HE LEFT BEHIND A UNIFIED INDIA

SARDAR VALLABHBHAI PATEL

SARDAR – The leader, who united India at its most trying times after Independence, amalgamated nearly 550 princely states within the Union of India. He played a major role in the freedom struggle of India and in its integration as a cohesive and independent nation. He was first Deputy Prime Minister and Home Minister of India.

Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel was renowned as the ‘Iron Man of India’ in the country and across the world.

BORN IN A FAMILY OF HEROES

Sardar Patel was born on October 31, 1875 in Nadiad, a small village in Gujarat. His father Jhaverbhai was a farmer and had served in the army of Rani Laxmibai. His mother Laad Bai was a simple, deeply religious person. Sardar Patel’s early education took place in Karamsad. Thereafter he joined a school in Petlad. After two years, he joined a high school in Nadiad. He passed his high school examination in 1897, at the age of 22.

Vithalbhai, Sardar’s elder brother, was also a well-known patriot and the Chairman of the Indian Legislative Council.

When he was 18 years old, Sardar’s marriage was arranged with Jhaverba, a young girl of 12 or 13 years from a nearby village. The couple had 2 children – a daughter Maniben, born in April 1904, and a son Dayabhai, born in November 1905. Jhaverba died in January 1909.

A DREAM WELL PURSUED

Sardar Patel had a cherished ambition of becoming a barrister. He could not let the family’s poverty be a hindrance. So he himself designed a plan – he would study to become a lawyer, work and save funds, travel to England and study to become a barrister. In those days, a candidate could study in private and sit for an examination in Law. Sardar borrowed books from a lawyer of his acquaintance and studied at home. Occasionally he attended courts of law and listened attentively to the arguments of the lawyers.

He passed the Law examination with excellence within 2 years.

Sardar Patel then set up his household at Godhra and began his practice of law with absolutely no facilities. He hired a room, borrowed money from friends and furnished the room with some chairs and mats. The young, confident and honest Sardar made name as an eminent lawyer within a short span of time.

As per the plan, Sardar started saving a plenty of money to fulfill his dream. When he applied for a pass and a ticket for England, they arrived in the name of “VJ Patel” at Vithalbhai’s home. The elder brother, who bore the same initials, expressed his concern of going to England first and without any hesitation, Sardar Patel allowed and also financed his brother’s stay and began saving again for his own goals.

After his wife’s death in 1909, he journeyed to England and enrolled at the Middle Temple Inn in London. Finishing a 36-month course in 30 months, Sardar Patel topped his class despite having no previous college background. Returning to India, he settled in Ahmedabad and became one of the city’s most successful barristers.

THE SHIFT OF CHOICE

Sardar earned as much as 8000-10000 rupees a month and planned to expand his practice and accumulate great wealth to provide his children with modern education. He dressed like the English and sometimes even ridiculed politics, non-cooperation movements and sacrifices for the country.

So was the nature of Sardar Patel until he met Mahatma Gandhi at a political conference in Godhra. Being impressed by Gandhiji’s victory over the British in Champaran, he started adopting his views. The relationship between Gandhiji and Sardar Patel was concretely defined when Gandhiji was elected the President of the Gujarat Sabha and Sardar the Secretary, in 1917. Sardar undertook the leadership of the Satyagraha of 1918 when rains destroyed the crops in Gujarat. The farmers in Kaira District were particularly in distress. The Government demanded the payment of the revenue taxes to the last pie. The farmers turned to Gandhiji as their refuge and Sardar assumed the responsibility of the entire struggle. He gave up his western clothes, and began to dress like the poor and humble peasants.

The farmers revered and admired the barrister so much that one word from the Sardar and they were ready to lay down their lives. The Government had to give up.

FOR THE PEOPLE, OF THE PEOPLE, BY SARDAR

1920 – Sardar Patel gave up his practice as a barrister and joined the non-cooperation movement of the Government. He founded the Gujarat Vidyapeeth to educate the children to grow up to be patriots.

Sardar Patel was elected Ahmedabad’s municipal president in 1922, 1924 and 1927. During his terms, Ahmedabad was extended a major supply of electricity and it underwent major education reforms. Drainage and sanitation systems were extended all over the city. He participated in the Nagpur flag Satyagraha from May to August in 1923 to protest against the stopping of a procession, which carried the national flag.

In 1928, Sardar Patel once again came to the rescue of the farmers, this time it was in Bardoli, in Surat. The Government increased the tax on the land. He urged the farmers not to pay, declaring the hike unjust. He prepared the farmers for Satyagraha. In retaliation, the Government confiscated their land, cattle and crops and arrested hundreds of farmers. The non-violent war lasted for about 6 months. Sardar was an active part of the Dandi March and the Quit-India Movement.

