Marathwada was not in British India, and its resistance history has to be read accordingly. There is no 1857 here of the kind the Gangetic districts had, no Swadeshi agitation, no salt satyagraha and no non-cooperation, because there was no British administration in these districts to non-cooperate with. Political organisation formed very late and against the state's own government: the Hyderabad State Congress was founded and declared unlawful in the same month of September 1938, and its first satyagraha ran for two months at the end of that year. Because that movement was regional and short, its people are barely known outside Marathwada, and the documentation of them in general reference works is thin. The entries below are limited to what is attested; several of the leaders named in accounts of the movement cannot be given confident dates or birthplaces, and they are left blank rather than filled in.
The Hyderabad State Congress satyagraha24 October – 24 December 1938
After the organisation was declared unlawful under a Public Safety Act on 6 September 1938, a committee of action called on members to state their membership publicly and court arrest. Volunteers came forward in batches across the state, Marathwada included.
Outcome: About three hundred were arrested before the campaign was suspended on 24 December. The Indian National Congress declined to back it, which left the movement in the state on its own for another decade.
The Join Indian Union day7 August 1947
The Hyderabad State Congress called a day of processions, strikes and flag-hoisting across the state in support of accession to the Indian Union.
Outcome: The organisation was banned again and there were mass arrests.