Indian Nation IMMERSED into ZIONIST DYNASTY! Tribute to an odyssey of toil! Sardar SURRENDERED our NATIONALITIES, FREEDOM and SOVEREIGNITY!
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Partition Time REVISITED! Jinnah - India, Partition, Independence!
Results include your SearchWiki notes for Palash Biswas on Partition. Share these notes .... Time trip - the 1947 partition of India and Pakistan - Brief . ...
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Contact: Palash C Biswas, C/O Mrs Arati Roy, Gosto Kanan, Sodepur, ..... [edit] Political career in Pakistan Following the partition of India on August 15, ...
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Contact: Palash C Biswas, C/O Mrs Arati Roy, Gosto Kanan, Sodepur, Kolkata- 700110, India. ... since the August 1947 partition of the subcontinent into India and Pakistan. ..... During the partition of India after independence in 1947, ...
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1 Feb 2007 ... He Never Deviated in Writing Palash Biswas (Contact: Palash Biswas, ... both India and Pakistan, suffering for years the agony of Partition, ...
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Palash Biswas. Pl Visit: http://nandigramunited-banga.blogspot.com/ ..... Pakistan founder led to his expulsion from the party Wednesday: .... "The cruel truth is that this partitioning of India has actually resulted in achieving the ...
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Palash Biswas, India This is niether Pakistan nor China, we are talking about. ... Mind you, since partition the Government of India has no policy line ...
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Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Raised in the countryside of Gujarat and largely self-educated, Vallabhbhai Patel was employed in successful practice as a lawyer when he was first inspired ...
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This was the first victory of satyagraha for Vallabhbhai. He was jubilant. Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel Vallabhbhai took to spinning the charkha, ...
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Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel was known in India as the 'Man of Steel'. [ Up ] [ Next ]. Sardar Patel- India's Man of Steel. A Great Freedom Fighter and Leader ...
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Brisbane TimesDinsha Patel for banning Jaswant's book on Jinnah nationwide - 3 hours ago Patel claimed the book tarnishes the image of Jawaharlal Nehru, Sardar ... the image of the country&aposs first Home Minister Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel. ...Indopia - 344 related articles »Remarks against Patel led to Jaswant ouster: BJP - Press Trust of India - 1106 related articles »sardar vallabhbhai patel,sardar vallabhbhai patel the 'man of ...
Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel was born in Gujarat on 31st of October 1875 into a ... In 1942 Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel was again sent to jail because of the start ...
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One of the stalwarts of India's freedom movement, Sardar Vallabh Bhai Patel also known as Lokmanya Tilak was born in Ratnagiri, Maharashtra on July 23, ...
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Here is a brief biography and history of Sardar Vallabhai Patel. Read information on life of Indian freedom fighter Sardar Vallabh Bhai Patel. ...
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More timeline results »1875 ... Encyclopedia Ii - Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel - Early Life Vallabhbhai Jhaverbhai Patel was born on October 31, 1875, in Anand (Charotar ...
www.experiencefestival.com1947 Having established faith and obtained some assurances through dialogue with Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel.
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 | “Fear” of the North West following Mountbatten killing - 1 day ago The IRA later claimed responsibility for the bomb blast on Lord Mountbatten's boat, which claimed the Earl's life, that of his grandson and Fermanagh ... Ocean fm - 2 related articles »Calls for tribute to Navy hero - Shields Gazette |
Timeline results for Lord Mountbatten
| 1947 | Due to Lord Mountbatten's decision to grant independence at short notice, everything had to be done in utter haste and this led to chaos. mangalorean.com |
| 1979 | Lord Mountbatten's murder in August 1979, while holidaying as usual in his summer home in Sligo in the Republic of Ireland, was carried out by the ... www.politicalroundtable.net |
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Lord Mountbatten Quotes
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Lord Mountbatten
Even that crazy lunatic, my aunt the Empress, wa absolutely sweet and charming.
Lord Mountbatten
Here I am in my first command - a bit dazed but feeling very grand.
Lord Mountbatten
I am much more intelligent than you think.
