India and Hyderabad
The situation ip Hyderabad is dangerous. Pandit Nehru's refer- ences to it this week had a dePiessingly familiar ring. India's patience, he said, was well-nigh exhausted ; India wanted to avoid war, but could not tolerate "a foreign Power" in her midst. Hyderabad is not foreign, nor, for the matter of that, a Power. It is the biggest of the Indian States, and the only one which has not yet acceded to the Indian Union. The Nizam, whose dynasty has ruled Hyderabad since the Moslems conquered the Deccan 700 years
ago, but 85 per cent, of whose 17 million subjects are Hindus, does not want to accede to India ; he wants to be independent, and there is reason to believe that he was encouraged by the British Government, before the transfer of power took place, to regard this aspiration as not only legitimate but practicable. His domain is now subject to stresses, both internal and external, which threaten at any moment to unleash on Southern India the uncontrollable flood-tide of communal violence which last year swept and devastated the north. The 2,500,000 Moslems in Hyderabad feel themselves, not without reason, to be at bay, and are adopting a posture of militant defiance. This expresses itself in half-punitive, half-defen- sive action against Con-imunist marauders from Madras, whose de- predations the Indian authorities appear powerless or unwilling to check on their side of the border ; it also expresses itself in fiery polemics directed against the Hyderabad State Congress, which, inspired and encouraged by the Indian National Congress, carries on by most means short of violence a campaign against the Nizam's authority. The situation is further complicated by an unofficial economic blockade imposed by neighbouring provinces. What is demanded in these circumstances is the exercise of moderation by New Delhi. India has nothing to lose and everything to gain by being reasonable and patient. But there are no signs that she has either the will or the capacity to do this, and a lack of statesman- ship may in the near future precipitate a major disaster.
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