Rashtriya Aikya Diwas 2023: Remembering Sardar Patel, Iron Man of India

Sardar Patel with family members (Photo courtesy: Gujarat Tourism)

Vallabhbhai Jhaverbhai Patel’s life is stuff legends are made of. As India's first Home Minister and Deputy Prime Minister, Sardar Patel played a key role in the integration of about 565 princely states into the Indian Union. Even today he is remembered as the man who united India. His political acumen and organizational skills were legendary and even 73 years after his death, people - and books - talk of the life and times of the Iron Man. A look back at his life and work:

‘Go teach yourself’: Patel was born in Nadiad, and many say his birth was not actually registered - the birth date October 31 was first added in his matriculation certificate. He grew up in Karmasad and often helped his father Jhaverbhai in tilling the land. He joined the village school but learnt the basics of arithmetic from his father who fought against the British in the army of the Rani of Jhansi in the 1857 mutiny. Patel was curious and asked too many questions in the classroom. Annoyed, the teachers of the Gujarati-medium village school chided him with ‘Go teach yourself.’ And Patel took it to his heart, literally.

Sardar Patel with Dr Rajendra Prasad, first President of India (Photo courtesy: Gujarat Tourism)

Love for English & matriculation at age 22:  He certainly was a curious student - self-taught and eager to learn the English language. But Karmasad did not have English-teaching facilities. So, after completing Grade VII, he moved to Petlad, a small town 7 miles from home. Not alone, though. He convinced six other boys to come along. The gang of teenagers rented a small house where they cooked, shared chores and studied. Patel was 22 when he completed his matriculation from Nadiad.

The pleader in a red Patidar pagdi: At the age of 25, Patel passed the pleader's test and began to wear a black lawyer's coat over his kameez and dhoti along with a red Patidar pagdi. Moving to Godhra, he borrowed money from a friend and rented a house. At an auction he bought some furniture - a few chairs, a table, some bolsters and a few square yards of rough matting - with which he began his career as a Pleader. He accepted mostly criminal cases and saved money to study law in England, where he stood first in the bar examination (Middle Temple Inn) in 1913.

Read the note about his wife’s death & continued arguing a murder case for his client in court:  Patel was only 17 when he was married to Jhaverba, a girl from the village of Gana. They had a daughter Mani in 1904 and a son Dhaya in 1904. Very little is known about Jhaverba and no photograph of her exists. She was only 25 when she died in 1909. Story is that Patel was in court arguing for his client in a murder case when a court staff handed a note about his wife’s demise. Patel read the note, pocketed it and continued his cross-examination in the court. He won the case and only then broke the news to others.

When many years later, Maniben, Patel's daughter was asked about her mother, she simply said ‘I have no idea’ - her father never spoke about her mother.

Sardar Patel with daughter Maniben (Photo courtesy: Gujarat Tourism)

Playing bridge, smoking cigar & that first meeting with MK Gandhi: There are several versions of how Patel first met M.K. Gandhi (not cited by Patel but by onlookers). In June 1916, Patel was playing bridge and smoking cigars - his favourite pastime at that time - at the Barrister's club along with his friend Chimanlal Thakore, when somebody invited the members of the Gujarat Club in Ahmedabad to meet and listen to one M.K. Gandhi who had come to expound his ideas about an Ashram and a national school. As Patel went on with his game, he remarked, "I have been told he (Gandhi) comes from South Africa. Honestly I think he is a crank, and as you know, I have no use for such people." Gandhiji talked - and Patel smoked. But slowly Patel got interested as he realized that "this man was not a mere windbag - he was out for action." (Source: Gandhi at First Sight by Thomas Weber).

Sardar Patel with Mahatma Gandhi and Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose (Photo courtesy: Gujarat Tourism)

From water to shoes - He planned for everything for INC’s 1921 annual session: Patel was chairman of the reception committee of Indian National Congress’ Annual session held in Ahmedabad in 1921. Water was scarce and the expected delegates nearly 5,000. Makeshift arrangements were not Patel’s idea - he installed new waterworks that not only provided the guests with plentiful water but also gave to the city a good water distribution system. And then there was the nagging issue of shoe-thieves who had rattled the delegates of the previous annual session in Nagpur. He had to put an end to shoe burglary - Patel asked local peasants to make hundreds of khadi bags and sold them to the delegates for safe shoe-keeping. The burglars were busted, the delegates were happy and peasants made money selling thousands of yards of khadi (Source: sardarpatel.nvli.in)

Vallabhbhai becomes Sardar in Bardoli: During the Bardoli Satyagraha (1928), Patel called upon landholders to refuse payment of the revised assessment to the government until a tribunal to settle the matter was appointed and urged the peasants to resist. He had organized a peasants conference in Bardoli with 16 camps under the charge of 250 volunteers - it was in Bardoli that the peasants started calling Vallabhbhai Patel ‘Sardar’ and that became his permanent prefix.

From Cuban cigars to boiled vegetables: Having lived in England, Patel had embraced a Western lifestyle and his love for Cuban cigars was well-known. But a chance encounter with Mahatma Gandhi changed everything. He lit a bonfire of his Western clothing and took to wearing khadi that was spun by his daughter Maniben. Once someone saw Maniben in a coarse saree with a mended patch. When questioned, Patel had said, “She is a daughter of a poor man. How can she afford good clothes? Her father earns nothing, you know?”

Sardar Patel Memorial housed in 17th century Moti Shahi Mahal in Ahmedabad (Photo courtesy: Gujarat Tourism)

When Jinnah fought a case for Sardar Patel. And won: On April 28, 1922, the British government registered a case in the Ahmedabad District Court (ADC) against Patel and 18 councillors of the Ahmedabad Municipality for 'misapplication of funds' and the British government sought to recover Rs 1,68,600 from them. Patel argued for himself in the ADC but when the case was moved to Bombay High Court, a team led by Muhammad Ali Jinnah fought the case for Patel & his councillors and won it in 1925.

On the 1947 cover of Time magazine: Sardar Patel was featured on the cover of Time magazine issue dated January 27, 1947. “Gandhi listened to God and passed on his political ideas to Vallabhbhai Patel; Patel, after listening to Gandhi, translated those ideas into intensely practical politics….Patel has no pretensions to saintliness or eloquence or fanaticism. He is, in American terms, the Political Boss. He cares little about the world outside his country,” part of the Time cover story read.

First Cabinet of independent India (Photo courtesy: Gujarat Tourism)

The ‘exhausted’ Nizam

Date: August 10, 1948.

Place: Constituent Assembly, New Delhi.

Hriday Nath Kunzru: When will the government's ‘active consideration’ (of Hyderabad) result in action?

Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel: Before the patience of the Hon. Member is exhausted.

In February 1949, when Sardar Patel made his first visit after Operation Polo to annex Hyderabad, he spotted Osman Ali Khan Asaf Jay VII, the last Nawab of Hyderabad, and said to V. Shankar (his then political secretary), “So his exhausted Highness is here.”