Hyderabad, Sept. 16 -- By September 16 in 1948 it was pretty much game over for the erstwhile Hyderabad state's last Nizam Mir Osman Ali Khan, whose government was fighting a 'war' against the Indian army to stay independent. Within hours on September 17, the Hyderabad State Army would officially surrender, ending his reign as the monarch of the one of India's largest princely states.

The India Army however also had a second and more important motive for being sent - to crush the Communist Party of India (CPI)-led peasant rebellion that had spread through the districts of Telangana from 1946 itself. The CPI was bent on running its own communist state and the wary Indian government wanted to prevent it. Hence, the army was stationed in Te...