{"id":17137,"date":"2023-09-14T17:34:31","date_gmt":"2023-09-14T12:04:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/current_affairs\/?p=17137"},"modified":"2023-09-14T17:34:35","modified_gmt":"2023-09-14T12:04:35","slug":"operation-polo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/current-affairs\/14-09-2023\/operation-polo","title":{"rendered":"Operation Polo"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>Syllabus: GS1\/History<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">In News<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>September 13 marks the 75th anniversary of <strong>Operation Polo<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><strong><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">History of Hyderabad<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>The city was founded in the year <strong>1591 by Mohammed Quli Qutub Shah<\/strong>, the <strong>fifth sultan of Qutb Shahi dynasty.<\/strong><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Quli Qutb Shah seized the reins of power from the <strong>Bahamani kingdom in 1512<\/strong> and established the <strong>fortress city of Golconda.&nbsp;<\/strong><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Hyderabad&#8217;s fame, strategic location and Golconda&#8217;s legendary wealth attracted <strong>Aurangazeb<\/strong> who captured Golconda in <strong>1687.<\/strong><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>As the Mughal empire decayed and began to disintegrate, the viceroy,<strong> Asaf Jah I proclaimed himself the Nizam<\/strong> and established the independence rule of the Deccan.\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Hyderabad once again became a major capital city, <strong>ruled by successive Nizams of the Asaf Jahi dynasty<\/strong>.&nbsp;<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Eighty five percent of the Nizam\u2019s subjects were Hindus<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>In <strong>1798<\/strong>, a <strong>subsidiary alliance <\/strong>for <strong>military and political cooperation<\/strong> was signed between the Nizam and the British East India company.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><strong><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Background<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>In <strong>1947, <\/strong>when the British left India, they gave the <strong>princely states the choice<\/strong> to <strong>either join India or Pakistan or remain independent<\/strong>. Being one state not under British rule, it opposed the idea of a merger with India after Independence.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>In 1947, <strong>Home Minister Sardar Patel<\/strong> asked <strong>Mir Osman Ali Khan Asaf Jah VII, the last Nizam of the princely state of Hyderabad<\/strong>, to join India, but he refused. Instead, he <strong>declared Hyderabad as an independent nation<\/strong> on August 15, 1947.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>The Nizam signed a <strong>standstill agreement<\/strong> with India in <strong>November 1947.<\/strong> This essentially meant that a <strong>status quo would be maintained<\/strong> between the Indian dominion and the Hyderabad state <strong>till a solution was found<\/strong> to the imbroglio.\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>The agreement was <strong>signed for a period of one year<\/strong> during which the Indian government would not exercise any authority over Hyderabad and all conditions prevalent at the time of signing the agreement would continue.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>It was in <strong>June 1948 that Lord Mountbatten<\/strong> proposed the Heads of Agreement deal which gave Hyderabad the status of an <strong>autonomous dominion nation under India.&nbsp;<\/strong><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>India was ready to sign the deal and did so but the Nizam refused on the grounds that he wanted <strong>complete independence<\/strong> or the <strong>status of dominion under the British Commonwealth of Nations.<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><strong><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Reasons for Operation Polo?<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>There was no common border with Pakistan but the Nizam had <strong>every intention to have friendly relations with the country.<\/strong><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>The Nizam\u2019s administration in Hyderabad had taken advantage of the standstill agreement signed with India which followed to<strong> increase the number of its irregular force called Razakars.<\/strong><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>The <strong>excesses of the Razakars<\/strong> on the predominantly <strong>Hindu population<\/strong> of the state, their belligerence along the state borders through cross-border raids, the overtures being made to Pakistan and the <strong>intention to establish an independent country in the heart of India<\/strong> were the reasons why the Indian government decided to act against Hyderabad <strong>and remove the threat of secession.<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><strong><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Operation Polo<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>It was the <strong>police action launched by the Indian Army<\/strong> on September 13, 1948, to integrate the princely state of Hyderabad.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>This operation was named \u201cOperation Polo\u201d and it is also referred to as <strong>\u201cOperation Caterpillar\u201d at times.<\/strong><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>The Nizam\u2019s forces <strong>surrendered to the Indian Army by September 18.<\/strong><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>The Indian forces were led by <strong>Maj Gen Jayanto Nath Chaudhuri, <\/strong>the General Officer Commanding of 1 Armoured Division, who later went on to<strong> become the Chief of Army Staff.<\/strong><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Havildar Bachhitar Singh was among the recipients of the <strong>first Ashoka Chakra of Independent India awarded posthumously<\/strong> for his role in Operation Polo.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Source: <\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/indianexpress.com\/article\/explained\/explained-history\/75th-anniversary-operation-polo-police-action-hyderabad-8938202\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong>IE<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Syllabus: GS1\/History In News History of Hyderabad Background Reasons for Operation Polo? Operation Polo Source: IE<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17137","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-current-affairs"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17137","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17137"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17137\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17139,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17137\/revisions\/17139"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17137"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17137"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17137"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}