Lord Mountbatten
I believe firmly that it was the Almighty's goodness, to check my consummate vanity.
Lord Mountbatten
I have been driven demented in my career.
Lord Mountbatten
I liked Truman very much. He was precise and businesslike. After a while, it was his turn.
Lord Mountbatten
I suppose you can say I became an odd-job man.
Lord Mountbatten
I was born with an ability to concentrate very hard on a job for a long time.
Lord Mountbatten
I was so keen to get back to sea. I was rattled.
Lord Mountbatten
In 1966 I became president of the British Computer Society.
Lord Mountbatten
It is a curious thing, but I have been right in everything I have done and said in my life.
Lord Mountbatten
It never entered my father's mind nor my mind ever to do a job othe than at one's best ability.
Lord Mountbatten
Men o' war were to be a part of the fabric of my life for the next half-century.
Lord Mountbatten
My father was afraid of his father, I was afraid of my father, and I don't see why my children shouldn't be afraid of me.
Lord Mountbatten
My mother said, Don't worry abot what people think now. Think about whether your children and grandchildren will think you've done well.
Lord Mountbatten
My trophy value exceeded my military usefulness.
Lord Mountbatten
Never feel that a piece of criticism or advice is too much trouble to give, or that it exceeds your province.
Lord Mountbatten
No one person invented Mulberry. The knowledge that we had to have this floating harbor slowly grew.
Lord Mountbatten
Prince Charles is an absolute Mountbatten. The real intelligence in the royal family comes through my parents to Prince Philip and the children.
Lord Mountbatten
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RGSMSR celebrates the birth anniversary of Rajiv GandhiTimes of India - Aug 20, 2009 ALLAHABAD: Rajiv Gandhi School for Management Studies and Research, (RGSMSR) Allahabad, celebrated the the 65th birth anniversary of former prime minister ... Rajiv Gandhi remembered Express Buzz Vineet Jain wins Rajiv Gandhi Award Economic Times Mangalore: PA College of Engineering Celebrates Rajiv Gandhi ...Daijiworld.com - 12 hours ago Mangalore, Aug 21: On the occasion of the birth anniversary of the former Prime Minister of the country, the late Rajiv Gandhi, the department of mechanical ... Rajiv Gandhi Akshay Urja Diwas celebrated Press Information Bureau (press release) Delhi govt encouraging construction of green buildings Press Trust of India GOVT has many projects named after Rajiv GandhiWorld News - 15 hours ago New Delhi: On the day of Rajiv Gandhi's 65th birth anniversary on 20th August 09, various projects were unveiled by govt. of India in the memory of the late ... Panchayats to monitor NREGA functioning Economic Times Effective implementation of NREGA a 'challenge': Govt Business Standard Rahul Gandhi to be guest of honour at workshop on NREGA Press Trust of India Congmen bask in `D' company on Rajiv's birth anniversaryTimes of India - - 20 hours ago Rajiv Gandhi's birthday on Thursday, therefore, provided them with the perfect opportunity to wear their Dalit `prem' on their sleeves. ... Rahul's self-help groups fan out over 10 districts Expressindia.com Rahul's expanding footprint in UPTimes of India - - Aug 19, 2009 ... set up 350 SHGs in Babina block in Jhansi and Taalwet block in Lalitpur," said K S Yadav, project manager of the Rajiv Gandhi Mahila Vikas Pariyojna. ... Maya govt stalling development in Amethi, Rae Bareli: Rahul Expressindia.com Cong hums two land tunes Calcutta Telegraph Minister to Rahul: Will report to youTimes of India - 21 hours ago The RD ministry organised a national workshop on NREGA to commemorate Rajiv Gandhi's birth anniversary and had Rahul as chief guest, flanked by junior ... Minister points out problems with NREGS, Rahul stays mum Indian Express Cong claims vote share hike in UP bypolls Press Trust of India Rajiv Gandhi remembered on birth annvrKanglaOnline - 14 hours ago IMPHAL, Aug 20: Rajiv Gandhi Study Circle (RGSC), Manipur Unit observed the `Right to Education Day` on the 65 birth anniversary of former Prime Minister of ... Rights to Education Day observed E-Pao.net White tiger dies at Rajiv Gandhi zoological parkTimes of India - Aug 18, 2009 PUNE: A 20-year-old white male tiger Super' died at the Rajiv Gandhi zoological park, Katraj, early on Tuesday morning. Super, who was born on May 6, 1989, ... First white tiger to undergo dental surgery dies Press Trust of India First white tiger to undergo dental surgery dies Chennai Online JKPCC remembers Rajiv GandhiPress Trust of India - Aug 20, 2009 Jammu, Aug 20 (PTI) Rich tributes were paid to former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi on his 65th birth anniversary here by the Jammu and Kashmir Pradesh ... Soz pays tributes to Rajiv Gandhi Rising Kashmir Tara announces Rs 4.19 crore Housing Colony for Lepers TwoCircles.net J&K Govt to set up housing colony for leper families Press Trust of India Pawar should consider merging NCP with Congress: DigvijayHindustan Times - Aug 20, 2009 Singh was speaking to reporters after paying homage to late Rajiv Gandhi on his 65th birth anniversary at the Cooperage grounds in South Mumbai. ... |
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Timeline results for partition of india and pakistan
| 1947 | Dr Manmohan Singh's father moved his family from Gah some years before Partition when India and Pakistan gained independence from Britain in 1947. www.tribuneindia.com |
| 1947 | The partition of India and Pakistan in August 1947 led to massive population movements, coupled with violence and slaughter. Over seven million ... www.bbc.co.uk |
Book results for partition of india and pakistan
| partition of indian subcontinent | margaret bourke white partition | mountbatten partition india | nehru partition india |
| partition of punjab | partition of bengal | partition of kashmir | indo pak partition |
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India Partition not the result of jihadVentura County Star - - 10 hours ago In fact, Pakistan's jihadi politics has nothing to do with India Partition. Partition was the result of British imperialist rulers' “divide ... That Jinnah djinnHindustan Times - 1 hour ago Like many families in North India, dining table conversation in my house frequently veers around to the subject of Partition. My grandfather — a prominent ... Indian book scratches old woundsThe Age - - 5 hours ago Jaswant Singh, a leader of the Bharatiya Janata Party, has been expelled after writing Jinnah: India, Partition, Independence, which praises Pakistan's ...  In The Dock Of IdeologyTehelka - 2 hours ago And when the process of “othering” is as vicious as it is in the case of India and Pakistan, they quite often are not even about selective facts but plain ...  From the editor-in-chiefIndia Today - - 12 hours ago It is true to say that anyone who remembers being witness to the Partition of India carries it inside them forever. It would seem that Independent India ... Jaswant — from Hanuman to RawanPakistan Observer - - 16 hours ago When asked on Partition of India in 1947, Jaswant Singh said that if Congress could have accepted a decentralized federal country then, in that event, ... Pakistani media praises Jaswant's BookMyNews.in - - 10 hours ago New Delhi : In India he has been betrayed the party ideology by writing a book on Mohammad Ali Jinnah- the founder of Pakistan by praising him in his new ... Jaswant Singh Gets Support from Pakistan Over Jinnah RemarksKhaleej Times - 49 minutes ago The corollary: peace with India is not possible. The paper, however, compared the attitudes to historical truths in Pakistan and India. ... Read Cover StoryIndia Today - - 12 hours ago The provocateur this time is Jaswant Singh, who in his book Jinnah: India-Partition-Independence not only challenges the conventional wisdom on the division ...  In Search Of An Anti-NehruTehelka - - 2 hours ago Advani was convinced that an India-Pakistan rapprochement was essential for resolving Hindu-Muslim tensions in India and for making the BJP more acceptable ... Jaswant's Self-Inflicted ExpulsionAsian Tribune - - 14 hours ago Another Jaswant conclusion that angered the BJP and Sangh Parivar is that Muslims are made to feel aliens in India after partition. ... Some Thoughts On JinnahThe Daily Star - 2 hours ago In the RSS's version of the Independence narrative - the one point it is in complete agreement with the Congress - Jinnah's villainous role as Partition ... Fuelled by controversy, Jaswant book becomes hot propertyTimes of India - - 20 hours ago His hefty 674-page book, Jinnah: India-Partition-Independence, seems to be selling faster than facemasks across India. Bookstore owners say sales have ...  The Art Of Firing BlanksTehelka - - 2 hours ago In January this year, when news of the imminent publication of Jaswant's Jinnah: India-Partition-Independence broke, an alarmed party leadership pressed the ... Jaswant's book should be banned all over India: BJPTimes of India - 11 hours ago He said BJP was a responsible political party and no leader from it could be given permission to praise someone who was responsible for the Partition. Publisher of Jaswant's book says Guj govt's ban boosting salesDaily News & Analysis - 4 hours ago Now, the Gujarat government has done a good job for us," RK Mehra, chairman of Rupa and Co, the publishers of the book, 'Jinnah: India, partition, ... Stuck in a time warp, RSS is pulling BJP backwardsIndian Express - 8 hours ago For most of today's generation a discussion on partition is an academic exercise which cannot really arouse strong passions. ...  I covered up for Advani on Kandahar hijack: Jaswant SinghSINDH TODAY - 3 hours ago ... from the party for his controversial book “Jinnah: India, Partition, Independence” in which he has praised Pakistan founder Mohammed Ali Jinnah. ... Jaswant's rejoinder: Sardar Patel banned RSS, why is he core to BJP?Indian Express - 15 hours ago Who wanted partition? Who had lust to become first prime Minister and Home Minister of independent India and architect of Pakistan. ... Expelled Jaswant's book banned in GujaratMerinews - 12 hours ago It seems all hell has broken on Jaswant Singh just by writing a book titled "Jinnah-India Partition, Independence"- although tide concerning his expulsion ... Book on Nehru would have gone unnoticed in Pak: PML-NLittle About - 12 hours ago Singh was expelled from the BJP on Wednesday for writing a book-Jinnah-India, Partition, Independence- which, according to the party, was against the basic ... Jaswant attacked BJP on his expulsion decisionAssociated Press of Pakistan - 14 hours ago Jaswant Singh said Congress leadership was responsible for partition of India. Standing up for Advani against the treatment meted out to him after his visit ... Action against Jaswant Singh justified: Kalraj MishraBusiness Standard - 10 hours ago Talking to newspersons here, Mishra said Singh has eulogised Mohammad Ali Jinnah in his book "Jinnah-India, Partition, Independence" which is against the ...  BJP ejects leader over Pakistan founder praiseSydney Morning Herald - - 5 hours ago The partition that separated Pakistan from India in 1947 remains a controversial issue in the region. Mr Singh's glowing assessment of Mr Jinnah, ... Tragic End to Vajpayee's 'Hanuman' and Rajnath's 'Ravan' - End of ...NewsBlaze - - 17 hours ago His expressions like "Every Muslim in India is a loyal Indian", "look into the eyes of Muslims and feel the pain", "Muslims paid the price for partition", ... Whither the BJP?Wall Street Journal - 22 hours ago ... kicked out Mr. Singh over a history volume he just published offering a favorable view of Mohammad Ali Jinnah, Pakistan's first post-Partition leader. ...  Newsmakers: Lonely Jaswant, Delhi-bound Murthy and moreMSN India - 7 hours ago By arguing that the founder of Pakistan has been unfairly demonised for partitioning the country, Singh not only went against the BJP's views, which has now ... The BJP has lost its mindDaily News & Analysis - 1 hour ago What Jaswant has done is to raise questions about Jinnah's role and ask what led this man to partition India. It is a question others have asked and will ... He challenged party ideology,Express Buzz - 7 hours ago On the other hand, Singh said India demonised Jinnah and that Muslims in India feel like they are aliens. He also blamed Sardar Patel for Partition. ... I covered up for Advani on Kandahar: JaswantMorungExpress - 3 hours ago “I am not in violation of any party beliefs,” he said, adding he had written about Jinnah's constant changing of positions that contributed to Partition. ... |
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LUCKNOW, 20 AUG: The news is full of possibilities of internal strife within the Bharatiya Janata Party. But within the ranks of another national political party, one of the most secretive in the country, dissent may be stirring. Founder general secretary of the Bahujan Samaj Party Mr Manohar Aate is campaigning all over the country to “get rid of Miss Mayawati and save the Ambedkar Mission”.
