Secunderabad

Secunderabad grew up as the British cantonment (military station) beside Hyderabad, the capital of the Asaf Jahi Nizams. The Imperial Gazetteer of 1909 places it six miles north-east of the city, beyond the Husain Sagar.¹² It says the cantonment was “named after the Nizam Sikandar Jah”.¹² Campbell (1898) also says it was named after Sikandar Jah.³

The cantonment

The gazetteer says the British troops at Secunderabad “were formerly known as the Subsidiary Force”.¹ They “were paid from the revenues of the districts ceded by the Nizam for this purpose under the treaty of 1800”.¹ The Hyderabad Contingent had its head-quarters at neighbouring Bolarum, and Berar was assigned for its payment in 1853.¹ By an agreement of 1902 the Contingent was merged in the Indian Army, and Bolarum became part of Secunderabad.⁴

In 1901 the population of Secunderabad was 83,550.¹⁴ Bolarum and Trimulgherry had another 12,888, making it “one of the largest military stations in India”.¹⁴ The combined cantonment covered 22 square miles.¹⁴ The gazetteer adds that in 1857 an unsuccessful attempt was made “to tamper with the fidelity of the troops at Secunderabad”.¹⁴

Gribble’s History of the Deccan (1924) says the British had levied and kept the excise revenues of the cantonments of Secunderabad and Jalna from 1812 to 1853.⁵ It counts this among the reasons for calling the Nizam’s debt of 1853 an “alleged debt”.⁵

Footnotes

1. Imperial Gazetteer: Hyderabad (1909), p. 119 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹

2. Imperial Gazetteer of India: Hyderabad State (1909), p. 118 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩²

3. A. Claude Campbell, Glimpses of the Nizam’s Dominions (1898), p. 125 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩

4. Imperial Gazetteer: Hyderabad (1909), p. 120 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵

5. J. D. B. Gribble (ed. M. Pendlebury), A History of the Deccan, Vol. II (1924), p. 226 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩²