1948 saw Operation Polo or Police Action as it is called – the Indian Army entering Hyderabad State and taking over its rule. While the actual military intervention saw minimal loss of lives, it caused a great rupture in the culture and politics of Hyderabad State, later, in truncated form, to become Andhra Pradesh, and even later, Telangana. The huge loss of lives and property before and after the Police Action that Muslims experienced also led them to a devastating (to them) loss of spirit. The Communists who had rapidly spread over Telangana’s villages were crushed by the Police Action. The nationalists celebrated the forcible overthrow of a sovereign state within the borders of India. Hyderabad Readings attempts to present these multiple voices to the readers in the form of extracts from rare books, articles, memoirs - letters even – to help the reader reconstruct history and view the problems of the present through history’s lens.

Known as the single most influential public intellectual, in China Wang Huning is credited as being the “ideas man” behind each of President Xi’s signature political concepts. Visiting the United States in 1988 as a scholar, he recorded his observations in this memoir in 1991. Wang’s America records deindustrialization, rural decay, over-financialization, out of control asset prices, and the emergence of a self-perpetuating rentier elite; powerful tech monopolies able to crush any upstart competitors operating effectively beyond the scope of government; immense economic inequality, chronic unemployment, addiction, homelessness, and crime; cultural chaos, historical nihilism, family breakdown, and plunging fertility rates; societal despair, spiritual malaise, social isolation, and skyrocketing rates of mental health issues; a loss of national unity and purpose in the face of decadence and barely concealed self-loathing; vast internal divisions, racial tensions, riots, political violence, and a country that increasingly seems close to coming apart. The book argues that China (and the East) has to resist global liberal influence and China has to blend Marxist socialism with traditional Chinese Confucian values.

The story spans over four generations of a group of people, both from north India and from the Dharwad region, who are involved in Hindusthani music – their personal lives, their issues with each other – and related to their passion for music. From being a student and a disciple, to giving concerts of their own and developing an original style, to trying to make a name for themselves in a highly competitive and politicised industry and to, finally, have students and disciples of their own, thus completing the circle and starting a new cycle.

Several interesting debates took place on the idea of India as a federation of nationalities as opposed to the idea of a singular Indian nation, both in English and Telugu in the then Madras Presidency in the first half of the twentieth century. The importance of bringing back these debates into the public domain at a time when political discourse has been increasingly geared towards the consolidation of an aggressive singularly homogenous Hindu India, cannot be minimised.

As a celebrated and militant fighter in an armed squad in the Telangana peasant movement of the late forties, Mallu Swarajyam (1931-2022) continued her distinguished life of service to the people, serving for long as a Communist activist and as a member of the state Assembly. Born into a feudal familly, she joined the Communist movement at the tender age of ten and never swerved from her loyalty to it till she died. Her memoir, Na maate tupaki toota, as-told-to S.Katyayini and M.Vimala, was published in 2019.

A travelogue from the pen of a historian, The Buddha In My Backyard, is a spell-binding account of the monasteries and artefacts ranging from the time of the Buddha in her backyard of Visakhapatnam district. She dwells on the destruction that time, an apathetic state and a society ridden with ignorance of history, have wreaked on these rich remains that speak of a society and culture long past.

Ranga Rao (1942-2018) was a feisty doctor who refused to be stifled by the constraints of a bureaucracy and contributed to significant improvements in the public health system of Andhra Pradesh. His recollections range from working in a primitive tribal area as a young man, rigorous training in the United Kingdom, setting up a corporation for people with disabilities, and to playing a role in revamping the family planning system in the state. His recollections are peppered with graphic narrations of events including his hair raising experience of working with the medical teams supporting the Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF) in Sri Lanka. A must read for those who are skeptical about the possibilities of working with and in government.

These essays are about the arduous task of building democracy and chart the contours of the justice system, in its everyday guise as well as when it
sets out to make and implement policies. Authoritarianism, Balagopal points out, lies immanent in the dominance of the ‘national’ project by the hegemonic classes and castes. The elites have deliberately sought to work this as well as regional contradictions to their advantage. They do this by building a repository of social contempt and negativity against shifting targets - religious minorities, workers, civil rights activists, political dissenters, dalits and adivasis movements, and protesting women.

Namburi Paripurna was born before India attained independence and witnessed every change that the country went through. Her personal, political and social life are inexorably intertwined. Born a dalit, she married a savarna in the Left movement, was abandoned by him, and raised her three children by herself. She wrote and published her autobiography Velugu daarulu in Telugu in 2017, reflecting the journey of both the Telugu states, Andhra Pradesh and Telengana, their music, literature, cinema and their peoples’ struggle to achieve equality.

Endapalli Bharathi is a farmer-shepherd in a remote Rayalaseema village. Though she did not complete high school, she was encouraged by the women’s self-help group movement to write narratives of the lives of the working women and their issues in the villages. These incisive stories formed the bulk of her two anthologies, Edari batukulu and Batukeetha and brought to light stories from a much ignored region and peoples.