Word: nizam
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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Belter to Receive. Perhaps the Nizam could restrain Razvi and his fellow Moslem fanatics; but it is hard to tell what the Nizam will do next. Not much was known about the man upon whom the fate of India might depend. The 62-year-old Nizam has never traveled out of India, has left his domain only twice in the past 15 years-once to Delhi and once to Calcutta. Now he ventures out of his palace only on two occasions: each afternoon at 4:20 he visits his mother's tomb, every Friday he prays at a public...
...Nizam prefers to receive rather than give. To his last birthday party he invited 1,156 Hyderabadis to dinner. Each one paid, according to the established custom, a door fee in gold and silver worth $50. The total take, $57,800, would pay his personal food bill for 395 years. Says his caterer, who was once maitre d'hotel at London's Grosvenor House: "The food he consumes in a day costs less than two bob [40?]." His presents are far from lavish. Last month his British adviser, Sir Walter Monckton, sent Richard Beaumont, a young secretary...
Privileged Minority. On the other hand, the Nizam spends some of his fortune for the public good. He gave $500,000 toward the building of Osmania University. Hyderabad City has the widest, cleanest streets in India, more and better looking hospitals than any other Indian city, a school for the deaf and blind, housing projects for the poor...
...Indian government's biggest objection to the Nizam is that he has elevated the Moslem minority of the population to a position of power and privilege. Of Hyderabad's 17 million, only two million are Moslems. Yet in the army and police, Moslems outnumber Hindus nine to one, and in other government services, six to one. The privileged Moslem minority rules on the principle that Hindus must be kept "in their place." For instance, in Hyderabad railway stations, there are separate refreshment rooms labeled "Moslem Tea Room" and "Hindu Tea Room...
...Nizam authorized the formation of an organization called Majlis Ittehad-ul-Muslimin (Movement for Moslem Unity), which has become Hyderabad's dominant political party, and more. Its private army called Razakars (Volunteers) now numbers 150,000. Head of the Ittehad and field marshal of the Razakars is 46-year-old Kasim Razvi. Razvi is against submission to Indian rule in any degree. "Death with the sword in hand," he tells his followers, "is always preferable to extinction by a mere stroke of the pen." Razvi's position is so strong that the Indian government calls him "the Nizam...