Within a fortnight, Mr Aate and more than fifty senior leaders, who believe in the Ambedkar Mission, will congregate in New Delhi to chalk out a plan that “will restore the derailed Ambedkar Mission and get rid of Miss Mayawati”. They include top Backward (SC/ST & OBC) and Minority Community Employees Federation (Bamcef) functionaries, and even BSP MPs and MLAs, Mr Aate claimed.
Followers of the movement, Mr Aate claims, are those who truly believe in its tenets; many of them are current members of the BSP. “I cannot reveal their names to you, of course. Otherwise, Miss Mayawati will get rid of them,” Mr Aate said.
Former Andhra Pradesh state BSP president Mr KF Meenaiya, former West Bengal state BSP president Mr PK Roy, and former Bamcef functionary Mr Raj Bahadur Singh are among many other senior leaders who believe in the Ambedkar Mission and will campaign to restore its tenets. The BSP draws its cadres from the Bamcef.
Mr Aate wrote an appeal on 16 June and has been propagating it among people interested in the Ambedkar Mission throughout the country ever since. He was in West Bengal for a two-day meet on 14-15 August.
In the appeal (a copy of which is with The Statesman), Mr Aate says: “How do we save the Bamcef-BSP Mission from greedy, corrupt people? The corrupt and criminals are now in-charge of this mission. Miss Mayawati is their leader. Their sole aim is to climb swiftly in their political careers, and make lots of black money… This is a complete betrayal of Dalit voters…” Mr Aate said: “We have nothing personal against Miss Mayawati. But she is not following the Ambedkar Mission. She knows nothing of her land, Dalits’ problems, the current drought situation, or water scarcity in UP.”
The meeting began on Wednesday in the sylvan setting of this hill station but against the backdrop of a controversial book by former External Affairs Minister Jaswant Singh praising Mohammed Ali Jinnah and the advice of the party's ideological fountainhead Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) to usher in a generational change in the leadership.
The first on the "chintan bhaitak" or introspection meet's agenda was the expulsion of Jaswant Singh, who has held key portfolios of external affairs, defence and finance in BJP-led governments and spent three decades in the party since its inception, for his book Jinnah - India, Partition, Independence"
But the meet glossed over discussions on a change of guard at the top, with BJP president Rajnath Singh saying octogenarian leader LK Advani would continue to play a major role in the party. "Yes, he will remain the leader of the party," he told reporters in Shimla.
Briefing reporters at the end of the meet, Rajnath Singh said: "We will come out with a future action plan, you can call it the road ahead, on the basis of suggestions during the chintan baithak. The larger goal would be the social and geographical expansion of the party," he added.
The plan would be presented at the national executive meeting expected to be held in September or October for its approval, he said.
The BJP chief said it was unanimously felt that to expand the party's social base, it needed better participation of youth, women, weaker sections, the poor, farmers, the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes in the party and in the states it ruled.
"The participation of the youth in both organisational and legislative activities is also essential. The party units at all levels will have to pay extra attention to identify, encourage and promote the youth."
Asked about RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat's advice ahead of the meet about the need for younger leadership in the party, Rajnath Singh only said: "We have given due representation to the youth."
The BJP chief said the party was committed to its ideology of "cultural nationalism and integral humanism. It is both comprehensive and inclusive, where there is no scope for discrimination between individuals".
"We realised that this ideology needs to be articulated in a simple and easy way to the people," Rajnath Singh maintained.
The party tried to explain that though its performance in the elections was disappointing, the verdict had shown the "people wished a bi-polar polity" and the BJP was the other pole.
