Man of Iron
The original ‘loh purush’
Vallabhbhai Patel’s finest hour came when he put himself to the task of securing the accession into the Indian Union of over 550 scattered principalities. It was a combination of tact, persuasion and force that made this impossible feat possible with the able help of V.P. Menon, assigned to him by Lord Mountbatten. When the Nizam of Hyderabad presented a serious obstacle, instigating violence and seeking external intervention, Patel turned to the army’s help which resolved the issue swiftly. Kashmir, on the other hand, after acceding to India, became a battleground of Pakistan’s marauders whom Nehru hesitated to drive away completely using force, choosing instead to raise the matter with the United Nations where the matter remains unresolved.
It is futile to judge history in hindsight. But it is worth recalling that Patel had an uncanny prescience about people. Never a romantic, he did not pen profound philosophical thoughts but expressed bluntly what he feared. One such fear was with regard to China, whose takeover of Tibet he could never condone since he saw it as the beginning of more disastrous aggression to come. Patel never lived to see the Indian debacle at the hands of China in 1962, but he clearly prophesied it in his letter to Jawaharlal Nehru dated November 7, 1950. He felt that Chinese action in Tibet was “perfidy” and India had failed to get Tibet out of the “meshes of Chinese malevolence”. The absorption of Tibet into China had left the entire north and northeast of India vulnerable. “Chinese irredentism and communist imperialism” were far more dangerous than western imperialism in that it concealed, in the guise of ideological expansion, racial, national and historical claims. He concluded “the danger from the north and northeast therefore becomes both communist and imperialist”. In his assessment of Sardar Patel, Lord Mountbatten extolled the superb understanding of political affairs that the Sardar had. At the end he remained a paradox—“a man of iron will, clear vision and ruthless determination, who was at heart, gentle and sentimental.” When Lord Mountbatten took final leave of the Sardar in June 1948, he was to reflect, neither of them remained dry eyed. (The author has written several books, the latest of which is Margot: Sister Nivedita of Vivekananda)