– Riasath Ali Asrar

Sometimes history doesn’t come wrapped in grand manuscripts or carefully preserved archives. Sometimes, it slips between the pages, quite literally. While cataloguing a completely unrelated book, we stumbled upon a surprising find – a fragment of a 1945 Hyderabad newspaper, casually repurposed as book-binding material. What was once junk paper now holds an entirely different weight – an archival value.

At first glance, it looked unremarkable, a browned, brittle scrap, torn and patched. But as we read through its faded lines, it began to speak of another time. There were announcements about “Hyderabad’s War Week” – grand military exhibitions at Fath-e-Maidan, railway notices from His Exalted Highness the Nizam’s State Railways, a quiet memorial to one Pandit Kishan Bashi – “beloved of the community and servant of the nation” – whose death year is mentioned as 1932, and a small public notice offered trading licenses to farmers on the borders of the erstwhile state of Hyderabad.

More intriguing was the structure of the page itself. It appears to be a collage, perhaps pasted together from more than one newspaper. The masthead belongs to one publication, the body to another. The visible words – Dakan, Hyderabad, Mashaheer – suggest a Deccan-centric paper. The date is presented in three calendar systems: 25 February 1945 (Gregorian), 24 Farwardi 1335 (Fasli), and 11 Rabi’ al-Awwal 1364 (Hijri) – a Sunday. In that calendrical layering, we glimpse the plural temporalities of princely Hyderabad state.

The year 1945 was particularly momentous. Globally, it marked the end of the World War II; and locally, it was the beginning of the Telangana Rebellion – a peasant uprising led by communists against the Nizam’s feudal order. Hyderabad State was not merely a spectator to world events – it was very much entangled in them. Its armed forces, under the command of Major General Syed Ahmed El Edroos, contributed troops to the British war effort; and Hyderabad’s extensive railway network, in that colonial period, playing a strategic role in moving men and materiel across regions and continents.

That military legacy goes much further back. In 1798, Richard Wellesley, then Governor-General of India, moved swiftly to dismantle the French-commanded corps under Monsieur Raymond in Hyderabad and formed the Nizam’s Contingent – a British-officered force loyal to both the British Crown and the Nizam. This new contingent fought Tippu Sultan at the decisive Battle of Seringapatam in 1799. By 1813, Sir Henry Russell raised the Russell Brigade – composed of Hindus from Oudh (Awadh) and nearby regions. Soon, additional battalions were formed – the Berar Infantry and the Elichpur Brigade, the latter raised by Nawab Salabat Khan.
By the mid-19th century, as Hyderabad drew closer into the orbit of British colonial power, the Nizam’s army – now eight battalions strong – was restructured into the Hyderabad Contingent, officially part of the British Indian Army. Its class composition shifted over time to include Kumaonis and Ahirs. Following the First World War, and the broader re-organisation of Indian forces, the 19th Hyderabad Regiment was born in 1923, absorbing earlier units like the 50th Kumaon Rifles. This regiment served with distinction in World War II. Then, in a quiet administrative renaming on 27 October 1945, just as the world was recalibrating itself post-war, it became the 19th Kumaon Regiment. After India’s independence from the British, and the annexation of Hyderabad through Operation Polo / Police Action – it was fully integrated into the Indian Army as the Kumaon Regiment – a name it carries to this day.

This entanglement with global conflict also highlighted Hyderabad’s strategic importance—especially its railways. Though the Great Indian Peninsula Railway (GIPR) – incorporated by the British Parliament in 1849 – had originally bypassed the Nizam’s dominions, British interests soon turned towards extending the line to Hyderabad. In 1870, an agreement was struck between Governor-General Lord Mayo and the VI Nizam Mir Mahboob Ali Khan – establishing what would become the Nizam’s State Railway. Though the capital came from Hyderabad’s coffers, the construction and management were firmly under British control, with oversight routed through the British Resident. By 1883, a new entity—the Nizam’s Guaranteed State Railway (NGSR)—was formed when Morton, Rose & Co. took over operations. While technically owned by the Nizam’s government, this company operated under heavily skewed terms – the Nizam had to provide infrastructure and annuities, while control remained largely with British board members based in London (Sardar Diler Jung Bahadur, the only exception, sat on the board).
Despite this imbalance, the railway system expanded rapidly. By the turn of the century, broad gauge connections linked Hyderabad with Bezwada and Madras, opening southern markets and strengthening commercial flows. The Hyderabad–Godavari line, launched in 1900, dramatically transformed the cotton economy of the Deccan plateau—ushering in industrial-scale ginning and shifting land use away from food grains towards cash crops. This infrastructural development came at a social cost, with rising grain prices and changing agrarian patterns affecting livelihoods in regions like Marathwada. By 1930, in the VII Nizam Mir Osman Ali Khan’s period, the NGSR was nationalised under Hyderabad State’s direct control, with Sir Akbar Hydari as its president. But even then, British officers dominated the administration, and its headquarters remained in London, until the exigencies of World War II forced a relocation to Hyderabad in 1941. Following Hyderabad’s annexation by the newly independent India in 1948, NGSR was merged with the GIPR and other lines in 1951 to form the Central Railway.