The BJP chief denied there was any internal document of the party analysing threadbare the poll outcome. He said: "No report, no draft was prepared in this regard. Only suggestions from various states were noted down by Ram Lal (the party's organising secretary). The parliamentary election reports from various states were discussed."
Indra Nooyi, CEO of PepsiCo, Congress party president Sonia Gandhi, Chanda Kochhar, CEO of ICICI Bank India and Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw Chairman, Biocon India are the only Indians in Forbes annual list of the 100 most powerful women. (See full List)
The list, which was released last night, includes fiery chief executives, brilliant politicians and beloved queens, but the model for all women who seek influence, is the cautious and uncharismatic German Chancellor, Angela Merkel.
Nooyi is listed as the third most powerful woman in the world, while Sonia Gandhi Kochhar and Shaw are ranked 13, 20 and 91 respectively. Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina Wajed is the only other South Asian in the list and is ranked 78.
Americans make up 63 of the 100, while only four women from Britain make the grade.
 BJP leader Jaswant Singh holds his book titled 'Jinnah: India, Partition, Independence' during its release. He was expelled by BJP on Wednesday. (PTI Photo) |
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Without naming anyone, an internal document of the BJP, prepared for its chintan baithak on the basis of inputs from state units, indirectly blames L K Advani, Narendra Modi and Arun Jaitley for the party Lok Sabha poll debacle. It points out that the “personal attack on Manmohan Singh did not go well with people” while “mid-campaign distractions like projection of Narendra Modi as PM, Varun Gandhi controversy” and “internal squabbles within the party took centrestage and pushed aside the main campaign issues”.
It cites “perceived lack of unity amongst leaders” and “no visible enthusiasm and involvement of cadres” among other causes for the BJP failure to wrest power from the UPA.
The “talking points” for the baithak, spread over nine pages, were compiled by the three-member Bal Apte committee — Chandan Mitra and P Muralidhar Rao are the other two members.
“The important role of M A Jinnah in the division of India, which led to a lot of dislocation and destabilisation of millions of people, is too well-known. We cannot wish away this painful part of our history,” BJP president Rajnath Singh said in remarks diametrically opposite to Jaswant’s glowing tribute to the founder of Pakistan.
The BJP chief also contradicted Jaswant’s assessment of Vallabhbhai Patel. In his book, the former foreign minister has argued that the refusal of Patel and Jawaharlal Nehru to leave any space for Jinnah forced the latter to harden his stand. Rajnath said, “Sardar Patel played a historic role in the unification and consolidation of India amidst serious threats to its unity and integrity. The entire country remains indebted and proud of the profound vision, courage and leadership of Sardar Patel.”
Significantly, however, BJP did not refute Jaswant’s criticism of Nehru. Senior BJP leader Murli Manohar Joshi said Jaswant’s portrayal of Jinnah was based on “wrong facts”. “Mr Jinnah might be an idol, an icon for Pakistanis, but he can never be an ideal or an icon for us Indians,” he said.
Jaswant denied he had accepted the BJP resolution setting out its position on the Muslim League leader. Asked about his role when the Advani controversy broke out, he said, "I never subscribed to the June 10, 2005, resolution of the party. Even then I had stood by Advani and against the treatment meted out to Lalji. I stood up for Advani's right to say what he did."
Asked whether he felt Advani had "failed to return the favour" and defend him at the meeting of the parliamentary board in Shimla, Jaswant told reporters, "My grandfather had told me never remember a favour you have done and never forget a favour done to you." The leader sounded somewhat downcast as perhaps the event began to sink in.
But Jaswant also attacked RSS, while replying to questions and retorted to BJP's allegation that he had gone against the core belief of the party. "I don't know which part of the core belief I have demolished. Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel was a tall Congress leader who banned the RSS. What is the belief which I have disturbed," he said. He added that the party had not clarified which of the eight references to Sardar Patel in his book it had objections to.
