‘The Hyderabadis’: Displacement, broken geographies, and evolving identities in the city’s history

In his literary debut, The Hyderabadis: From 1947 to the Present Day, writer and researcher Daneesh Majid curates stories of ten distinctive lives shaped by the cruelties of police action in 1948. Some of his older subjects were witnesses as well as targets of violence and displacement across what is now Maharashtra’s Marathwada region and northeast Karnataka. The Nizam state’s Telugu-speaking districts had not been spared of the bloodshed before and after Hyderabad’s accession to a newly independent India. He chronicles their trajectories with dignity while constructing meaningful identities that evolved as a result of upheavals from Police Action to the present day.

The lives are not just casual selections. Rather, they are aggressive assertions about the authentic Hyderabad experience, deliberately challenging stereotypical hedonistic depictions of Deccani Muslims. The book also traces varied migratory patterns. Some subjects travelled to the Gulf for economic opportunity, others resettled in Karachi or Canada, while many sought refuge within Hyderabad city itself, arriving from places like Latur and Gulbarga.

Filling the gap

When it comes to showcasing these varied histories in an accessible manner, it is often the prodigal and adopted children of Hyderabad who tend to step up. In the vein of Majid’s returns from the Middle East and North America, many of...

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