(More on the third part of this fragment – the farmers – later…)

And so, from a fragment of newsprint, meant to be forgotten, stuffed between covers, we rediscover this arc of history. A princely state balancing sovereignty and subordination. A military force caught between empires. A community writing, remembering, and repurposing its everyday material culture — your morning paper, your grocery list, your ticket stub, ephemera now, archives later.

by Maleeha Fatima and Riasath Ali Asrar

The vibrant nature of Hyderabad’s Urdu literature in the first half of the 20th century can be highlighted through the examples of two books from our ‘Riasat Ali Taaj¹ Collections’ – Halqa e Masmoom (1925) and Faust (1931) – both being Urdu translations of ‘The Poison Belt’ (1913) by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (d. 1930) and ‘Faust: Der Tragoedie erster Teil’ (1808) by the 19th century German poet Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.

Halqa e Masmoom, translated by Maulvi Muhammad Naseer Ahmad saheb Osmani, is a tangible artifact of a thriving cosmopolitanism that reached deep into the literary life of the princely state. Known across the world as the creator of Sherlock Holmes, Conan Doyle also wrote several lesser-known works of science fiction, including The Poison Belt, which imagined a catastrophic cosmic event threatening life on Earth. What makes Halqa e Masmoom so striking is not only its content, but also what it signifies – the presence of a diverse and literate Urdu-reading public in Hyderabad that was engaged with a wide range of literary genres. Its existence reflects the complex intersections between empire, education, and the flourishing of vernacular literary production in the region.

On the cover page, the title of the book is subtitled in Urdu as “چار دوستوں کا ایک علمی قصّہ chaar dostoN ka ek ilmi qissa” (A wise/knowledgeable tale of four friends), which is followed by the translator’s name. ‘Osmani’ in his name indicates him being a graduate of Jamia Osmania (Osmania University) – a practice common in the subcontinent to add a form of demonym or gentilic, showing affiliation to and taking pride in the alma mater. While ‘Maulvi’ (generally meaning a qualified graduate of Islamic sciences) in his name indicates his training in the Islamic sciences, it is followed by a line of credentials (M.A. and B.Sc.) and his designation as ‘معلم طبیعات (mu’allim e tabi’aat)’- which shows that he was teaching Physics at the university. This signaled both scholarly authority and modern Western framework of education in the Urdu institution Osmania University –  markers of colonial Urdu public sphere in Hyderabad. In the preface, the translator writes a note on the fame and importance of this work and the author, mentioning a few works that have already been translated in Urdu.  The paratextual emphasis on “ترجمہ  tarjuma (translation): ‘Poison Belt, authored by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle” on the first page, and the “اعلان” (announcement) of “قابل دید کتابیں  qaabil e deed kitaabeiN” (worth viewing books) with a list of different titles of the translator, author and the publisher available —  reflects a broader pedagogical and cultural project – whether intended or not – the aspiration to educate the public not only in moral and religious terms, but also through exposure to global currents of scientific and literary knowledge.

Another such example from the same collection is an Urdu translation of the 19th century German poet Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s play Faust: Der Tragoedie erster Teil (1808, Faust: The Tragedy’s First Part). Translated by Syed Abid Hussain (d. 1978) who was a scholar and translator working at Aurangabad’s Anjuman Taraqqi Urdu (ATU) during the 1930s. 

Established in 1886 (and renamed in 1903), ATU initially had its headquarters in Aligarh, but later moved to Aurangabad within the Hyderabad State in 1913 – under the patronage of the Asaf Jahis². Besides publishing journals and books, supporting research and creative work in Urdu linguistics and literature and contributions such as Dictionary of Scientific Terms (1935) – also in our collections – has supported scholars for books like the one mentioned above.

Not only did Syed Abid Husain translated the play, but also wrote over 100 pages of a مقدمہ ‘muqaddimah’ (preface) divided in six parts – sketching German Literature’s history, introducing Goethe’s life and works, and the importance of his works, critiquing the German play, explaining and referring to important parts of the text, amongst other discussions. 