Jaswant Singh came out combative and unbending a day after he was sacked from the BJP, trashing his former party’s argument that he had violated its “core” ideology by criticising Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, reminding it that it was Patel who first banned the RSS in the aftermath of the Mahatma’s assassination.
Back in New Delhi from Shimla where the BJP is at its chintan baithak, Singh announced he would meet ailing patriarch Atal Bihari Vajpayee, and promised to make public the note he had circulated to senior party leaders in June, demanding that responsibility be fixed for the Lok Sabha election defeat.
“I don’t know which part of the core belief has been demolished. Patel, what is so core about him? Patel was the first one to ban the RSS and imprison RSS workers (in February 1948). But he did not ban the Muslim League,” Singh said.
Senior BJP leader Arun Jaitley had said in Shimla earlier in the day that “to denigrate Sardar Patel goes against the national consensus and the party’s core beliefs”.
The mood in BJP seems to be set against the leader with party members saying that the Jinnah episode had gone on far too long. They said the book and his remarks, along with a rash of dissidence, needed to be tackled firmly and a message was required.
Some did feel that he should have been first suspended and others also argued that sacking Jaswant over the phone was distasteful. Perhaps the leader could have been called to meet senior party leaders. But from the manner in which he was asked to go, there did not seem to be many sympathisers. It was also felt that if he pressed on with his martyr act, it might prove counter-productive.
Jaswant said he had written about Jinnah's intractability and constant changing of positions that contributed to Partition. "Certainly Congress leaders were responsible as were the British," he said. But his explanations seem to have come too late as the BJP's door are firmly shut.
On its part, BJP on Thursday fielded senior party leader Arun Jaitley in Shimla to justify the party's decision to sack Jaswant. Jaitley said the party would ordinarily have no objections to any intellectual exercise by a party functionary as long as it did not violate the core beliefs of the party.
"The issue is not your right to author a book but the issue is what you say and what you write. The basic issue that remains is content of the book. No political party can allow any member, a frontline leader, to express views that go against the core ideology of the party," he said.
Jaswant, however, failed to see enough reason in that argument and said, "I am not going to argue with a lawyer's contention."
In Shimla, Jaitley sought to make a distinction between Jaswant's views on Jinnah and what was said by Advani in 2005 during his visit to Pakistan. "There is a basic difference between what the two leaders have said. What Advani said was a tactical reference to Jinnah's speech in Pakistan's constituent assembly to tell the people of Pakistan what situation they have come to. But to say that Jinnah was demonised in India, that Indian Muslims feel like aliens and to denigrate Sardar Patel goes against the national consensus and party's core beliefs," Jaitley said.
Advani has claimed Patel banned RSS under Jawaharlal Nehru's pressure. (AP File Photo) |
Referring to Jaswant Singh's statement that Patel had banned RSS and how he was core to BJP's ideology, Advani said that it was at Nehru's behest that Patel banned RSS.
"One month later, Patel wrote a letter to Nehru saying that there is not an iota of evidence against RSS. Jaswant is saying only half of what had happened and not the other half," Advani was quoted as saying by BJP’s Sushma Swaraj. ( Watch Video )
Advani also said that Patel's task of unifying more 700 odd princely states was a "super human effort and a specatular achievement."
"It was not possible by an ordinary person. Jaswant Singh tried to denigrate Patel," he added.
Describing expulsion of Jaswant Singh as a "painful but necessary" decision, Advani said, "It is mentally painful to expel somebody who has been with you for the past 30 years but what he wrote was against the basic ideology of the party,"
He said this in his valedictory address at the concluding day of the three-day 'Chintan Baitak' in Shimla, Sushma Swaraj told mediapersons.
In his first comments on the party's decision taken on Monday, he told top BJP leaders attending the conclave that he felt that the expulsion of the Darjeeling MP as "painful but a necessary" action.
Commenting on coalition politics, Advani said "coalition politics is necessary to destroy Congress' hegemony".
According to Swaraj, Advani also suggested to the party to introspect on its downfall in the last few years.
He also said that Advani was aware of the decision to release the terrorists in exchange for freedom of over 160 hostages kept in the Indian Airlines plane that was hijacked.
