Hyderabad
BACKGROUND
& HISTORY
In
the granitic region of the eastern deccan plateau, in a gently
rolling area runs the small river Musi in a shallow valley.
The region is dotted with low craggy ridges and hills and 'balancing
boulders'. Hyderabad is a town on the bend of this river.
The
area lay on the ancient north-south route. Megalithic culture
(with big stone tombs) flourished here before the Mauryan and
Satavahana rule. There were Buddhist monasteries in the area
of Hyderabad too. A rocky crag called Golconda, used as a lookout
by shepherds was gradually fortified right from the beginning
of the Christian era. The Chalukyas have left carved stone walls
in Golconda. The Kakatiyas and successors including Qutub Shahs
continued to build stone walls and carved gates.
Hyderabad
city was built by Sultan Qutub Shah in 1591 as a planned city.
Travel writers from Portugal and France of those days wrote
about it in glowing terms. The qutub shahis went in for a lot
of civil engineering, works which still stand and are used by
people today like a stone bridge, causeway, lake etc. The Mughals,
and then the local governor of the Mughals took over, styling
himself as "Nizam", with a state called Hyderabad and capital
at Hyderabad. The British slowly took over behind the scenes
and built their military camp at Secunderabad.
Because
development was uneven and distribution really skewed, there
was a communist uprising in the late forties which finally ended
with the Indian government taking over the whole of Hyderabad
state. Since then it has been a pleasant half-dreamy sort of
place punctuated with occasional riots.
While
some light industry was sparked off by locating large defence
labs ( like the one which designs Indian ballistic missiles)
there was not much change, really. However the bulk drug industry
is prominent even today. In recent times IT has grabbed centrestage.
Curiously,
long time residents insist Hyderabad is still not a "big city"
at all. Thus it retains the pleasant pace and unhurried charm
of a provincial town, while slowly acquiring the benefits of
a metropolis. The roads network is getting a long overdue spruce-up,
for instance with twelve flyovers - all at the same time. When
these are completed, the appearance of the city will change.
Right now Hyderabad is in its bouts of expansion. Fueled by
the demands from IT expansion, far away outlying areas are developed
as campuses for IT firms. The next phase of expansion due to
begin soon will encompass areas further away, this time for
the biotech industry.
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