Thirteenth in the series, this volume covers the period from January 1948 to December 1948. Sardar Patel had no regrets for accepting the partition as "my experience of the Government had convinced me that if we went on like the way we were carrying on, we would lose everything that we held precious". Sardar Patel blamed "Churchill for the partition of the country and attendant disasters. For the reconstruction of India, Sardar Patel felt that a strong Central Government and a formidable army was essential. As Minister Incharge of state, Sardar Patel took up the uphill task of consolidating about 562 princely states and their accession to the Indian Union. Sardar was unhappy that Jawaharlal Nehru, the Prime Minister did not allow him to tackle the Kashmir problem and dealt with it directly unlike other states. Sardar patel used to say, "I would have tackled it as Hyderabad." He was against referring the Kashmir issue to UNO by Pandit Nehru as he was of the opinion that the United Nations Security Council did not solve any problem, be it palestine or Indonesia. Sardar Patel quoted Gandhiji, the apostle of non-violence, who too had also come round the view that it was essential to save Kashmir at any cost. Gandhiji observed that "when I hear the noise of these aeroplanes, I feel so proud." Gandhiji was of the view, according to Sardar Patel, that he would like to defend with non-violence, if possible but he would not like to see India degrading itself to be feeling helpless and used violence, if necessary. It will be an eye opener to the readers that even Gandhiji was not against making an atom bomb. "If the world was not going to disarm itself India would not do it," he observed.
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