Hyderabad, Aug. 15 -- Nearly eight decades ago, when India was formally declared an independent sovereign nation, Hyderabad was cautiously silent. Not that independence did not matter to Hyderabadis. It was that freedom had not arrived here.

When the British left, they left the last Nizam, Mir Osman Ali Khan, as they did the rulers of other princely states, with a choice: join India, join Pakistan or attempt to stand alone. The Nizam chose his own independence. It lasted a little over a year, at the end of which the state was annexed.

In retrospect, for the freedom fighters of Telangana, it was a dual struggle - against the British Raj on one side, and on the other, the feudalism of the princely state, an order that existed under the Ni...