T
he credit for infusing Telugu language and culture into the ethos of Hyderabad mainly goes to NTR. Before him, the Deccani culture of the city reflected few traces of Telugu or Telangana. Even decades after the formation of AP with the merger of Andhra and Telangana regions, Hyderabad continued to be a Nawabi city, dominated by an Urdu and Nizami cultural milieu. Telugu had a lower standing among the languages spoken in the state capital for many historical reasons, though numerically the speakers were always in the majority. The elite of Telangana preferred to speak in Urdu to be counted among the aristocracy of the erstwhile princely state.
In Hyderabad, the elite would take pride in Deccani tehzeeb, which was considered a confluence of various cultures. But the reality was that Telugu, and its speakers, who constituted the majority in the Nizam kingdom (Hyderabad state), were looked down upon. Urdu was the official language, Farsi, Persian and Arabic had a pride of place, and even Marathi enjoyed a better status. In fact, a Lucknowi or a Punjabi would have felt more at home in Hyderabad than a Telugu from coastal Andhra or interior Telangana. ‘It was amusing to note that in the heart of the capital of a Telugu-speaking State, Telugu didn’t always work,’ recalled Narendra Luther, a former civil servant who authored several books on Hyderabad. While Telangana festivals like Bonalu or Bathukamma were celebrated in the city, they were looked down upon as working-class carnivals. As for people from coastal Andhra and Rayalaseema, they did not exactly feel at home in the capital of their own state due to the cultural and linguistic alienation.
It was against this backdrop that NTR’s arrival on the scene made a significant difference to Hyderabad’s cultural landscape. For the first time since Hyderabad became their capital in 1956, the middle classes from coastal Andhra and Rayalaseema regions felt an emotional connection to the city. This was a direct outcome of NTR’s linguistic nationalism. The population of Hyderabad began swelling from the 1980s as people from Andhra swarmed to the city in search of opportunities under a regime where Telugu had pride of place. Once linguistic affinity was established with the rest of Andhra, Hyderabad, a sleepy city till the 1970s, grew as a bustling metropolis. The city’s highest growth was recorded between 1981 and 1991, when the population expanded from 25 lakh to 43 lakh, registering a yearly increase of 5.3 per cent.
New colonies around the city came up. Ubiquitous tea shops and food joints (called Andhra messes and curry points in local parlance) replaced Irani cafes. Movie theatres playing Telugu films sprang up. Hyderabad became the hub for the Telugu cinema industry. Telugu newspapers, which were based in Vijayawada for a long time, made Hyderabad their headquarters. Telugu cultural events became prominent in the city. Telugu writers, artists, publishers, traders, professionals, business persons and everyone looking for opportunities made Hyderabad their new home. The migration of people from Telangana also accelerated. The Tank Bund statuary and structures like Lalitha Kala Thoranam imbued the city with a new Teluguness. Hyderabad began redefining its character as a Telugu city with a Deccani past. ‘Hyderabad is now the centre of a dynamic modern Telugu culture, one that will receive attention from other researchers in the future as the transformations underway gain still more momentum,’ acknowledged historian Karen Isaksen Leonard in her book on Hyderabad.
There has been criticism in some sections, primarily among the Telangana elite, against the loss of the city’s ‘Deccani character’. The alleged colonization of Hyderabad by Andhra settlers, especially after the turn of the millennium, became a leading cause for the last leg of the ‘separate Telangana’ agitation. From a different perspective, this disapproval underlined NTR’s contribution to Hyderabad’s newly acquired personality as a Telugu metropolis. The various strands of Telugu culture, subdued for long, are now conspicuous in the Deccani legacy. Hyderabad’s identity as a predominantly Telugu-speaking city has endured in its new avatar as the capital of Telangana. In fact, even after bifurcation, Hyderabad remains the only Telugu metropolis for both Telangana and AP. Significantly, a large chunk of Andhra and Rayalaseema people living in the city chose to stay back even post-division.