this region in the last 60 years… In the beginning of the 20th century when Musi (river) overflowed, a City Improvement Board was set up by the Nizam rulers [which was] an example of modern planning, implemented under Visveswarayya’s guidance…” Jameela Nishat had then recounted the role of important women such as Mahlaqa Chanda Bai on whose land were constructed, in later periods, the English and Foreign Languages University (with a step-well she constructed) and the Nampally school and Sohra Humayun Mirza who used to run a Deccan Women’s Association.” Osman Shaheed (an advocate) said there was no communal Hindu-Muslim riot during the Nizam times… During the police action, “Bahadur Yar Jung’s nephews were killed and some Muslims reached his house and said they would avenge the murder. Sarojini Naidu said that had Bahadur Yar Jung not controlled the mob, Hyderabad’s history would have been different. The Muslims went back. Kishen Parshad Bahadur told Mahboob Ali Pasha that he wanted to be a Muslim… Mahboob Ali Pasha told him not to convert, for tomorrow people will say that the king was a Muslim, he forcibly converted the minister. This is our history…”

During the Telangana movement (2009-2013) many believed that the merger in 1956 had destroyed much of the Hyderabadi gunga-jumni (syncretic) cultural ethos. It may be remembered that Urdu (besides, Dakhni-Telangana) as a language also faced a set-back with Telugu becoming the dominating power language and schools with Urdu as a medium of instruction became negligible. In the reconstitution of linguistic states, it is a question as to whether Urdu was not considered a language of any region, even if it had centuries of presence in Telangana?

Be that as it may, post-formation of the Telangana state, its Chief Minister, KCR went back to invoking the older Kakatiya past with associated Hindu (Brahminical) symbols and idioms (including naming the irrigation projects Mission Kakatiya), rather than the rule of Qutb Shahis or Asaf Jahis, who also had constructed water works such Nizamsagar. However, to be fair, KCR continued his amicable relations with the Muslims and introduced several schemes such as housing, reservation for Muslims during his tenure, which of course had their limitations and valid critiques.  Anti-Muslim is not a tag you could associate KCR, or TRS-turned-BRS with.

The evoking of the history of the rule of the Qutb Shah dynasty and the Asaf Jahis is a very complex one: there is no universal and monolithic way of perceiving it. There are memories of the progressive and plurality-promoting rulers, as well as those of peasant oppression in the countryside in the early twentieth century.

Thus, it is a complex set of aspects when people remember the past, which needs a nuanced understanding. However, when the Hindutva brigade enters the scenario, the sole culprit and target becomes the Muslim ruler. There have been many other non-Muslim (‘Hindu’) rulers in Indian history who are never judged so minutely, who were oppressive, cruel, and violent, as well. For instance, the Tamil Jainas, speak of their violent suppression under the hands of the Saivite and Vaisnavite kings in Tamil Nadu – who also silenced the Buddhists, besides converting their sacred sites into Brahminical centres.

There is the other side to the Muslim rulers in Hyderabad donating to temples; to the establishment of research institutions and universities.  – such as Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, and the Banaras Hindu University. That they gave many higher administrative positions to people from different faiths is also well known, though some believe that they supported Muslims to the exclusion of the Hindus. But it is something to ponder that if, in spite of having been ruled by Muslim rulers for at least 400 years, the population of Muslims did not ever exceed the Hindus, by any stretch of imagination. Nor does the statistics of poverty prove the well-being of Muslims on account of years of being ruled by a so-called Islamic state. If at all, the richest populations in Hyderabad state (including during the Nizam rule, if we consider the jagirdars, samsthanams, etc) happened to be upper caste Hindus. And till date only a handful of Muslims may be considered super rich in Hyderabad.

