Portrait of Mrs Karuna Chaudhary

General JN Chaudhary was an Indian army general, and the Military Governor of Hyderabad State from 1948-49 following his famous military action, Operation Polo. He was the 5th Chief of Army Staff from 1966-69.

General Chaudhary’s paternal grandmother was Rabindranath Tagore’s sister, his mother was the daughter of WC Banerjee, the first President of the Indian National Congress, and his first cousin was the noted actress Devika Rani. Vidya Bhushan had known General Chaudhary who led Operation Polo (Police Action) in 1948 as he had participated in it as an activist/fighter and along with several others had been imprisoned by the Nizam’s police.

Police Action in Hyderabad, 1948

After Independence, the Nizam had refused to accede to the Indian Union and had declared Hyderabad an independent nation. A Standstill Agreement was signed between the two parties in the expectation that the Nizam would sign the Instrument of Accession in due course. But the Congress Party was banned in Hyderabad and its leaders jailed. 200 million rupees was secretly granted to Pakistan and an attempt made to smuggle in arms from an aerial route and from Portugal too via Goa.

The Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (MIM) an Islamic political party in Hyderabad had a paramilitary wing called Razakars led by Bahadur Yar Jung and Qasim Razvi. The Razakars stormtroopers were the main resistance to the Indian Army and wanted to declare Hyderabad a Muslim state. They demanded special powers from the Nizam which they misused and the Nizam had to abide by their diktats. Qasim Razvi was a particularly barbaric man who led the Razakars against the revolts by the Arya Samaj, the Hindu Mahasabha and the Communists who were fighting for Hindu rights and the peasantry as well as progressive Muslims who wanted to join the new India. The leftist journalist Shoebullah Khan was brutally killed and many communists went underground, amongst them Raj Bahadur Goud, B Narsing Rao and the poet Maqdoom Mohiuddin. Several acts of atrocities by the Razakars are recorded by historians in this bloody phase of Hyderabad’s history. Sardar Patel lost patience with the Nizam’s flouting of the Standstill Agreement and decided to integrate Hyderabad State even if by force.

On September 13th, 1948, General JN Chaudhary, as Commander of the 1st Armoured Division led Operation Polo, code name for the Indian military action to annex Hyderabad State (also called Police Action). Hundreds of activists were jailed for their participation in the Police Action, including Vidya Bhushan. With a two-pronged approach General Chaudhary defeated the Nizam’s army in Solapur, Osmanabad and Aurangabad and finally on September 17th Bidar fell too. By 5 pm the Nizam announced a ceasefire, disbanded the Razakars and allowed the Indian Army entry into Hyderabad State. Qasim Razvi was arrested and sent to Pakistan.
Hyderabad finally became part of the Indian Union.