December 31, 1948

While New Year’s celebrations went on across India, and indeed across the world broadly, Havildar Partiman Gurung listened closely for the word to be given. At around 10 in the evening, according to the watch he had carefully wound earlier that day, he got the message.

“Initiate Operation Polo”, the radio crackled in a distinct British accent. And with that, they were off, elite Gurkha regiments set against Hyderabad’s Finest. As it would quickly turn out, Hyderabad’s Finest were not particularly fine at all. Advancing into the princely state, the general routine was that the defending troops would fire a few shots, then promptly surrender, making clear that they were not doing so willingly or without any fight at all. That’s not to say that there were no obstacles, though–the Nizam’s men were quite keen on tearing up roads and bridges, with Indian tanks having to repeatedly stop for obstacles to be cleared, often with the help of the not entirely enthusiastic recently captured prisoners. A number of vehicles were lost due to maintenance problems, getting stuck, or partially successful Hyderabadi attacks.

The result is that the full annexation and liquidation of Hyderabad would take a whole week as the Indian Army carefully, methodically plodded through the towns and villages of the state. On their way, they hastily dispatched any number of Razakars, with Maxim guns quickly dispersing their poorly organized forces. No small number of Hyderabadi soldiers were killed, in part thanks to continuous harassment and strafing from the skies and vindictive Indian sepoys who weren’t very keen on having to deal with this uppity little prince, though the casualties did not stretch beyond a few thousand.

Come January 7 of 1949, Hyderabad has ceased to exist as an independent entity. The Nizam is presently in Indian custody, all urban centres are under Indian control, and the official security forces are disbanded, while the razakars have been largely broken up, to the point that Indian officers are more worried about retaliatory attacks by the RSS than continued Islamist activity, at least for the time being. This general success was achieved at the loss of a singular Indian life, one Sepoy Vijya Singh, killed by a potshot from a British-trained sniper who was a little too enthusiastic about his job. The princely states are now brought in, India finally made whole–well, except for Goa, but that’s a matter for another day.