 Vallabhbhai
Jhaverbhai Patel, one of the six children of Jhaverbhai
Patel and Ladbai, was born at Nadiad in Gujarat.
There is no record of his date of birth. The generally
accepted date, 31 October 1875, of which the source
is his Matriculation Certificate, was chosen by
Vallabhbhai himself while filling in a form. The
family was an agriculturist one, of the Lewa Patidar
Community and could in terms of economic status
be described as lower middle-class. It was poor
and had no tradition of education.
Vallabhbhai’s childhood was spent away from
books, in the ancestral fields at Karamsad. He
was already in his late teens when he passed out
from the Middle School at Karamsad and went to
the High School at Nadiad from where he matriculated
in 1897.
Even as a young boy Vallabhbhai displayed qualities
of organization and leadership that marked him
out for his future role. Once as a sixth-form
boy he organized a successful strike of his classmates
that lasted for three days to teach a lesson to
one of the teachers who was unduly fond of the
rod. Vallabhbhai must have inherited these attributes
from his father who, it is said, had fought in
the Mutiny under the Rani of Jhansi and was subsequently
taken prisoner by Malharrao Holkar.
Vallabhbhai was a mature young man of twenty-two
when he matriculated. Owing to the impecunious
circumstances of the family, higher education
was not within his reach. The next best thing
was to take a course in law and set up as a country
lawyer. This he did and established a small practice
at Godhra. But an attack of plague, which he contracted
while nursing a friend, made him leave town and
after spending some time in Nadiad, he moved on
to Borsad in 1902, a town in the Kheda district
where at that time the largest number of criminal
cases in Gujarat were recorded. Vallabhbhai became
quite popular here as a defence lawyer.
Vallabhbhai now wanted to go to England and qualify
as a Barrister. From his practice at Borsad he
had earned enough for his expenses there but owing
to certain circumstances he was not able to make
the trip at once. His brother Vithalbhai desired
that he should complete education in England first
and not Vallabhbhai. Vallabhbhai readily acquiesced
in this.
His wife, Zaverbai, died early in 1909 after an
operation for some abdominal malady. When news
of the bereavement reached Vallabhbhai, he was
cross- examining a witness in a murder case at
Anand. With an impregnable composure for which
he became known later, he did not show his grief
but went on with the cross-examination in hand.
He finally sailed for England in 1910 and joined
the Middle Temple. Here he worked so hard and
conscientiously that he topped in Roman Law, securing
a prize, and was called to the Bar at the end
of two years instead of the usual period of three
year.
On his return to India in 1913, he set up practice
in Ahmedabad and made a great success of it. He
had ready wit, a fund of common sense and a deep
sympathy for those who were the objects of the
British officials’ wrath and were caught
in the clutches of the law, which was not then
uncommon in the Kheda district. He came to enjoy
a position in public life that surpassed his eminence
as a Barrister. He accepted Mahatma Gandhi’s
leadership, having been tremendously impressed
by the fearless lead that Mahatma Gandhi gave
to right public wrongs.
In 1917 he was elected for the first time as a
Municipal Councillor in Ahmedabad. From 1924 to
1928 he was Chairman of the Municipal Committee.
The years of his association with the Municipal
administration were marked by much meaningful
work for the improvement of civic life. Work was
done to improve water supply, sanitation and town
planning and the Municipality came to be transformed
from being a mere adjunct to the British rule
into a popular body with a will of its own.
There were also calamities like plague in 1917
and famine in 1918, and on both occasions Vallabhbhai
did important work to relieve distress. In 1917
he was elected Secretary of the Gujarat Sabha,
a political body which was of great assistance
to Gandhiji in his campaigns. The association
with Mahatma Gandhi became closer during the Kheda
Satyagraha in 1918, which was launched to secure
exemption from payment of the land revenue assessment
since the crops had failed.
It look three months of intense campaigning that
was marked by arrests, seizures of goods and chattels
and livestock and much official brutality before
relief was secured from an unwilling Government.
Gandhiji said that if it were not for Vallabhbhai’s
assistance “this campaign would not have
been carried through so successfully.”
The five years from 1917 to 1922 were years of
popular agitation in India. The end of the war
was followed by the Rowlatt Act and still further
curtailment of individual freedoms. And then followed
the Khilafat movement with massacres and terror
in the Punjab. Gandhiji and the Congress decided
on non-cooperation. Vallabhbhai left his practice
for good and gave himself up wholly to political
and constructive work, touring in villages, addressing
meetings, organizing picketing of foreign cloth
shops and liquor shops.
Then came the Bardoli Satyagraha. The occasion
for the Satyagraha was the Government’s decision
to increase the assessment of land revenue from
Bardoli taluka by 22 per cent and in some villages
by as much as 50 to 60 percent. Having failed
to secure redress by other means, the agriculturists
of the taluka decided, at a Conference on 12 February
1928, to withhold payment of land revenue under
the leadership of Vallabhbhai Patel.
The struggle was grim and bitter. There were seizures
of property and livestock to such an extent that
for days on end, people kept themselves and their
buffaloes locked in. Arrests followed and then
brutalities of the police and the hired Pathans.
The struggle drew the attention of the whole country
to it. Patels and Talatis resigned their jobs.
