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Patel would not have recognized Modi as ideological heir
• Rajmohan Gandhi •
NEW DELHI : Amid a slugfest between BJP's Narendra Modi and Congress over Sardar Patel, a noted biographer of Patel has said the country's first home minister would not have recognized Modi as his ideological heir and been very "pained" with his behaviour towards Muslims.
Rajmohan Gandhi, the grandson of Mahatma Gandhi who has written a biography of the country's first home minister, said Patel certainly would not have felt at the time of 2002 riots in Gujarat that Modi fulfilled his 'rajdharma', a phrase used by the then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee to chide Modi.
"I think it is quite obvious that he (Patel) would have been very disappointed, very pained and saddened not only as an Indian statesman but also as coming from Gujarat, that this should not have happened in Gujarat and the government of the time was not able to prevent it," he said.
Talking to Karan Thapar in CNN-IBN's Devil's Advocate, Gandhi said that claims by BJP supporters or Modi himself to project him as Patel's heir misunderstands and misrepresents Patel.
"If Modi can grow into that kind of image that would be wonderful, but by two reasons he has fallen short. After all Patel grew as a disciple under the umbrella of Gandhi and the Indian National Congress. Modi had his career under the umbrella of RSS and that makes a difference.
"Also Patel as an individual was always a team builder, other people were prominent in his daily life. Whether Modi is like that… I would like him to be like that," he said.
Gandhi, however, accepted the criticism that Congress has forgotten Patel or relegated him to the background in the 63 years since his death.
He noted that Nehru was succeeded by Indira Gandhi, Sanjay Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi, Sonia Gandhi and now Rahul Gandhi while none of Patel's children inherited or benefited from his power.
Patel was proud to be a Congressman and accepted that Mahatma Gandhi's decision to make Nehru Prime Minister was correct, Gandhi said, adding the Mahatma chose Nehru over Patel because he was older by 14 years and in poor health.
Nehru was also better known internationally, he said.
The 'Iron man', a popular term used for Patel, had appreciated the work of RSS during riots in 1947 but after Gandhi's assassination, his attitude changed and he was thereafter an implacable opponent if not an enemy of the Hindutva organisation, he said.
Modi and Congress leaders have engaged in a war of words over Patel with the BJP's PM candidate claiming that the country's destiny would have been different had he been the first PM instead of Nehru.
Congress has hit back at him, saying he was trying to hijack Patel's legacy as BJP lacked any icon.
(courtesy : PTI | Nov 4, 2013, 12.34 PM IST, “Times of India”)
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I feel your absence greatly: Nehru to Sardar Patel
• Akshaya Mukul •
History, as French historian and codirector of legendary journal Annales Marc Ferro says, exercises a double function both therapeutic and militant. BJP's prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi, in keeping with his branding as a strong Hindutva icon, seems to prefer the latter. The distortion he is capable of was evident in Patna; mixing the Mauryan and Gupta dynasties and bringing Alexander to Bihar.
For the past few days Modi — who is even called Chhota Sardar by some party members — has been harping on Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, independent India's first home minister. As is Modi's wont he has appropriated Patel without much homework. With its colossal ignorance about Patel, Congress is not helping the debate either. But it would do both Modi and Congress good to go through 10-volumes of Sardar Patel's correspondence of five years — 1945-50 — the tumultuous period in Indian history when the Patel-Jawaharlal Nehru rift was at its peak.
It is a fact that Patel and Nehru were cut from different cloth and they had huge differences. The two were slated to meet Gandhi to sort things out but then Nathuram Godse did not let that happen. After Gandhi's killing, not only did the two resolve their differences to a large extent but spoke in unison on many issues. The mammoth collection of Patel's letters of five years would be a huge disappointment to Modi when he reads what the first home minister had to say about Hindu Mahasabha, RSS and Shyama Prasad Mookerjee, a BJP icon. Patel's views on socialist Jayaprakash Narayan whom Modi talked of so fondly the other day in Patna would definitely not please Modi. And if key NDA ally Akali Dal gets to know that Patel called Master Tara Singh, the tallest Sikh leader, "not normal" there could be problems. It would also help Modi to dust off Hindu Mahasabha history and read what its ex-president NB Khare, once a leading light of the Congress in the Central Province, whose ouster was blamed on Patel, had to say about the iron man.