Rani Sarma has noted in her book [The Deodis of Hyderabad, Rupa, 2008;2019]: “[The Nizam’s] administration treated both the Hindu and Muslim employees as equals. There is one interesting example to highlight this point. There was a rule regarding the leave the civil servants could avail of…It was noticed, however, that while the rule provided for the privilege of Muslims, Christians and the Jews, the Hindus were excluded from the list…The Finance Department pointed out that the Hindus too would have to travel a great distance of eight hundred and thirty-five miles both ways to cover the Char Dhams. Moreover, some of the temples were in remote areas and the pilgrims had to reach them on foot. Much discussion followed and the amendment to the rule that followed tread as: A Government servant is entitled to a special leave not exceeding six months for going on pilgrimage to the holy places in the Himalaya (Badrinarayan, Kedarnath, Gangotri, and Yamunotri), Tirth, Prayag, Kasi and Gaya (chard hams)… further that in such cases the normal ceiling of four months leave … be waived.” (pp. 11-12) Again, “A close scrutiny of the farmans of the seventh Nizam reveals that the Nizam made donations for the upkeep of many Hindu temples like Yadgirigutta, Bhadrachalam and even the Balaji temple at Tirupati, which was outside the Nizam’s territory and was, in fact in British India. It is a less-known fact in India today that it was the princely state of Hyderabad that initiated and paid for the restoration of the frescos of Ajanta. What is also not know is the fact the so-called ‘miser’, the seventh Nizam, made generous donations to Shantiniketan (a sum of Rs. 1.25 lakhs in 1926-27), The Banaras Hindu University, Andhra University, the Telugu Academy and for the Gokhale Memorial Scholarship. The most interesting is the case of the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute of Pune. The Nizam granted funds for ten years for the publication of the epic Mahabharata and to build a guest house, against the advice of the finance minister Lt. Col. Trench…The Bhandarkar Institute got the grant, not for ten years, as originally proposed by eleven, and extra funds for the purchase of furniture for the guest house! Who were the ministers involved in paving the way…? Maharaja Kishen Pershad, the Prime Minister, Sir Akbar Hydari, Faridoon Jung, the minister of the Political Department and a Parsi, among others…” (pp.14-15).

The Nizam Osman Ali Khan’s firman (royal order) of 1917 (April 26) on proposing a new university – the Osmania University – in Hyderabad read:

‘I am pleased to express my approval of…the inauguration of the University in the state, in which the knowledge and culture of ancient and modern times may be blended so harmoniously as to remove the defect created by the present system of education, and full advantage may be taken of all that is best in the ancient and modern system of physical, intellectual, and spiritual culture. In addition to its primary objective to diffuse knowledge, it should aim at the moral training of the students and give an impetus to research in all scientific subjects. The fundamental principle in the working of the University should be that Urdu should form the medium of higher education, but that a knowledge of English as a language should at the same time be deemed compulsory for all students…’’ [Kavita S. Datla, The Language of Secular Islam: Urdu Nationalism and Colonial India, Orient Blackswan, Hyderabad, 2013, p.50]

According to Kavita Datla (and this is an important aspect ignored by many), “the mostly Muslim educators of the princely state of Hyderabad attempted to replace English with Urdu as the medium of instruction at the university level by founding India’s first vernacular university. In doing this, they hoped to challenge the increasing pervasiveness of English as the language of higher education and hence also a language of prestige in colonial India. These educators hoped to make Urdu a language representative of common people and, in turn, a language that would serve them, that would encompass all their linguistic needs… a language that could… claim to be the national language of a united India. It is the enactment of these novel secular projects through language reform and education that are largely missed in narratives of the identitarian politics surrounding Hindi and Urdu.” [pp.9-10]

Prof. Rama Melkote, from an old Hyderabadi family herself, says, “a lot has bene written and said about the Razakars; but you cannot and should not equate the Razakars with the Muslims. Not every Muslims supported the Razakars and in the Nizam times the feudal landlords were Hindu, many of them, Reddys, Velamas and so on. The Razakars were an army of Nizam’s foot soldiers and they were playing a political role to uphold the Nizam’s rule in that time. During those times even Muslims were killed, and even the Hindus who were killed, were killed by the Indian Army as Sundarlal Committee reported…. If the history of the times has to be evaluated, it must factor in the complexity involved. The Nizams built Hyderabad, Salar Jung initiated many reforms. It is because political power needs to be sustained through either legitimacy gained from people’s support or through sheer power.  While the landlords in those times were oppressive, at the same time there were those from the upper castes and classes who also resisted these very landlords via the armed struggle. People like Shahidullah Khan also got killed. The Telangana armed struggle was meant to bring about a just society for peasants and workers. Many Muslims were part of this struggle too. As for the present contest, Madhavi Latha is the crude face of the RSS, and devoted to Hindutva and it may not go down well with the citizens of the old city. Owaisi has a long standing in Hyderabad and today he is the only political voice left for the Muslims. Many do not support him (even among the Muslims) but many others do.”