Government revenues remained unrealized. The Government
had ultimately to bow before popular resolve and
an inquiry was instituted to find out to |
what extent the increase
was justified and the realization of the increased
revenue was postponed.
It was a triumph not only of the 80,000 peasants
of Bardoli but more particularly of Vallabhbhai
personally who was given the title of ‘Sardar’
by the nation.
About this time the political situation in the
country was approaching a crisis. The Congress
had accepted its goal of Purna Swaraj for the
country, while the British Government through
their policy of pitting one interest against another
and through constitutional tricks were trying
to stifle the voice of freedom and doing everything
they could to perpetuate their rule. The boycott
of the Simon Commission was followed by the launching
of the famous Salt Satyagraha by Gandhiji.
Vallabhbhai Patel, though he had not committed
any breach of the Salt Law, was the first of the
national leaders to be arrested. He was in fact
arrested on 7 March 1930-some days before Gandhiji
set out on the march to Dandi. He was released
in June. By then Gandhiji, Jawaharlal Nehru and
other leaders were in jail and tempo of the struggle
in the country was rising. In a few months Vallabhbhai
was back in prison.
In March 1931 Vallabhbhai presided over the 46th
session of the Indian National Congress which
was called upon to ratify the Gandhi-Irwin Pact,
which had just then been concluded. The task was
not an easy one, for Bhagat Singh and a few others
had been executed on the very day the Congress
session opened and delegates, particularly the
younger sections, were in an angry mood, while
Jawaharlal Nehru and Subhas Bose were not happy
with the terms of the Pact. But the Congress finally
put its seal on the Pact with one voice.
Civil Disobedience was suspended, political prisoners
were released and the Congress agreed to participate
in the Round Table Conference. The Round Table
Conference failed. Gandhiji as also the other
top leaders were arrested and a policy of repression
followed. Vallabhbhai Patel was lodged with Gandhiji
in Yeravada Jail and they were together there
for sixteen months from January 1932 to May 1933.
Vallabhbhai then spent another year in the Nasik
Jail.
When the Government of India Act 1935 came, the
Congress, though generally critical of the Act,
decided to try out those of its constitutional
provisions that seemed to grant to India a measure
of self-government and to take part in the elections
for Provincial legislatures that were envisaged
under it. In seven of the eleven Provinces Congress
majorities were returned and Congress Ministries
were formed. Vallbhbhai Patel, as Chairman of
the Congress Parliamentary Sub-Committee, guided
and controlled the activities of these Ministries.
Not for very long, however, for on 3 September
1939 when Britain declared war on Germany, the
Viceroy without consulting either the Central
of the provincial Legislatures, proclaimed India
as having entered the war as an ally of Britain.
The Congress could not accept this position and
the Congress Ministries resigned. Gandhiji launched
Individual Civil Disobedience opposing India’s
participation in the war, and the Congress leaders
began to court arrest.
Vallbhbhai Patel was arrested on 17 November 1940.He
was released on 20 August 1941 on grounds of health.
Then the All India Congress Committee passed the
famous Quit India resolution in Bombay on 8 August
1942, and Vallabhbhai, along with the other members
of the Working Committee, was arrested on 9 August
1942 and detained in the Ahmednagar Fort while
Gandhiji, Kasturba and Mahadev Desai were detained
in the Aga Khan’s Palace. The Sardar was
in jail for about three years this time.
When, at the end of the war, the Congress leaders
were freed and the British Government decided
to find a peaceful constitutional solution to
the problem of India’s Independence, Vallabhbhai
Patel was one of the chief negotiators of the
Congress. When India attained Independence he
became the Deputy Prime Minister and was responsible
for the Home, States and the Information and Broadcasting
portfolios. It was in this capacity that he was
called upon to tackle the most intricate and baffling
problem of the States’ integration into the
Union of India.
And it is here that his tact his powers of persuasion
and his statesmanship came into full play. He
handled the question as only he could have handled
it, managing, in less than a year’s time,
to reduce the Princely States from 562 to 26 administrative
units and bringing democracy to nearly 80 million
people of India, comprising almost 27 per cent
of the country’s population. The integration
of the States could certainly be termed as the
crowning achievement of Vallabhbhai Patel’s
life. But for him, this may not have been achieved
easily and quickly.
As Minister of Home Affairs, he presided over
efforts to bring back order and peace to a country
ravaged by communal strife unprecedented in its
history. He accomplished this task with the ruthless
efficiency of a great administrator. He sorted
out the problems of partition, restored law and
order and dealt with the rehabilitation of thousands
of refugees with great courage and foresight.
He reorganised our Services which had become depleted
with the departure of the British and formed a
new Indian Administrative Service, to provide
a stable administrative base to our new democracy.
While Gandhiji gave to the Congress a programme
for a broad-based action, it was Vallabhbhai who
built up the Party machine to carry out that programme.
No one before Vallabhbhai had given adequate thought
to the need to have an effective organisation,
but Vallabhbhai realised this need during his
campaigns and devoted his organisational talents
and energy to the building up of the strength
of the Party which could be geared to fight in
an organised and effective manner. His grip over
the Party organisation was complete.
Vallabhbhai Patel was thus one of the chief architects
and guardians of India’s freedom and his
contribution towards consolidation the freedom
of the country remains unrivalled.
He died on 15 December 1950, leaving behind a
son, Dahyabhai Patel, and a daughter, Maniben
Patel.
|