Hyderabad: A beautiful, healthy and efficient city

When the improvement schemes now suggested are carried out and the city equips herself with clean houses, flush-down lavatories, dustless roads, paved footpaths, wider bridges and a plentiful supply of open spaces, parks and gardens and public monuments, she will be able to hold her head high among her sister cities in India.

- Dinesh C. Sharma

If the remodelling and modernization will proceed apace, and Hyderabad of the future will become a beautiful, healthy and efficient city.

-M. Visvesvaraya, on his vision of a future Hyderabad, 1930

River Musi is barely noticeable in modern-day Hyderabad. There is little water running through it and construction has taken over much of the riverside. The floodplains have been encroached upon, and untreated waste flows into the river at many points. Its bridges, both old and new, are no longer the architectural marvels they once were but are now sites of traffic jams.

During the monsoons, the river periodically comes up in public discourse when rising water levels can lead to local flooding, as had happened in October 2020, July 2022 and July 2023. Yet, the story of Hyderabad remains inextricably linked with the fortunes of this river, particularly with the 1908 flood and its aftermath.

Today, River Musi is a pale shadow of its past. At the beginning of the twentieth century, it flowed through the middle of the city, bisecting it. On its south bank was the walled city housing the palaces of the Nizam as well as residences of principal nobles, while on the north bank was the British enclave with the imposing Residency building, British administrative offices and the Residency Bazaar surrounding it. A few miles away further north was the cantonment in Secunderabad. Between the Residency and the cantonment was the sparsely inhabited Chaderghat suburb. The total population of Hyderabad and the suburb was less than half a million at the beginning of the twentieth century. The 1908 flood changed the urban geography, the centre of political power and the face of the city forever.