The book is also notably a good example of the quality of print in those times — the paper being high quality with Urdu text typed in the naskh script in the style of Fraktur – the German type print (blackletter typeface that was widely used in Germany and German-speaking regions until the 20th century). The first folios of this edition also includes a sketch of Goethe, with his name written below in Urdu.

As Venkat Mani contends that the “worlding” of literature is facilitated through “information transfer,” a process significantly shaped by the infrastructure of print culture. In this context, publishers, booksellers, literate readers, and public libraries together play a crucial role in making ‘world literature’ accessible, especially when works are translated, printed affordably, and made available to wider audiences.³ The Urdu translations of The Poison Belt & Faust, thus, become part of this wider ecosystem of circulation and reception, emblematic of how literary cosmopolitanism was mediated through local languages and institutions in the erstwhile state of Hyderabad. The presence of such translations in Hyderabad speaks volumes about the erstwhile state’s openness to global ideas and its active engagement with the literary currents of the wider world. It also reflects the ways in which imperial networks, modern education, and local literary traditions intersected in unique ways within Hyderabad in this period. That a novel about planetary catastrophe – originally written in English,  or a German rhymed verse magnum opus (considered by many to be one of the greatest work of German literature) could find new life in Urdu in the heart of the Deccan region, underscores how deeply cosmopolitan the region’s literary culture had become. Through examples like Halqa e Masmoon and Faust, we see not only the reach of authors like Conan Doyle and Goethe, but also the vibrancy and adaptability of Urdu as a medium for translating and reinterpreting the world. These books are more than translations – they are a material trace of a dynamic moment in the history of Hyderabad as well as Urdu literature.

Urdu in Hyderabad during the Early 20th Century

While local Indic and neighboring Persian literature, with its unique blend of Indo-Persian traditions, remained prevalent in the Deccan, by the late 19th century, English popular literature had become widely accessible. During this period, authors like George W. M. Reynolds, Edward Bulwer-Lytton, and H. Rider Haggard, along with poets like Goethe, gained significant readership. Some of these works were less popular, while others were not only widely read but also translated into Urdu in various forms.⁴

There are several ongoing conversations, both within academic circles and in the public domain, about the historical relationship between the erstwhile state of Hyderabad, and the Urdu language. Some of these discussions tend to adopt reductive perspectives. A common argument suggests that Urdu in the erstwhile princely state was primarily an expression of elite,  jagirdar (landlord) culture, owing to its limited accessibility among the general population. While it is true that Urdu literacy was not widespread in early 20th-century Hyderabad, this limitation must be understood within the broader context of low literacy rates across the erstwhile state as a whole.According to the Census of India 1921, Volume XXI: Hyderabad State, Part I – Report, approximately 3.3 percent of the population in the Hyderabad city of the erstwhile princely state of Hyderabad was recorded as literate. Moreover, around the first two decades of the early 20th century, the literacy rate in Urdu was less than 2 percent. These figures reflect the broader socio-economic and educational disparities of the period, highlighting the limited access to formal education in the region at the time. ⁵

Recognizing the class-based barriers to education at the time is important, but it should not lead to the mistaken conclusion that Urdu itself was inherently elitist or disconnected from the wider social fabric. In fact, the spoken language of the majority of people in Hyderabad city was a form of Dakhni Urdu, which coexisted with formal registers and reflected the linguistic diversity of everyday life. The academic sphere during the time of the Nizam was equally engaged with Dakhni, recognizing its literary and cultural significance. Scholars, such as Riasath Ali Taj whose collection this copy is from, undertook important projects to recover and document neglected or nearly forgotten works of classical Dakhni literature. These efforts went beyond the translation and production of global texts – they signaled a commitment to preserving and revitalizing local vernacular traditions. Far from being overlooked, Dakhni was actively curated and studied within academic circles, underscoring the linguistic plurality and intellectual richness of the period.