HE UNITED INDIA

Sardar Patel handled the integration of all the princely states into the Indian Union with great expertise. Under the Cabinet Mission, all the princely states had the right to join Pakistan, India or remain independent. The Sardar declared, “We are all knit together by bonds of blood and feelings. Therefore, it is better for us to make laws sitting together as friends.” Sardar Patel dealt with Hyderabad and Junagadh firmly when these states tried to join Pakistan or remain independent.

Sardar Patel formed the Indian Administrative Service, Indian Police Service and other Central Services to assist the process of nation building. The ‘Iron Man of India’ died in Bombay in December 1950. He left behind a unified India.

Sardar Patel reminds of India’s and Indians’ potential. Knowing him is not enough; we need to follow him!

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The Grand Old man of Gujarat

Abbas Tyabji with Gandhiji

A very unique example of voluntary riches to rags – Abbas Tyabji was a nationalist and an Indian freedom fighter from Gujarat.

Born in Baroda before the Indian Revolt of 1857, Tyabji was a Sulaimani Bohra Muslim and the grandson of the Merchant Prince Mullah Tyab Ali Bhai Mian. He was an England-educated barrister, brought up in an atmosphere covered with loyalty to the Empire. He lived in England for eleven years and then moved on to the princely state of Baroda to become the Chief Justice of the (Baroda) Gujarat High Court.

During those days, Tyabji was seen as a model of Britishness, leading a Western lifestyle and wearing impeccably tailored English suits. Though a nationalist at heart, he would not stand adverse criticism of the British as people, or of the Raj. His moderate but simmering nationalism and his absolute integrity and fairness as a judge were widely recognized and lauded.

Tyabji’s life changed when he chaired an independent fact finding committee of the Congress to look into the 1919 Jallianwala Bagh massacre. He decided to leave behind all the comforts when he was in his late 60s – a time when people usually take a backseat. He dumped his ‘British lifestyle’ and plunged himself whole heartedly into the freedom struggle. His first hand experience of the British atrocities committed by General Reginald Dyer turned him to become an ardent follower of Gandhiji.

Tyabji’s changed lifestyle included burning his English clothes and adopting Khadi as his clothing. He travelled around the country in third class railway carriages, stayed in simple dharamshalas and ashrams, slept on the ground and walked miles to preach non-violent disobedience against the British Indian government. He continued this new lifestyle well past the age of seventy, including several years in British jails.

Abbas Tyabji was also a key ally of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel during the 1918 Kheda Satyagraha, and the 1928 Bardoli Satyagraha. In the hot summer of 1928, when Tyabji was nearing 80, he went around Gujarat’s villages in a bullock cart popularizing “the livery of freedom”. After these, in early 1930, the Indian National Congress declared Purna Swaraj or independence from the British Raj. As a first act of civil disobedience, Gandhiji launched the well-known Salt Satyagraha. Tyabji was then chosen as the immediate successor in case of Gandhiji’s arrest. On May 4, 1930, after the Salt March to Dandi, Gandhiji was arrested and Tyabji was placed in charge of the next phase of the Salt Satyagraha. On May 7, 1930, Tyabji led the Dharasana Satyagraha with Gandhiji’s wife, Kasturba by his side. This was a raid on the Dharasana Salt Works in Gujarat. On May 12, before reaching Dharasana, Tyabji and 58 Satyagrahis were arrested by the British. After Tyabji, Sarojini Naidu was appointed the leader of the Satyagraha.

Tyabji’s was a household name in the 1930s. One popular slogan then went like this: “Khara rupaiya chandi ka/ Raj Tayab-Gandhi ka”. Tyabji had an affectionate relationship with Gandhiji and they exchanged an unending stream of letters. The ‘ever-smiling’ Tyabji kept poor health in the later years. Advised to spend more time in the hills, he moved to a cottage, ‘Southwood’, in Mussoorie, where he died in the night of June 9-10, 1936. After his death, Gandhiji wrote an article in the Harijan newspaper titled “G. O. M. of Gujarat” (Grand Old Man of Gujarat), including the following praise for Tyabji: “At his age and for one who had never known hardships of life it was no joke to suffer imprisonments. But his faith conquered every obstacle. He was a rare servant of humanity. He was a servant of India because he was a servant of humanity. He believed in God as Daridranarayana. He believed that God was to be found in the humblest cottages and among the depressed of the earth. Abbas Mian is not dead, though his body rests in the grave. His life is an inspiration for us all.”

With the polarization between the communities growing at a fast rate in our country, the common heritage of the legacy of people like Abbas Tyabji seems to have no place in our memories.

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