So far as Madhavi Latha is concerned, while she goes about meeting women in the old city, including Muslim women, and over the last few months seems to have started NGOs offering free delivery for women, etc, and while she has also garnered support from a few organisations that were working in the old city since a few years, there is the real side of her which comes out in her media interviews. For her, the constant refrain of the violence of the Razakars is the only inroads into Hyderabad’s political space, where every other Muslim seems to look like the descendant or tacit supporter of the Razakars. While the Modi government went all out against several scholars and activists on unsubstantiated charges of being / supporting Naxals, Madhavi Latha herself, in one of her TV interviews, bragged about how one day she just marched into a Naxal camp and distributed food for those ‘poor’ (paapam) ones, and stunned everybody by her courage! This she apparently did during the Kurnul floods (2009).

She has carefully cultivated an (Hindu) spirituality and traditions in all her conversations with journalists who never ask her hard-hitting or even factual questions. She begins her meetings with the slogans – ‘jai bolo nari shakti ki…siyavar Ramachandra ki, bhagyanagar ki, bharat mata ki…’ Even prior to getting the ticket to contest from here, she appears to have done her homework. But her regressive ideas come to the fore in some interviews. For instance, in one, she says she had stopped weaking skirts because of an incident during her teenage years when a man had followed her and she slapped him. She then realised the problem was not with him but in her dressing; that women can influence men to act in a certain manner. (HMTV interview). She also spoke highly of the tradition of ‘’pelli choopulu’’ (when men and their families come to ‘check out’ at the potential bride). She speaks derisively of live-in relationships and that a husband and wife are the embodiment of Parvati and Parameswara and should be so. In the same breath, she decries triple talaq, which becomes the sole criterion to attack the Muslim cultural context and hence attract the upper middle-class segment of Hindus (in the old city and elsewhere) who perceive her to be a new face of women-power and development.  Among the things that Madhavi Latha talks of, is to change the name of Hyderabad to Bhagyanagar (no, not after Bhagmati, but a goddess Bhagyalakshmi, a recent phenomenon). In another interview she speaks of Haindavam (Hindutva), inclusion of Vedic education, making Sanskrit compulsory, Sanatana Dharma, and she considers the adivasis who eat meat as being ‘ignorant’ and stresses on the need to educate them regarding the Vedic dharma to lead them to their ‘’softer side’’ (interview on IDream). She also claims that Homeopathy was born in India. Modi and Yogi are her idols. No forward-looking Muslim ever finds mention in Sangh Parivar’s old Hyderabad.

I spoke to Ali Asghar, a businessperson who was earlier associated with an organisation working with women in the old city (Roshan Vikas) which facilitated first ever non-sectarian, non-religion-based People’s Manifesto (in years 2003-04 in Hyderabad – a process I was then documenting) from the six mandals of the old city (Hyderabad). In those days, banks would not give loans to people in the old city and there were many other civic problems. Employment rates were relatively low. The bastis were populated by many daily wage earners, rickshaw-pullers and very poor people. But there were also the educated and upwardly mobile in some other parts of the old city. Ali Asghar says that Madhavi Latha is primarily trying the garner the support of women on religious lines alone. He points out: “She is going to Muslim areas but has no agenda for community development. She has been openly calling for a name change of the city. On the other hand, Owaisi was always playing the religious card. The Hyderabad constituency comprises of poorer Muslims and he has capitalised on that. As far as the more pertinent debates – such as CAA – are concerned, these are limited to the elite and educated section of the Muslims and not many understand its implications in the old city… At the ground level, Goshamahal is the fiefdom of Raja Singh, but he too had lost his credibility when he openly criticised Prophet Mohammad and was once (briefly) suspended from the BJP. However, Owaisi is a third-generation politician… There are not many liberal secular Muslims entering the (active) political arena; they are limited to doing charitable work such as feeding and clothing the poor. Political consciousness work has still not taken root among the elite, educated Muslims, unlike the way the Dalits have organised themselves. It is very frightening the way the Sangh Parivar has been growing; if they decide to implement the NRC, that itself will cause a huge problem. Not only among Muslims but non-Muslims too. Especially considering that the birth certification process is low among the very poor people. 92 per cent of Muslims are on the unorganised sector. It is difficult for Muslim vendors to do business in Hindu dominated areas. Plus, the Sangh Parivar has been targeting poor Muslims on the beef issue. We need to see the contest in all these contexts today.”

