Omkar Dattatray
If there was any iron man of India, it was Sardar Vallahbhbhai Patel and he deserves this epithet very much and most rightly. He was born on 31st October 1875 and this great man of determination and action passed away on December 15, 1950 after leaving behind a great legacy for the generations to come and so Patel and his contribution is remembered even today. The best tribute to this leader of masses is to keep the country united and protect its unity and sovereignty .He was a lawyer and an influential leader in the Indian independence movement .After independence he played a predominant and significant role in unifying India and it was Sardar Patel who is rightly credited with unifying more than 500 princely states with Indian union and thus he laid the foundation of modern India .Thus Patel played an important role in the integration of India for which he is remembered by the people .He was deeply influenced by Gandhi’s philosophy ,ideology and principles ,having closely worked with him .Patel was the senior leader of congress ,who played a significant role in country’s independence and in its political and geographical integration .Patel was the first home minister of independent India and his uncompromising efforts towards the consolidation of the country earned him the title ”Iron man of India. ”
In 1917 Sardar Patel was elected as the secretary of the Gujarat Sabha, the Gujarat wing of the Indian national congress. Patel was born in Nadiad ,Kheda district and raised in the countryside of the state of Gujarat.
He was a successful lawyer. Patel was the one of the Gandhi’s earliest political lieutenants ,he organized peasants from Kheda, Borsad and Bardoli in Gujarat in non-violent civil disobedience against British Raj becoming one of the influential leaders of Gujarat .He was appointed as the 49th president of Indian National Congress.
Sardar Patel was a senior congress leader of Indian national congress and a prominent figure in Indian freedom struggle ,who later on became India’s first deputy prime minister. Under the chairmanship of Patel ‘Fundamental Rights and Economic Policy ‘resolution was passed by Congress. Patel’s position at the highest level in the congress was largely connected with his role from 1934 onwards (when the congress abandoned its boycott of elections)in party’s organization. While promoting Quite India movement, Patel, made a climactic speech to more than 100000 people gathered at Gowalia Tank in Bombay on 7th August 1942. Historians believe that Patel’s speech was instrumental in electrifying nationalists ,who up to then had been skeptical of the proposed rebellion .Patel’s organizing work in this period is credited by historians with ensuring the success of rebellion across India .Patel however ,was no revolutionary. In the crucial debate over the objectives of Indian National Congress during the years 1928 to 1931. Patel believed that the goal of Indian National Congress be dominion status within the British Commonwealth, not independence. In contrast to Nehru ,who condoned violence in the struggle for independence, Patel ruled out armed revolution, not on moral but practical grounds .Patel held that it will be abortive and would entail severe repression. Patel like Gandhi ,saw advantage in the future participation of a free India in British commonwealth, provided India was admitted as an equal member. He emphasized the need to foster Indian self reliance and self confidence ,but unlike Gandhi he did not regard Hindu-Muslim unity as a prerequisite for independence. Patel disagreed with Nehru on the need to bring about economic and social changes by coercion. A conservative rooted in traditional Hindu values, Patel belittled the usefulness of adapting socialist ideas to Indian social and economic structure. He believed in free enterprise, thus gaining the trust of conservative elements, and thereby collected the funds that sustained the Indian National Congress. During 1930 Salt Satyagarha, Patel served three months imprisonment.
In 1931, Patel presided over the Karachi session of Indian National Congress. He was imprisoned in January 1932.Released in July 1934,he marshaled the organization of the congress party in 1937 elections and was the main contender for 1937-38 congress presidency .Because of Gandhi’s pressure ,Patel withdrew and Nehru was elected. Along with other congress leaders Patel was jailed in October 1940,released in August 1941 and jailed once more from August 1942 until June 1945.During the war Patel rejected as impractical Gandhi’s non-violence in the face of the then expected Japanese invasion of India .On transfer of power, Patel differed with Gandhi in realizing that the partition of the sub-continent in Hindu India and Muslim Pakistan was inevitable, and he asserted that it was in India’s interests to part with Pakistan. Patel was the leading candidate for the 1945 -46 presidency of the congress but Gandhi once again intervened for the election of Nehru.
Nehru as the president of congress was invited by the British Viceroy to form an interim government. Thus, in the normal course of events ,Patel would have been the first prime minister of India. During first three years of independence, Patel was Deputy PM, Minister of Home Affairs, Minister of Information and Minister of States, above all his fame rests on his achievement of the peaceful integration of the princely states into Indian union and the political as well as geographical unification of India. He was a man of action and a practical and pragmatic man who believed in practice than theory and it was only due to the foresight and meticulous planning and his organizing capacity and his uncompromising nature that he integrated more than 500 princely states into Indian union.
Thus Patel laid the solid foundation of India and in the absence of Patel the unification of India would not have been possible .In brief Patel was rightly described as the iron man of India and rightly so .Let us follow the footsteps and principles of Patel and keep India united for the or us and for future generations.
(The author is a columnist, social and KP activist).
