But wasn’t Nehru the true ‘unifier’?
Iget eight newspapers every day and my morning is spent reading them. No looking at newspapers online, for me. I use the internet mainly for research. I love the smell and feel of newsprint and hate getting rid of papers and magazines. As a result, my flat is filled with them, a veritable news mart. I am a print junkie and get considerable pleasure sitting on my balcony, looking at the coconut trees and birds outside, newspaper in hand.
On October 31, all eight of my daily papers had one item in common: A full-page ad of a gigantic statue of Vallabhbhai Patel — reputedly the world’s highest statue, at 182 metres, dwarfing the 93-metre US Statue of Liberty — with a smiling Prime Minister Narendra Modi next to it. Most of the papers carried the ad on their front page, relegating the day’s headlines and news to an inside page. I only get English-language newspapers, but I am sure the other Indian-language news publications have also carried the same ad. Several crores of rupees must have been spent by the Indian government on this advertising blitz, not to mention the Rs3,000 crore the statue itself cost. In addition, three of the papers I get, had edit-page articles by Modi on Patel, saying much the same thing. In all my half-century or so of Indian journalism, I cannot recall any event or individual getting so much publicity.
Who exactly was Vallabhbhai Patel, popularly called Sardar (chief) Patel, and nicknamed “Iron Man of India” and “India’s Bismarck”?
India’s struggle for independence from British rule threw up several remarkable personalities. Gandhi, of course, then Jawaharlal Nehru, India’s first Prime Minister, after that Patel, his deputy Prime Minister as well as Home Minister, Bengal’s Subhash Chandra Bose, an inspiration for many Indians but who died during the second world war, and BR Ambedkar, the iconic Dalit leader who was also one of the main framers of the Indian Constitution. Gandhi’s pre-eminence among them is not seriously disputed, even by the Bharatiya Janata Party
Patel was distrusted by the Muslims, whereas Nehru was popular among all classes and communities. He was a true secularist
(BJP), though there is a certain awkwardness in the party about his assassination, for the simple reason that what one would now call extreme Hindutva elements were part of the conspiracy hatched to kill the Mahatma.
As for the Nehru versus Patel debate, Gandhi made it abundantly clear that he regarded Nehru as his political successor, though Patel was a fellow Gujarati (as is Modi). Patel may have been disappointed but he never showed it. On the contrary, he openly acknowledged that Nehru was a much more popular and charismatic figure than he was. Nehru also had an international reputation and stature that Patel lacked.
Nevertheless, like Bismarck who united Germany, Patel was mainly responsible for bringing the 550-odd princely states into the Indian union. That was his great achievement and I believe that is how his main contribution to Indian history will be recognised. When the ruler of Junagadh and the Nizam of Hyderabad had other ideas, he took firm action, sending the army to those states. He was a practical, no-nonsense man. He was also suspicious — and rightly so — of China, whereas Nehru’s policy of Hindi Chini bhai
bhai (Indians and the Chinese are brothers) could have been the green signal for Beijing’s invasion and take-over of Tibet. China might have had second thoughts had New Delhi taken a less accommodating and more muscular stand.
There are indications that Patel was unhappy with Nehru’s economic policies, whereby the public sector was made dominant and private industry relegated. Had Patel lived longer (he died two years after India got independence), he might have been able to persuade Nehru to move India more towards laissez faire liberalism. Be that as it may, the Patel statue that has come up, and the hoop-la surrounding it, is not really about the man himself or his achievements. It is all about politics. A general election is due some time next year and Modi is desperate to use whatever ploy he can get hold of to help his party to come to power once again. It is now widely agreed that demonetisation was a disaster, leading to a massive loss of jobs, and the GST, though perhaps necessary, has been badly implemented. In four years of BJP rule, there have been no major economic breakthroughs.
There is also some irony in the title given by Modi to the Patel edifice, ‘Statue of Unity’ and Modi’s characterisation of Patel as a “unifier” of India. The truth of the matter is that the real unifier was Nehru, not Patel. Patel was distrusted by the Muslims, whereas Nehru was popular among all classes and communities. He was a true secularist. Though he made some major mistakes, in my book at least, the greatest Indian of those times, after Gandhi, was Nehru, not Patel.