Sardar Vallabhbhai Pate: India’s Iron Man

This biography of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel is a comprehensive and vivid narration of his unique contribution to Mahatma Gandhi’s struggle for India’s freedom (1920-47). Without his support, Mahatma Gandhi admitted, his satyagrahas wouldn’t have had the same success. It was he who built the party machine through imposition of strict discipline and by giving it a mass base, and as party boss supervised and directed the functioning of the Congress ministries post-1937 provincial elections. Patel’s post-1945 role concerned India’s freedom, and also marked the end of his being Gandhi’s blind flower. Disillusioned with his own party in the failure of the Cabinet mission parleys, he negotiated directly with Cripps and helped he Congress form the Interim government. He wanted to keep Jinnah out in the cold and suffer in his isolation. The book discusses his failure, rather that of the party, with Wavell’s manoeuvring in getting the Muslim League into the Cabinet as an equal with the congress. With that Jinnah conducted his fight from within. Realising that united India had become an impossibility and the country faced chaos and total disintegration, Patel rose above all considerations to save and consolidate what would be left of India after Partition. This he achieved through administrative unity by forming he IAS on an all-India basis, and the country’s unity through the integration of the Princely States. This book returns to the earlier two decades to show the unity of Patel’s thinking and actions.  The history of the Gandhian era cannot be complete and properly understood unless Patel is read and appreciated for what he did and achieved for India. This book is an attempt to fill that gap.