Decline in Urdu Scholarship

Hyderabad, under the rule of the Asaf Jahi Nizams, was one of the wealthiest and most culturally vibrant princely states in colonial India. Unlike Bombay or Calcutta, which were shaped directly by British governance, Hyderabad maintained a degree of autonomy and developed a parallel modernity that merged Islamic scholarship, Indo-Persian courtly traditions, and global curiosity. The translation of detective fiction into Urdu, particularly lesser-known works, indicates not merely the penetration of Western narratives but their creative adaptation for South Asian readers. Translations like these were not simply acts of cultural borrowing; they were active interventions within a dynamic and evolving intellectual environment. The reading public of Hyderabad – comprising civil servants, students, clerks, and reformers – sought out new genres and ideas, especially those that offered both cognitive stimulation and moral depth. The widespread publication and circulation of such translations further suggest that access to these texts was not deliberately restricted to elite audiences. These were often small, affordable booklets intended for mass readership, making world literature available to readers across class boundaries. In this way, Hyderabad’s Urdu print culture functioned as a democratic force, opening up avenues for literary engagement, critical thinking, and imaginative exploration within the vernacular sphere.

However, this vibrant landscape underwent a profound transformation in 1948, when the Indian Union annexed the Hyderabad state. The political and administrative reorganization that followed brought about significant changes across socioeconomic and cultural institutions. One of the more enduring consequences was the gradual decline of Urdu. Once a language of both state and cultural life, Urdu increasingly became associated primarily with madarsa education (something that itself gained a negative perception), narrowing its perceived relevance and reach. In a broader context, the decline of Urdu literacy in Hyderabad reflects not just a linguistic shift but a profound transformation in cultural priorities and socio-economic conditions. 

While Urdu once flourished as both a literary and administrative language in the region – particularly gaining momentum in the early decades of the 20th century – its upward trajectory was abruptly halted by a combination of policy decisions, shifting demographics, and changing educational frameworks. Today, a century later, the presence of Urdu in Hyderabad’s literary and public spheres is a faint echo of its former prominence. What we witness now is a paradox: although the older class-based barriers that once restricted access to Urdu no longer persist, there is a marked absence of robust literary production in the language. The belletristic tendency to celebrate (or even fetishize) Urdu for its aesthetic elegance often masks a deeper disengagement with its intellectual and critical traditions. Much of the limited literature that is produced today emerges outside the conventions of the Urdu script or literary heritage, often catering to niche or commercialized markets. The result is a landscape where demand for serious Urdu writing is perceived as negligible, further contributing to the erosion of its public and literary life. This decline, while gradual, signals a broader cultural amnesia about the role Urdu once played in shaping Hyderabad’s identity. 

Our forthcoming work at the foundation builds on this legacy by revisiting Urdu’s place in World Literature. Through the study of translations, marginal texts, unpublished manuscripts, lesser-known periodicals from the Deccan, and researching the various print presses and publishing houses – we aim to highlight the region’s vibrant participation in global literary circuits. Upcoming writings will explore how Urdu readers and writers in Hyderabad, Deccan engaged with the world, often on their own terms, negotiating colonial modernity while preserving and reimagining their own literary forms. In doing so, we hope to recover Hyderabad and Urdu’s rightful place in a truly plural and decentralized map of world literature.

Footnotes:

1. Hazrat Riasat Ali Taaj (d. 1999) was a literary scholar and poet from Deccan. The books that were acquired from the family, is now part of the collection named after him. This collection has many interesting works including his research work and notes, lexicons, textbooks, magazines and literature – most of these were bound and annotated by Hazrat Taaj himself. During the course of time, many of his works and collections were either lost or damaged, before we acquired and preserved them. A complete list of this collection will be shared soon. ↩︎
2.  Syed Hashmi, Panja Sala Tareekh: Anjuman Taraqqi Urdu (Karachi: Anjuman Taraqqi Urdu, 1987). ↩︎
3.  Mani, B. Venkat (2012). “Chapter 29. Bibliomigrancy”. In D’haen, Theo; Damrosch, David; Kadir, Djelal (eds.). The Routledge Companion to World Literature. Routledge. p. 284. ISBN 978-0-415-57022-0. ↩︎
4. Naim, C. M.. Urdu Crime Fiction, 1890-1950: An Informal History. India: Orient BlackSwan, 2023. ↩︎
5.  Mohamed Rahmatulla, Census of India 1921, Volume XXI: Hyderabad State, Part I – Report (Hyderabad, Deccan: Government Central Press, 1923). ↩︎

Maleeha Fatima is an academic whose current research seeks to reconstruct the social fabric of modern Hyderabad prior to 1948 by integrating postcolonial theory, material culture analysis, and quantitative historical methods. At Kabikaj, she contributes as an academic consultant for various projects, particularly through her expertise in material culture analysis.

Riasath Ali Asrar is an Urdu poet and founder of The Kabikaj Foundation. Through Kabikaj, he spearheads and collaborates on diverse research and documentation projects, primarily focused on literature and history.