SARDAR VALLABHBHAI PATEL

Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel was one of the distinguished freedom fighters of India, second only to Gandhiji. He was a man of nerve and determination. He had an extraordinarily robust will and was fearless to the core.

Vallabhbhai Patel was born at Nadiad in Gujarat in a farmer’s family. His father was Jhaverbhai. Jhaverbhai was a daring man. Vallabhbhai Patel’s mother Ladbai, was a very religious and pious woman. Patel was undaunted like his father and religious and virtuous under the beneficial influence of his devout mother.

When Vallabhbhai Patel was a student, one of his teachers imposed a fine on a poor student. The boy could not pay the fine. The teacher turned him out of the class. The poor boy missed his lessons. Vallabhbhai felt deeply that the teacher’s harshness towards the boy was unjustified. He took up the issue and organised a strike. The strike went on for a few days. The headmaster of the institution apologised and said there would be no such unjust punishment any more.

Vallabhbhai Patel sailed to England in August 1910 and returned to India in 1913, duly qualified as a barrister. He was a brilliant lawyer and worked hard on his briefs. His practice at Ahmedabad started looking up and money started flowing in. Patel became affluent.

Gandhiji once visited the Gujarat Club to deliver a lecture. A thoroughly westernised Patel was not too interested in listening to Gandhiji’s lecture. Patel ignored it and played a game of bridge instead. Gandhiji came to Gujarat Club often. On one of his subsequent visits, Vallabhbhai attended a lecture. Gandhiji’s advocacy of passive and non-violent resistance to the atrocities of the British imperials appealed to Vallabhbhai. He was very much impressed and felt that the Satyagraha was a strong force and it could prove to be a great weapon against the British.

Head-on with the British

In 1918, the farmers of Kheda district suffered heavily due to torrential rains and inundation and were unable to pay land revenue. They approached Vallabhbhai Patel and Gandhiji. Patel  submitted a petition to the government requesting them to waive the levy. But the government wouldn’t budge. The farmers were impoverished on account of the loss of crops, fodder and cattle following the flash floods. Patel took up the leadership of the agitation. He applied the Gandhian Satyagraha of passive and non-violent resistance to the collection drive. Patel was complimented by Gandhiji. Thus Patel became a trusted lieutenant of Gandhiji.

Among the passive resistance movements led by Vallabhbhai Patel, the one he led at Bardoli, in the then Surat district was the earliest and the most momentous. The government had hiked the tax on land. The people groaned under the burden. They sought the help of Vallabhbhai Patel. Patel set up a temporary home for himself at Bardoli. The tax was so oppressive and burdensome and the collection machinery of the government so repressive and harsh that the peasants fled to the neighbouring Baroda state. The agitation of the Bardoli farmers went on.

 Hundreds of agitators were thrown into the jail. Vallabhbhai Patel was hailed as a tough leader. Gandhiji lauded his leadership quality and named him ‘Sardar’, meaning leader. Vallabhbhai Patel came to be known as Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel.

Mahatama Gandhi left it to the orgnisational skill of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel to make preparations for the celebrated march to Dandi on the sea coast to make salt. Sardar Patel was arrested while making preparations. His arrest was resented by the people. About 75,000 people took a pledge at Sabarmati banks not to rest till India became free.

When Patel went to Karachi with Gandhiji, there was a black flag demonstration. People were dissatisfied with the Gandhi-Irwin Pact. They were agitated too that the great patriot Bhagat Singh was not saved but hanged before the Karachi Session of the Congress.

On Gandhiji’s return from London, he along with Patel, Nehru and other leaders were jailed. Patel and Gandhiji were locked up in Yerawada prison. Patel ministered to Bapu’s needs though he differed with him sometimes.

Gandhiji entrusted the organisation of elections for the Provincial Government of 1937 to Sardar Patel. Patel was in charge of choosing candidates to contest for the Provincial legislature.

Winston Churchill, the then Prime Minister of England, sent Sir Stafford Cripps, a minister in his cabinet, to persuade Indian leaders to back them in the Second World War. But as no guarantee or assurance was forthcoming to grant freedom to India, Mr. Cripps failed in his mission.

In August 1942, Gandhiji made a historic call to the British to “Quit India” forthwith. Sardar Patel and Jawaharlal Nehru said that if the British did not do so, a mass movement would be launched under Gandhiji’s leadership to evict the British out of India. Many prominent Congress leaders were arrested. Sardar Patel and Jawaharlal Nehru were both imprisoned at Ahmednagar prison and Gandhiji was detained at the Aga Khan’s palace in Pune.

The British had to free the officers of the INA organised by Subhas Chandra Bose for the freedom of India. Patel and other Congress leaders had created mass opinion in their favour, as he and the other Congressmen looked upon the INA men as staunch and dedicated patriots.

Clement Attlee, the Labour Prime Minister of Britain, sent a mission to India in the year 1946. The delegation arrived on March 23, 1946. It proposed an interim government prior to Britain granting independence to India.

In Independent India

Integration of hundreds of the princely states that lay scattered with India was a mammoth task, but Patel proved equal to it. He was largely persuasive but firm when firmness was called for.

Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel encouraged the Indian Civil Services staff to advise the elected Government boldly and fearlessly.

When Sardar Patel breathed his last in December 1950, Pandit Nehru paid a glowing tribute to the departed leader and hailed him as the “Builder of Modern India”.

Sardar Patel was awarded “Bharat Ratna” (posthumously) in 1991.

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