4 min readHyderabadJan 17, 2023 10:07 AM IST
First published on: Jan 16, 2023 at 10:11 PM IST
The last titular Nizam of Hyderabad, Mukarram Jah, who died in Turkey on Saturday night will be buried with full state honours at the city’s Mecca Masjid on Wednesday.
Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao, popularly known as KCR, has expressed condolences and directed Chief Secretary A Santhi Kumari to make arrangements. Government advisor A K Khan, a former IPS officer, has also been asked to coordinate with Jah’s family to arrange the funeral. The body arrived in Hyderabad on Sunday and was shifted to Chowmahalla Palace, where pre-burial rituals were performed on Monday. Mukarram Jah, as per his final wishes, will be laid to rest by the side of his predecessors from the Asaf Jahi dynasty.
The KCR-led government’s decision on Sunday to accord state honours to Mukarram Jah — the grandson of the last reigning Nizam, Mir Osman Ali Khan — comes months after his party, the Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS), and the BJP engaged in a war of words over the legacy of the rule of the Nizam’s and Hyderabad state’s integration with India. The two parties will lock horns later this year for the Assembly elections, with the BJP trying its best to expand its electoral footprint in the state.
Last September, the BRS, then the Telangana Rashtra Samithi, and the BJP squared off over the commemoration of the merger of the erstwhile princely state of Hyderabad merged with India on September 17, 1948. The KCR-led party had never observed September 17 during its rule but its hand was forced after the BJP-led Union government announced it would observe September 17 as Hyderabad State Liberation Day. In response, the Telangana government observed the day as Telangana National Unity Day.
The BJP accused KCR of not observing September 17 to avoid upsetting Asaduddin Owaisi and his party, the All India Majlis-E-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM), and his party’s Muslim supporters. For the BRS and KCR, anything related to the Nizams is akin to walking a tightrope. KCR has nurtured the support of Muslims and has benefitted from minority votes in constituencies where the AIMIM does not contest. The AIMIM and the BRS are officially not allies but both parties are understood to have an understanding with each other.
For the BJP, the sore point is the private militia known as Razakars who were born out of the Majlis-e-Ittehad-ul-Muslimeen (MIM). The Razakars in the 1940s were unleashed by the Nizam against peasant protesters who were inclined to join the Union of India during discussions about independence. But the Owaisi-led party says that the MIM ceased to exist after September 17 and has nothing to do with the AIMIM.
At the time of the controversy last year, state BJP chief Bandi Sanjay Kumar said the BJP places a lot of importance on commemorating September 17 because of the history of violence that preceded Hyderabad’s merger with India. “It is emotional because the Nizam’s men unleashed brutality on people and not celebrating their liberation so as not to hurt someone’s sentiments is not acceptable,’’ he said.
The Opposition party has not yet reacted to Mukarram Jah’s death or the state government’s decision to lay him to rest with state honours. The Congress, meanwhile, has supported the government’s decision. Former state minister Mohammed Ali Shabbir said Jah served the people of Hyderabad through several charitable trusts and institutions.
“His contribution to serving the people, especially in the fields of education and medicine was exemplary. He will be remembered not only as the eighth Nizam (titular) of Hyderabad but as an individual who always cared about his people from his homeland,” Shabbir said.
Mukarram Jah was the grandson of the last reigning Nizam, Mir Osman Ali Khan. 
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