D.K.Pandita and Ayush Pandita
Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, in full Vallabhbhai Jhaverbhai Patel, was born October 31, 1875 in Nadiad, Gujarat. Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel was born in the Leuva Patel Patidar community that lived in the town. Sardar Patel’s father, Zaverbhai Patel, was in the Queen of Jhansi’s army. His mother, Smt. Ladbai, inclined spirituality. Since he was a child, Sardar Vallabhbhai was a brave and courageous person. There is a story about how he treated a boil, a painful one. He managed it without a doubt and with a hot iron rod. Everyone who knew him thought that he would do an ordinary job. This was because he completed his matriculation at twenty-two. However, he proved everyone wrong when he continued his education, furthering his education, he studied to become a law graduate. Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel traveled to England to be a barrister. After a few years, he returned to his home country and continued his practice in Ahmedabad.
Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel met Mahatma Gandhi in October 1917 and thus started his journey for the Indian Independence movement and in the political sphere of India. He joined the Satyagraha movement in Gujarat after he joined the Indian National Congress (INC). Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel was becoming a prominent political figure in British India. The people of the country were to give him another name – Iron Man of India in the future. Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel went on to become one of the most dynamic and mighty statesmen of the country. The political figure contributed in numerous ways during the Indian Freedom Movement. He was one of the most prominent and intellectual leaders of the country. Iron Man of India truly suits him because of his dominant personality.
In 1917 Patel found the course of his life changed after having been influenced by Mohandas K. Gandhi. Sardar Patel adhered to Gandhi’s Satyagraha ‘policy of nonviolence’ in so far as it furthered the Indian struggle against the British. Patel first made his mark in 1918, when he planned mass campaigns of peasants, farmers, and landowners of Kaira, Gujarat, against the decision of the Bombay government to collect the full annual revenue taxes despite crop failures caused by heavy rains. He was seen as an independent and motivated man.
Sardar Patel was one of the people who contributed to bringing the people of the country together. He empowered people to fight against the British authorities. Sardar Patel participated in many agitations after his first successful Satyagraha which brought him closer to Gandhi. Sardar Patel contributed in many ways during the freedom struggle. For his active participation, he was jailed several times. Even if he was jailed many times, it didn’t dissuade him from his motive. Sardar Patel’s primary motivation was to expel the British out of the country. His patriotism for the country was strong and fierce.
From 1917 to 1924 Patel served as the first Indian municipal commissioner of Ahmadabad and was its elected municipal president from 1924 to 1928. In 1928 Patel successfully led the landowners of Bardoli in their resistance against increased taxes. His efficient leadership of the Bardoli campaign earned him the title “sardar” or “leader”, and henceforth he was acknowledged as a nationalist leader throughout India. He was considered practical, decisive, and even ruthless, and the British recognized him as a dangerous enemy. In the crucial debate over the objectives of the Indian National Congress during the years 1928 to 1931, Sardar Patel believed like Gandhi and Motilal Nehru, but unlike Jawaharlal Nehru and Subhas Chandra Bose, that the goal of the Indian National Congress should be dominion status within the British Commonwealth not independence. In contrast to Jawaharlal Nehru, who condoned violence in the struggle for independence, Patel ruled out armed revolution, not on moral but on practical grounds. Patel held that it would be abortive and would entail severe repression. Patel, like Gandhi, saw advantages in the future participation of a free India in a British Commonwealth, provided that 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 Jawaharlal 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 the 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 activities of the Indian National Congress.
Patel was the second candidate after Gandhi to the presidency of the 1929 Lahore session of the Indian National Congress. Gandhi shunned the presidency in an attempt to prevent the adoption of the resolution of independence and exerted pressure on Patel to withdraw, mainly owing to Patel’s uncompromising attitude toward the Muslims; Jawaharlal Nehru was elected. During the 1930 Salt Satyagraha prayer and fasting movement, Patel served three months imprisonment. In March 1931 Patel presided over the Karachi session of the Indian National Congress. He was imprisoned in January 1932. Released in July 1934, he marshaled the organization of the Congress Party in the 1937 elections and was the main contender for the 1937-38 Congress presidency. Again, because of Gandhi’s pressure, Patel withdrew and Jawaharlal Nehru was elected. Along with other Congress leaders, Patel was imprisoned in October 1940, released in August 1941, and imprisoned once more from August 1942 until June 1945.
During the war Patel rejected as ‘impractical’, Gandhi’s nonviolence in the face of the then-expected Japanese invasion of India. On the transfer of power, Patel differed with Gandhi in realizing that the partition of the subcontinent into 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 Indian National Congress, but Gandhi once again intervened for the election of Nehru. Nehru, as president of the 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 the first three years of independence, Patel was Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Home Affairs, Minister of Information, and Minister of States; above all, his enduring fame rests on his achievement of the mostly peaceful integration of the princely Indian states into the Indian Union and the political unification of India.
His legacy today stands clear. As we approach the National Unity Day on October 31, we must be reminded of the man with an iron heart and iron will. We shall remember why he is nicknamed the ‘Iron Man Of India’. It is because he believed in Unity’s principle. His belief in Unity was so strong that he brought people together to fight. He had strong and compelling leadership qualities. Sardar Patel was one of the few leaders who could connect with the public. His contribution towards the Indian political dimension continued after the country got Independence. One of his most significant contributions was towards the bloodless integration of the country. He traveled all over the country, promoting the policy of (One India, One Nation Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel was the first Home Minister of India. Later, he went to become the First Deputy Prime Minister of the Country. The latest addition to his dream of ‘One Nation’ was made possible when Article 370 of the Indian Constitution was abrogated. The last impediment in fulfilling that dream would to be the abrogation of other legislations still present in the North-East within humanitarian grounds, with enduring peace. It is he, who in the truest sense is suited to be called “The Bismarck of India”. He breathed his last on December 15,1950, just three years into Indian independence at Mumbai. He was posthumously conferred with the Bharat Ratna award in 1991.
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