Mir Ayub Ali Khan (with the Siasat.com), a journalist of long standing (who was my colleague at the Deccan Chronicle many years ago), says: “The BJP thinks there is no other way to defeat Owaisi. There is no way to consolidate Hindu votes. The voting percentage here has been 40 pr cents plus. They want to test the female power… On the face of it, she will be a big loser. Even if we presume that all the Hindus will vote for her, even then, the Muslim votes outnumber the Hindu votes. The one time a progressive face such as that of (late) Zahid Ali khan (of Siasat) stood against Owaisi, he lost by 2 lakh votes.  But the Hyderabad constituency has not remained the same all these years. When Majlis started, they were usually backward, and not progressive. But from 1984 onwards, their thinking changed. They did put up a Hindu candidate for Mayor seat during the times of Salahuddin Owaisi. There was also a realignment of constituencies over time. Hindu rural population went to the Vikarabad and Tandur constituencies. In 1964, there was one single seat in the Municipal Corporation; today there are 40 plus seats (out of 115). During the last elections, BJP got more seats purely based on religion. But over the years the Majlis started working on the development of the old city. Today you find middle classes there and many have moved into good houses. Roads have been laid in most places. At another level, during the rule of N.T. Rama Rao, Salahuddin Owaisi got permission to build the Deccan Medical College. Barring some management quota, many students got access to medical education there. Those who could afford, got their education here. There are more Muslim doctors now in many hospitals in Hyderabad than there were before thanks to this. Change is visible. The MIM also covered primary education, besides pharmacy and engineering colleges. Their focus remained primary schools for children of all communities. Though Akbaruddin Owaisi has been projected as an uncompromising lunatic, but he has another side to him. As well. He was instrumental in starting many private schools in the area, which became accessible even to the poor; he has complete control over the Chandrayangutta… From 2014 onwards we have seen a huge change. Muslim leadership in politics has been either eliminated or majorly silenced. Asaduddin Owaisi speaks not just for Muslims but also other issues. He has been visiting Bihar, UP, Gujarat, West Bengal. But he has been suspected to be the ‘’B’ team of BJP. People wonder as to why BJP never arrested him while they arrested anyone dissenting… Speaking of women, MIM did have a woman corporator once, one who never wore a burqa nor even a dupatta / hijab. And lived life on her own terms…But the most disconcerting aspect of the discourse is the effort to destroy many syncretic traditions. 40 kms from Hyderabad on the way to Bengaluru is a dargah called Jahangir Pir dargah, which attracts Gauliya Yadavas; they name their children after the dargah, such as Jangiraiah. There are numerous such darghas all over Telangana which signify the harmony and purity of love. They are planning to destroy all of it. When I was a child growing up in Husaini Alam, during the annual Bonalu jathra (to the goddess Mahankalamma), the potharaj (a kind of diviner of the goddess) was a Muslim man named Abu Bhai. Hindus and Muslims here are also connected by marriage…

Jameela Nishat (who founded the women’s organisation Shaheen in the old city many years ago) says: “We started working with Muslims, BCs and manual scavengers back in 1998. But today this woman (Madhavi Latha), who never came here before these elections, is claiming to have worked with all these women; she has no empathy, and cannot understand the concept of social justice. We have come to realise that she has been promising money and some NGOs are supporting her to gather women and organise meetings. Yet, she cannot be a feminist so long as she is a majority fundamentalist speaking only for temples and mobilising women around temple worship. Between the two – Owaisi and Madhavi Latha – was another force, that of KCR, who is still supported by those women who received houses under the housing scheme for the poor during their rule. Kavita (Kalvakuntla), too, had a formidable support from women in the old city.” Jameela also points out that Madhavi Latha based her recent dictums on triple talaq on an interview Jameela gave six years ago to a TV channel, but without the serious discussion on the complexities involved in the same.

