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Razakar: The Silent Genocide of Hyderabad, a film widely criticised for its communally polarising Hindutva narrative, was presented the Telangana Gaddar Film Award by the state government on Saturday, June 14 for the best feature film on history. The 2024 film is produced by Telangana Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Gudur Narayana Reddy and directed by Yata Satyanarayana.
Named after revolutionary Telangana poet Gaddar, the awards were instituted by the Congress government in the state in 2025. Telugu actor and BJP leader Jayasudha is the chairperson of the jury, constituted by the Revanth Reddy government. Actor and former MP Murali Mohan from the Telugu Desam Party (TDP), a party in alliance with the BJP, is also a member of the jury.
Razakar won three Telangana Gaddar Film Awards – best feature film on environment/heritage/history; best music director for Bheems Ceciroleo; and best make-up artist for Nalla Sreenu.
Activists and opposition leaders have expressed shock at the Revanth Reddy-led Congress government awarding Razakar, which has been widely panned as a propaganda film made to further a Hindutva agenda and serve as fodder for communal tensions.
The film is set in the backdrop of the former Hyderabad state’s integration to the Union of India. The Razakars were the active paramilitary force of the Nizam, who was unwilling to integrate with the Union of India.
The Razakars were deployed to crush the Telangana peasant struggle, and committed several atrocities against those fighting the oppressive Nizam state, including Muslims.
In recent years, the BJP in Telangana has been trying to misrepresent the complicated history of Razakars for political gains. Brushing aside the nuances of the Telangana peasant rebellion and the oppression of predominantly lowered caste workers by the Nizam’s Razakars in collusion with dominant caste landlords, the BJP has tried to reduce it into a simplistic Hindu-Muslim binary by painting it as plainly an instance of religious persecution.
Razakar, which was initially intended for release before the 2023 Telangana Assembly elections, has been criticised for typecasting and villainising the Muslim community as a whole.
Criticism over Congress govt endorsing a Hindutva film
Activists have questioned the Congress government’s decision to honour such a film, tacitly endorsing the film’s anti-Muslim views.
“A propaganda film by BJP leaders targeting and spreading hate against Hyderabadi Muslims under the guise of Razakar movie, has been awarded Best film. Shockingly, Telangana Congress and CM Revanth are endorsing the director’s views,” Hyderabad based civic rights activist SQ Masood said.
“The movie denigrates the martyrs who sacrificed their lives in the Telangana Peasant Armed Struggle. The peasants’ struggle was against the landlords and zamindars was for land, food, and freedom from slavery; however, the Razakar film depicted it as a rift between the Hindus and the Muslims,” Telangana Communist Party of India (CPI) leader Takallapally Srinivas Rao said.
Majlis Bachao Tehreek spokesperson Amjadullah Khan questioned the Congress’s secularism and the silence of the All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) for nominating the movie.
Razakar falls in the same bracket as The Kashmir Files and The Kerala Story, both of which have also been widely criticised for basing their accounts on stereotypes that paint Muslims as villains, while claiming to portray real life incidents.
While such films have received endorsement from the BJP in the past in the form of awards, tax concessions, and praise from party leaders, the support for Razakar from CM Revanth Reddy who has often berated BJP for inciting communal conflicts has come as a surprise to many.
Revanth Reddy presented the film’s award along with a cash prize of Rs 5 lakh to producer and BJP leader Gudur Narayana Reddy at Hyderabad’s Hitex Exhibition Grounds at the award ceremony on June 14.
Thanking CM Revanth and other leaders in the state Congress government, Narayana Reddy told the media, “All of them have honoured history and not disregarded our efforts. We were dedicated to promoting a movie on history because we want to make sure groups like the Razakars don’t surface again… We saw for instance what happened in Pahalgam recently.”
Controversy over the jury
As per clause 9(a) of the Gaddar Telangana Film Awards (GTFA) regulations, the Telangana government was to constitute the jury, with Chairman of the Telangana Film Development Corporation Limited serving as the member-convenor for the selection of awards.
The Telangana government appointed well-known Telugu actor-turned-politician Jayasudha as the jury chairperson. Jayasudha, who was with Congress party earlier and then switched to the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) and YSR Congress Party (YSRCP), joined the BJP in August 2023.
As per clause 21 of the regulations, all movie entries with subjects that, among other things, disrupt communal harmony were not to be considered by the jury.
On June 13, a day before the awards ceremony, a writ petition was filed in the Telangana High Court questioning the validity of the jury’s selection process.
The petition alleged that “two jury committees were constituted under Rule 9(a) of the GTFA Regulations and that several members involved in the jury had direct interests in some of the award-winning films.” The bench of Justices Sam Koshy and Narsing Rao Nandikonda ordered that a notice be issued to the respondents, the GTFA jury and the Telangana Film Development Corporation Limited.
Speaking to TNM, one of the three petitioners in the case who did not wish to be named alleged that Razakar won the award because of Gudur Narayana Reddy’s ties with the BJP.
In February 2025, Telangana Chief Minister Revanth Reddy slammed the BJP-led Union government for not honouring deceased revolutionary poet Gaddar with a Padma award. A former Maoist ideologue, Gaddar and his music were a crucial part of the Maoist movement in Telangana as well as the separate statehood agitation since the late 1960s.
"Insult Gaddar one more time and I will rename the area housing the BJP office in Hyderabad after the poet,” Revanth had warned.
The Gaddar Film Awards are Telangana’s equivalent of the Nandi Awards presented by the united Andhra Pradesh government, which stopped after Telangana’s bifurcation in 2014. Reviving the practice of the state government recognising contributions in Telugu cinema, the Gaddar awards have been started by the Revanth Reddy government this year. Films released from June 2014, since the bifurcation of Andhra Pradesh, received honours this year.