Sardar Patel's achievements have been hugely exaggerated; his grave failures totally overlooked

by Guest Fri Dec 06, 2013 5:24 pm

Patel’s achievements have been hugely exaggerated; his grave failures totally overlooked. Historical illiterates who call him India’s Bismarck know little about either. The integration of Indian States into the Union of India was accomplished in two phases; their accession to the Union and their reorganisation and merger as Part B States, only to vanish into a proper uniformity with the other States. Patel’s two White Papers on Indian States (1948 and 1950) record his skilful endeavours in the second phase. The Secretary in his Ministry of States, the brilliant V.P. Menon’s book The Story of Integration of the Indian States records both the processes (Orient Longmans, 1956). His predecessor as Reforms Commissioner and confidant, H.V. Hodson, in his book The Great Divide (Hutchinson, 1969) meticulously records the first based on official records, including Mountbatten’s papers.

Clearly, it is the first phase, the accession and the unification of India, which was crucial. Once in the harem, the princes, demoralised already, needed little coaxing to merge their States. By August 15, 1947, the rulers of all the States—bar Junagadh, Kashmir and Hyderabad—had signed the Instrument of Accession to India (Menon; pages 115-6). Who brought that about? Both the writers describe the process. Menon describes in detail Mountbatten’s efforts from July 28 onwards. He kept Patel informed of them, who, on his part, also did his bit. But it was Mountbatten’s skills and Menon’s legal resourcefulness which truly accomplished the result. The pro-Jinnah Chancellor of the Chamber of Princes, the Nawab of Bhopal, caused a patriotic revolt and, ironically, made India’s task easier.

Odd ideas on States
Quite apart from his integrity, Hodson’s record is too graphic to be dismissed. He went to Bangalore to meet his friend Menon and tape-recorded his testimony. It was Menon’s idea to press into service the draft Instrument of Accession, prepared a decade earlier, as the Government of India Act, 1935, was being enforced. Its federal part proved a non-starter. But Patel had odd ideas. “The Sardar told him [Mountbatten] that he need not bother about the States because after the transfer of power the States peoples would rise, depose their rulers and throw in their lot with the Congress. The Viceroy reminded him that the States had forces, trained and equipped by the British, ranging from a division in Hyderabad to personal bodyguards in small States, which would shoot down the rebels, and that the Princes were preparing themselves, on the advise of the Political Department, against any uprising. A civil war would result, and India would lose far more than she would gain from a peaceful settlement. Sardar Patel asked what he meant. The Viceroy replied that the peaceful settlement he had in mind was to allow the Rulers to retain their titles, extra-territorial rights and personal property or civil List, and in return they would join a Dominion—most of them India, a few, like Bahawalpur, Pakistan—only the three subjects of defence, external affairs and communications being reserved to the Central Government. Patel said he would think it over.

“When he next came to see the Viceroy, having meanwhile talked with V.P. Menon—and here the two accounts converge—Sardar Patel said, ‘I am prepared to accept your offer provided that you give me a full basket of apples.’ ‘What do you mean?’ asked Lord Mountbatten. ‘I’ll buy a basket with 565 apples’—the computed number of States—‘but if there are even two or three apples missing the deal is off.’ ‘This,’ said the Viceroy, ‘I cannot completely accept, but I will do my best. If I give you a basket with, say, 560 apples will you buy it?’ ‘Well, I might,’ replied Patel” (Hodson; pages 367-8 ). Thus Patel had outsourced the task of procuring the accessions—the apples in the basket—to Mountbatten and Menon. It is to these men the credit for the unification of India goes. As for Bismarck, one has only to read Jonathan Steinberg’s classic Bismarck: A Life (Oxford University Press, 2011) to realise what he went through to unite Germany and his statesmanship in international politics. It also demonstrates that history need not degenerate into hagiography (See also Henry Kissinger, “The White Revolutionary: Reflections on Bismarck”; Daedalus, summer, 1968; pages 888-924. A priceless volume with essays on Gandhi by Erik H. Erikson, on de Gaulle, Ataturk and others.

http://www.frontline.in/cover-story/patels-communalisma-documented-record/article5389270.ece

by Guest Fri Dec 06, 2013 5:26 pm

Gandhi's assassination

If this “achievement” is magnified, Patel’s grave lapse in the failure to nip in time Savarkar’s conspiracy to murder Gandhi has been completely overlooked. Jayaprakash Narayan was among those who censured him. JP said on February 27, 1948, that he wanted “a man who was free from communalism to be in charge of the Home Department” (Bombay Chronicle, February 28, 1948).