The flashpoint
But first let's talk about the Patel-Nehru rift that reached a flashpoint in December 1947, when Nehru sent his principal private secretary HVR Iyengar to give a report on communal riots in Ajmer-Merwara region of what is now Rajasthan without keeping Patel, the home minister, informed. A 'shocked' Patel wrote to Nehru and protested. On his part, Nehru (December 23 1947) explained to Patel that the idea was not to undercut him but to get a first-hand report since he could not make it to the area. Nehru wrote, "It seems our approaches are different, however much we may respect each other…If I am to continue as PM I cannot have my freedom restricted and I must have a certain liberty of direction. Otherwise, it is better for me to retire." Sardar wrote back, "I have no desire to restrain your liberty of direction in any manner…but when it is clear to us that on the fundamental question of our respective spheres of responsibility, authority and action, there is such a vital difference of opinions between us, it would not be in the interest of the cause which we both wish to serve to continue to pull on longer."
After Gandhi's assassination
Before the matter could be resolved Godse killed Gandhi. Patel, hurt by allegations that he could not protect the Mahatma, offered to resign only to have Nehru reject it. "… In my last letter I had expressed the hope that, in spite of certain differences of opinion and temperament, we should continue to pull together as we had done for so long. This was, I am glad to find, Bapu's final opinion also…Anyway, in the crisis that we have to face now after Bapu's death, I think it is my duty and, if I may venture to say, yours also, for us to face it together as friends and colleagues." Nehru also told Patel that the talk of a rift between the two had become 'whispers and rumours' and even reached foreign ambassadors and correspondents. 'Mischief-makers take advantage of this," Nehru wrote.
And when Shyama Prasad Mookerjee pleaded for the Hindu Mahasabha leaders Asutosh Lahiri and Mahant Digvijay Nath, arrested for their alleged role in Gandhi's murder, Patel shot back that what was being considered was if both should be prosecuted or not and refused to set them free. Patel was also angry with the Hindu Mahasabha for collecting funds for the defence of Godse. When Mookerjee gave a circuitous reply, Patel told him, "If the official organization of the Hindu Mahasabha is being utilized for this purpose there can be only one inference, namely that the HM is in it."
In May 1948, when Nehru told Patel that the RSS cadre was back in action despite the ban, Patel told him he had banned 'drill of military or semi-military type, in addition to the ban on the organization which already exists'. Patel pointed out that courts in UP and Bombay were releasing RSS cadre and any attempt to exercise more power was seen as acting against civil liberty. When Mookerjee suggested a meeting of Hindu organizations, Patel told him how he believed the 'extreme section of HM' was behind Gandhi's murder. He accused the RSS of posing a threat to the government and indulging in 'subversive activities'. In 1945 during the Central Legislative Assembly election it was Patel who told Nehru that "the Congress cannot think of any settlement with the HM."
Friends again
By April 1948, the differences between the two had resolved to the extent that a tired Nehru wrote to out-of-town Patel: "I feel your absence greatly. There are so many serious problems cropping up continually about which I would like to consult you." In September 1948, when intense lobbying began for Congress presidentship, both Nehru and Patel decided not to give any public or private support to any of the candidates. At the height of Patel's effort to integrate Hyderabad state to India, what irked him was Jayaprakash Narayan's speech in Hyderabad blaming the government. The fact that Nehru was praising JP those days was not helping matters either. He told Nehru, "I feel that such irresponsible utterances and embarrassing attitude on his part hardly justify any faith in him. I have all along been of the view that if the future of India is in the hands of men like JP it would probably be the most unfortunate circumstance." In fact, Patel saw it as a socialist conspiracy to drive a wedge between him and Nehru.
As for Master Tara Singh, who was arrested after demanding that Punjabi language and Gurumukhi script be made compulsory, Patel suggested to Nehru that he should not be released until, like MS Golwalkar, he gave a written undertaking.
In another letter Patel sent Nehru, he included a copy of Tara Singh's interview with his son in jail and told the PM that it (interview) showed "he is not normal". On December 1950, when an ailing Patel headed for Mumbai for treatment, one of the persons to see him off at the airport was PM Nehru. He died three days later.
TNN | Nov 3, 2013, 07.18 AM IST
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Truth vs Hype: Sardar Patel – A contested legacy
Written by Sreenivasan Jain (with inputs from Niha Masih)
The legacy of Sardar Patel being contested by the BJP and the Congress is far more complex than either would like to believe.
If Patel owes his political baptism to anyone, it is to Gandhi.
Their paths crossed shortly after Patel – who broke away from his family's rustic roots in Central Gujarat to study law in England – eventually returning to a thriving practice in Ahmedabad.
Patel would spend less time in his practice, and more at the Sabarmati Ashram, from where under Gandhi's guidance he would organise a series of Satyagraha's against the prohibitive taxation of farmers.
The director of the Ashram, Tridip Suhrud says Sardar came into his own mobilising satyagrahas in Kheda, in Central Gujarat and Bardoli, near Surat.
