On the Eve of the Indian Army Intervention

By the middle of 1948, all the developments pointed to the possibility of the Indian Government intervening in Hyderabad to force the Nizam to accede to the Indian Union and of suppressing the spreading Telangana peasant movement. The question arose as to what we should dp with regard to this problem.

We were sure that after the Indian army intervention, the Hyderabad State would be forced to accede to India, and the Razakar terror would end, but at the same time, a terrific attack on our Party and Sangham and on the Telangana movement would be made, to liquidate it. We had a foretaste of it in the way the Congress Government had been attacking and suppressing our Party in the Andhra area. So, should we continue the armed struggle against Nehru's armies and its attack on the Telangana peasants to snatch away all the gains? Or should we withdraw the armed struggle and try to adopt normal legal forms of agitation and struggles, to win partial demands and retain partially the achievements of the Telangana peasants, such as no evictions, no forced labour or exactions; patta rights for waste lands that were being cultivated, and confine ourselves to agitation and mass mobilisation for agrarian legislation, for ceilings, rent-reduction, and for civil liberties, elected local bodies, elected ministry for the state, etc?