Madanlal Pahwa exploded a bomb at Gandhi’s prayer meeting on January 20, 1948. He had visited Savarkar a week before. On January 30, 1948, Gandhi was assassinated. The conspiracy could and should have been unravelled in those 10 days and Gandhi’s life saved. It was not. He died a martyr’s death. At the very outset, Madanlal confessed to the police that he was “one of a group of killers” not a crazy loner; also that he had “personally met” Savarkar. In seven hours the police “knew they were faced with a plot. They knew how many people were involved…. They had information which, with a little patient effort, would allow them to identify Nathuram Godse” (Larry Collins and Dominique Lapierre; Freedom at Midnight, 1976; page 412: They were given access to the police files). They expose the crass negligence of the senior police officials in Delhi (“a puzzling lack of zeal”) and Morarji Desai’s refusal to arrest Savarkar. Patel himself could well have ordered that since Madanlal had mentioned his name on day one. Madanlal made a full 54-page confession, which he signed at 9-30 p.m. on January 24 (ibid, page 418). There was yet time to save a precious life. In contrast, for no reason at all, Nehru and Sheikh Abdullah are accused of neglect for Syama Prasad Mookerjee’s death by heart failure in Srinagar on June 23, 1953.

Justice J.L. Kapur, a former Judge of the Supreme Court, found in his ‘Report of the Commission of Inquiry into the Conspiracy to Murder Mahatma Gandhi’ that the investigation into the conspiracy to murder was at no point conducted “with that earnestness or that alacrity which an attempt on the life of Mahatma Gandhi required or deserved. As far as the Commission has been able to see, there was routine interrogation of Madanlal, which went on from 20th to 24th and even then the disclosure was not of any very great one” (Report, Volume 5, para 23.253). The Delhi Police “made no use” of other information either (para 23.256). The Judge concluded: “The officials of the Delhi Administration and the Secretary of the Ministry of Home Affairs were evidently ignorant of the conspiracy to murder. It was the duty of the police to have given them proper information. That is not to say that the officers themselves did not show any indifference because one would have expected that when a thing like a bomb is exploded at a meeting of Mahatma Gandhi, the whole Administration would become alert and become anxious to find out what exactly had happened and not leave it to the sweet-will of the police officials to give them that information. The anxiety of the officialdom in New Delhi to take any intelligent interest in the investigation of the bomb case is not indicated by any tangible evidence” (para 23.259).

Nor is there any evidence of such interest by the Minister in charge, the Home Minister Vallabhbhai Patel. The paragraph directly raises the issue of ministerial responsibility. It is of two kinds—constructive (for the gross neglect of officials) and actual, for personal neglect. In this case, both are attracted. Patel told Nehru on February 27, 1948, “I have kept myself in daily touch with the progress of the investigation regarding Bapu’s assassination case” (Durga Das (Ed.) Sardar Patel’s Correspondence (SPC); Navajivan Publishing House; Volume 6, page 56). Similar industry, expended assiduously, before the murder by this accomplished criminal lawyer would have saved the life of a man whom he loved all his life. He owed a duty to do so personally, given the importance of the person who was targeted. Patel was responsible for contributing to the foul atmosphere by wooing the RSS in January 1948, a lapse which JP noted (see box).

http://www.frontline.in/cover-story/patels-communalisma-documented-record/article5389270.ece

Sardar Patel's achievements have been hugely exaggerated; his grave failures totally overlooked

Sardar Patel's achievements have been hugely exaggerated; his grave failures totally overlooked

Re: Sardar Patel's achievements have been hugely exaggerated; his grave failures totally overlooked