Three years after the Bardoli satygarha, he became one of the Congress party's key organisers.
So how could someone steeped in Gandhian thought, and a Congress organisation man, come to be claimed by the Hindu?
That narrative is posited on the idea that Patel was not as squeamish about his Hindu identity, than say, Nehru.
This, say his admirers in the BJP, is borne out by his plain speaking to Muslims who stayed back in India.
In January 1948, he remonstrates a group of Muslims in Calcutta, saying, "The Muslims who are still in India, many of them helped in the creation of Pakistan. Fine, if they did but then how come in one night, their hearts changed? I do not understand that. They say why their loyalty is being questioned. That is not something for us to answer. We just say that alright you created Pakistan, good for you, we will not interfere. If things go bad then do not call us. Then they say Pakistan and India should become one, I plead them to not say that. That will be a loss for us, let them stay there. Let them create Pakistan."
In the same month, in the aftermath of Pakistan's invasion of Kashmir using Afghan tribesmen, he remonstrated a gathering of Muslims in Lucknow, saying, "I want to tell you frankly that mere declarations of loyalty to the Indian Union will not help you in this critical juncture. I ask you why you do not unequivocally denounce Pak for attacking Indian territory with the connivance of Frontier tribesmen. Those who want to go to Pak can go there and live in peace."
But his mentor appeared to have an insight into where these words were coming from. In a January 1948 letter, Gandhi wrote to Patel saying, "Many Muslim friends had complained to me of the Sardar's so-called anti-Muslim attitude. I was able to assure the critics that they were wrong in isolating him from Nehru and me, whom they gratuitously raise to the sky. The Sardar had a bluntness of speech which sometimes unintentionally hurt, though his heart was expansive enough to accommodate all."
Patel's biographer Rajmohan Gandhi says that Patel should be judged by his actions, not words. In his actions, there was little to fault Patel, who as Home Minister would often personally travel to communal flashpoints to ensure Muslims are not attacked.
Like in September 1947, as reports emerged of threats to those taking shelter in the Dargah of Nizamuddin Auliya in south Delhi, Patel's private secretary Shankar records Patel's response. "The Sardar wrapped his shawl round his neck and said 'Let us go to the saint before we incur his displeasure'. We arrived there unobtrusively. Sardar spent a good 45 minutes in the precincts, went round the holy shrine in an attitude of veneration, made enquiries here and there of the inmates, and told the police officer of the area, on pain of dismissal that he would hold him responsible if anything untoward happened."
Later in the same month as reports came that Sikhs in Amritsar intended to attack Muslim convoys on their way to Pakistan.
He travelled to Amritsar and famously made this appeal: "Here in this very same city, the blood of Hindus, Sikhs and Muslims mingled in the bloodbath of Jallianwalla Bagh. I am grieved to think that things have come to such a pass that no Muslim can go about in Amritsar and no Hindu or Sikh can even think about living in Lahore."
Perhaps the greatest awkwardness for the attempts by the Hindu right to champion the Sardar is his active role as Home Minister in the banning of the RSS in the aftermath of Gandhi's assassination. The February 4, 1948 communique issued by the Home Ministry said, "Undesirable and even dangerous activities have been carried on by members of the Sangh. In pursuance of this policy the Government of India have decided to declare unlawful the RSS."
The RSS had attempted to suggest that Patel admired the RSS, and was bulldozed into the ban by Nehru. The facts as always are more nuanced.
Patel disagreed with Nehru about the RSS's role in Gandhi's assassination, writing in February 1948, "It was a fanatical wing of the Hindu Mahasabha directly under Savarkar that hatched the conspiracy and saw it through."
But the Sardar made it clear in a letter to RSS chief Guru Golwalkar, dated 11 September 1948, that the Sangh created the climate that led to Gandhi's killing. He said "organizing the Hindus and helping them is one thing but going in for revenge for its sufferings on innocent and helpless men, women and children is quite another thing. All their speeches were full of communal poison. As a final result of the poison, the country had to suffer the sacrifice of the invaluable life of Gandhiji. Opposition turned more severe, when the RSS men expressed joy and distributed sweets after Gandhiji's death."
There is little to suggest then, that Patel was some sort of closet Hindutvavaadi. But equally, if the Hindu right does have a greater claim on him, it's entirely because of the gradual abandoning of the Sardar by his parent party. The BJP points out that it took the Congress 40 years to bestow a Bharat Ratna on Patel, and he has been neglected in the politics of memorialisation.
It is hard to imagine what the Sardar would make of these political skirmishes over his legacy, which do little justice to his complexity and his stature
(courtesy : NDTV : Updated: November 03, 2013 00:40
