AC Guards

History has been in a way quite unfortunate to the black race, the Negroid, as we call the race. Most of us think that they are just confined to the African continent and exotic Caribbean islands.

The depth of ignorance is such that we Hyderabadi’s feel that the Africans (or blacks) are students who come to the city to pursue an educational career. That is wrong and facts prove the same right. History records reveal the fact that there is a connection between the Africans & city of Hyderabad for more than a century. It goes back to 100 years of Hyderabad history. The native Hyderabadi does not realise that the Africans lived here as citizens of this country and worked for the Nizams Military (Deccan Region). How the same came about makes for fascinating reading.

The ruler of Vanaparthy region once presented a group of 33 black men to the grandfather of the last Nizam of Hyderabad, Mir Osman Ali Khan, the men were huge, heavily built and hard workers. Though the Nizam of Hyderabad accepted the gift, he did not understand what to do with those men. Then he came up with an idea, to start an African regiment in his military. Towards this end, he imported 200 people from Somalia, Yemen and Kenya, to create an African regiment in his military force. The complete team was inducted into Nizam's military force and named as “African Cavalry Guards”. They were allotted a separate area for living which as on now is known as AC Guards area at Masab Tank, Hyderabad. They were also given a new identity name, disbanding the terms Africans or Negros, and instead referred to by the term “Siddhis” and today they are well known by the said name.

There are some special traits of these people; they have special attraction towards the music, an ingrained trait, which never left them. They brought musical instruments with them and transmitted the taste of African music to the fellow Hyderabadis. Some of them during those days (a century back), they used to play the African beats during the festivals/ processions/ marriages etc. The decline of this community occurred with the end of Nizam's rule on Hyderabad. Some became jobless, since did not leave the tradition of playing the African music as that was the only option left and they play the African music for survival. Around 1,200 Siddhis, still live in the same colony allotted to them by Nizams, speak Hindi and Urdu which is of course their mother tongue now and also most of them belong to Islam religion.

Mr. Abu Pehelwan who is the head of the Siddhis community and the master of his band, at 54 years of age still continues the tradition in Hyderabad with his troupe.
According to him some of them are settled in police, railways and other Government departments and some of them are running their own businesses.

These people have become a source of tourist attraction. Even today some of the blacks from all over the world visit them. We have handled some of them, who were here to just visit Siddhis. Come and experience the existing AC Guards with us in Hyderabad.