Sky Baba, from the Telangana Muslim Joint Action Committee and Muslim intellectual forum says: “Madhavi Latha has no political knowledge…Locally, among Muslims there was some resentment that the TRS did not implement the 4 per cent reservation for Muslims, initially announced and ended up only giving the n3 per4 cent. MIM did get the support of KCR during his time. Now Congress will support them. As for us, supporting him would be for the simple reason that he comes out as the sole political voice for the Muslim community in today’s scenario. And we will support the Congress, too, so that there is a regime change in India which is so called for.”

Young Javed had started as an adolescent, with the organisation called Play for Peace, when I first met him back in the year 2003. Today, he is programme coordinator for an organisation called My Choices Foundation, working on issues of domestic violence and empowerment of women. When he started, he says, he was unaware of these issues. And the basti he grew up in has also changed over the years. There are more schools today, many of which were started by Owaisi, the concept of ‘KG to PG’ education – giving free education to a child in each family of every community, not just the Muslims. He says, we used to see communal tensions when we started work in these bastis. Awareness was very low. People were relatively poorer. So far as the contest is concerned, I have not yet seen Madhavi Latha visit our locality and I do not hear much about her in discussions in the neighbourhood. But I do know from the social media that she is talking about building temples and changing names. What development will name changes and building temples bring?”

Meanwhile, Sanghamitra, founding member of Apna Watan (Hyderabad) who work with communal harmony and Hyderabad heritage, says: “What pains me most is the divisiveness being spread in the society, I am from an Army background and we travelled all over the country. But I have never seen a more beautiful city than Hyderabad. I have lived in Hyderabad for 58 years now. I studied at St. George’s Grammar School (Abids) and Kothi Women’s College. This lady (Madhavi Latha) who is being shown as an educated woman does not know the history of Hyderabad. What do they know about the underground water pipeline the Nizam laid, Begumpet airport, railways? What did he carry away with him? Didn’t he do all this for people here? She is creating a terrible atmosphere in the old city. Raja Singh and this lady are dividing the society. We have been working with school children. You can make them understand and love everybody. In some cases, when we asked them if they had seen Charminar, they said, ‘no’, because their parents told them it is a dangerous place! If that is the thought put inside the head of a small child, how do we get it out of their minds? It pains me that of a lot of literate people are suddenly thinking along these lines; they are negative towards the on-Hindus. Do they know that the Nizam donated money for the setting up of the Banaras Hindu University and to several temples?  Hyderabad House in Delhi was built with his money. Osmania hospital, Public Gardens, you name it…. But their ignorance is creating hatred. There was never any temple near Charminar; it grew over time, fairly recently. My sons never saw it growing up. Today they are saying there is a temple under Charminar! People are believing because they do not read correct history.

It seems to be a foolhardy gamble, but if it clicks, which seems unlikely (unless some tricks are up their sleeves), what does it portend for Hyderabad, its history and its syncretic culture? The history wherein the Nizams who brought in people from different regions – representing different languages, such as a Tamil, Marathi, Kannada, Gujarati etc – to work in the administration. Thus, the Kutchi Gujaratis (with their Jain temples), the Parsis (with their Sun temple and the mound of the dead, Parsigutta), the Tamils (with the famous Diwan Bahadur Padmarao Mudaliar, associated with the Deccan Chronicle and the colony named after him, and a school), the Marathis (with their Maharashtra Mandali), the Konkanis (famous for the Taj Mahal hotel in Hyderabad, Abids), the Sikhs. The city was a truly cosmopolitan city right from the time it came into existence. These histories are not filled with the hatred that is necessary to garner the universal ‘Hindu’ vote.

R Umamaheshwari is based in Shimla and author of From Possession to Freedom: The Journey of  Nili- Nilakeci (Zubaan books, 2018) and other books.