When the mantra of Vande Mataram lit the fire of freedom in Nizam’s territory

The ‘B’ Hostel of Osmania University has its door boarded up. The ‘A’ Hostel of OU is now walled up. “That building has collapsed. Don’t go there. There are huge snakes and the building may collapse on you if you go inside,” says the man who set up a hair-cutting saloon on the mud path. Inside the ‘B’ Hostel there is a photograph of Indian Social Revolutionaries that includes Gautam Buddha, Jyotirao Phule, and Ambedkar. There are no sounds of students or teachers. But it wasn’t so when the buildings were first built. There were large portraits of Rama and Krishna on the hostel walls inside the prayer halls for Hindu students but when it came to singing Vande Mataram, the Nizam’s government drew the line.