CDS (I) 2020 General Knowledge · Question 104 of 120

Correct — B, 1950. The word carrying the weight in the stem is 'officially'. Three separate dates belong to Hyderabad's absorption, and only the last is an accession in the legal sense. In September 1948 the Indian Army entered the State in the operation code-named Polo, and the Nizam's forces surrendered at five in the evening on 17 September — a military settlement, not an instrument of accession. On 24 November 1949 the Nizam issued a firman accepting that the Constitution of India would apply to Hyderabad. The Instrument of Accession itself was signed on 25 January 1950, the day before the Constitution came into force, and the Nizam took the new title of Rajpramukh of Hyderabad as a Part B State of the Union. That signature in 1950 is what the key is pointing at.

• (a)1948 — The popular answer, and the year of the event everyone remembers — Operation Polo, 13 to 18 September 1948, with the surrender on the 17th. But a military operation and a surrender are not an accession; Hyderabad was administered thereafter without having formally acceded.
• (c)1949 — The year of the Nizam's firman of 24 November 1949, accepting that the Indian Constitution would apply to his State. That is an acceptance of the constitutional framework, one step short of signing the Instrument of Accession, which came two months later.
• (d)1947 — The year of Independence, when Hyderabad did exactly the opposite of acceding. The Nizam declined to join either Dominion and signed a Standstill Agreement with India in November 1947, buying a year of nominal independence.

Under the Indian Independence Act, 1947 the princely States became free of paramountcy and were expected to accede to India or to Pakistan by signing an Instrument of Accession. Most did so before 15 August 1947. Three did not follow the normal course — Junagadh, Jammu and Kashmir, and Hyderabad — and each was settled differently: Junagadh by a plebiscite after its ruler left, Jammu and Kashmir by an Instrument of Accession signed in October 1947 during an invasion, and Hyderabad by military action followed, more than a year later, by a signature.

This item rewards precision about words that are used loosely in ordinary writing. 'Annexed', 'integrated', 'merged' and 'acceded' are not synonyms, and a question that says 'officially acceded' is asking for the instrument, not the army. There is a genuine tension worth stating plainly: many school textbooks and popular accounts date Hyderabad's joining of India to 1948, because that is when effective control changed hands, and a well-prepared candidate could reasonably have chosen that option. The official key is 1950, and the documentary record supports it — the Instrument of Accession bears the date 25 January 1950. Learn the sequence rather than a single year, and the item becomes easy in either phrasing.

• Hyderabad did not accede at Independence; the Nizam signed a Standstill Agreement with India in November 1947.
• Operation Polo ran from 13 to 18 September 1948 and the Nizam's army surrendered at 5 p.m. on 17 September 1948.
• A firman issued by the Nizam on 24 November 1949 accepted that the Constitution of India would apply to Hyderabad.
• The Instrument of Accession was signed on 25 January 1950, the day before the Constitution commenced.
• Hyderabad became a Part B State with the Nizam as Rajpramukh, and was reorganised out of existence by the States Reorganisation Act, 1956.

• Reading 'acceded' as 'was taken over'; the military action of 1948 and the accession of 1950 are different events.
• Assuming every princely State acceded before 15 August 1947 — Junagadh, Jammu and Kashmir, and Hyderabad did not.
• Confusing the firman of November 1949 accepting the Constitution with the Instrument of Accession of January 1950.

As a bare year, or as a chronological ordering of the accession of the three States that held out.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Which one of the following princely States signed a Standstill Agreement with India in November 1947 instead of acceding?

  • (a)Travancore
  • (b)Bhopal
  • (c)Hyderabad
  • (d)Jodhpur

  Answer(c) Hyderabad — the Nizam declined to join either Dominion and used the Standstill Agreement to hold out for about a year.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Under the original Constitution of India, the head of a Part B State was designated

  • (a)Governor
  • (b)Rajpramukh
  • (c)Chief Commissioner
  • (d)Lieutenant Governor

  Answer(b) Rajpramukh — the office held by former rulers of acceding princely States, including the Nizam in Hyderabad, until it was abolished in 1956.