"Yes, he did," Singh, who was expelled two days ago from the BJP, told NDTV when asked whether Advani knew that Singh was going to Kandahar with three terrorists.
There has been a controversy on the issue with Advani claiming a few years ago that he was not not in the know of Jaswant Singh going on a plane with three dreaded terrorists to Kandahar.
Singh was asked why he said during the election campaign that Advani did not not know that he was going to Kandahar with the terrorists and whether he covered up for Advani.
"I'm sorry I did," he said when pointedly told that this was a serious thing he was saying that he covered up for Advani.
Singh said he did not reveal this during the campaign. "I tried to cover it. I treated it as part of my continuing sense of commitment and loyalty," he said.
Will Jinnah controversy affect Rajnath as BJP chief?
A controversy over Mohammad Ali Jinnah four years ago had catapulted Rajnath Singh as BJP President, but it is unclear how the latest round of developments would affect him.
Rajnath Singh was the biggest beneficiary of the Jinnah controversy triggered in 2005 following a visit to Pakistan by L K Advani in which he had reportedly hailed the Pakistan founder.
Singh had taken over the reins of the organisation after Advani was forced by the RSS to quit as party chief on December 31, 2005.
Advani had put in his papers after the conclusion of the silver jubilee celebrations of the party in Mumbai on that day passing on the mantle to Rajnath.
The latest action against Jaswant Singh has come at a moment when time is running out for Rajnath as party chief as his term is ending by year-end.
The "chintan baithak" currently on at Shimla for deciding the road ahead for the organisation has, therefore, been overshadowed by the expulsion of Jaswant from the party, the decision about which was communicated to him over phone by Rajnath.
A file photo of Jaswant Singh during the release of his book on Jinnah. PTI Photo
Photograph (1)
- I covered up for Advani on Kandahar: Jaswant Singh
- STAFF WRITER 18:5 HRS IST
New Delhi, Aug 22 (PTI) Breaking his decade-long silence, former India External Affairs Minister Jaswant Singh Friday sought to embarrass leader of Opposition L K Advani by saying that he "covered" up for him when he said that the former Home Minister was not not aware that he was going to Kandahar with three terrorists during the 1999 hijack episode.
He also said Advani was aware of the decision to release of the terrorists in exchange for freedom of over 160 hostages kept in the Indian Airlines plane that was hijacked.
"Yes, he did," Singh, who was expelled two days ago from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), told NDTV when asked whether Advani knew that Singh was going to Kandahar with three terrorists.
Healthy people with swine flu should not be given Tamiflu, says WHO
Healthy people who catch swine flu but show only mild symptoms should not be given Tamiflu, the World Health Organisation (WHO) has said.
The advice contradicts British policy on the issue, which has seen hundreds of thousands of doses of the antiviral given to people with the virus.
Today's advice, published on the WHO website, said most patients were experiencing typical flu symptoms and would get better within a week.
It said Tamiflu (also called oseltamivir) and another antiviral Relenza (also called zanamivir) should not be given to healthy people who have only mild symptoms.
However, the drugs should be given quickly to patients in a serious condition or who appear to be deteriorating.
Those in at-risk groups - such as people with an underlying medical condition like diabetes - should also receive the drugs promptly.
The latest WHO advice, from a panel of international experts, comes as new figures show that 45,986 courses of antivirals were given to patients in England in the week ending August 18. In the previous week, 90,363 courses of antivirals were given out.
There have been fears that mass use of Tamiflu will encourage the virus to become resistant to the antiviral.
Researchers have also expressed concern over the side effects of the drug, including sickness, nightmares and insomnia in children.
A team from Oxford University said earlier this month children with mild symptoms should not be given the antiviral to combat swine flu and urged the Department of Health to urgently rethink its policy.
The warning comes after the Government's chief medical officer said yesterday it was "virtually impossible" to accurately predict when a second wave of swine flu will hit the UK.
Sir Liam Donaldson said the Government was expecting the number of cases to rise in the autumn but it was difficult to predict the timing with accuracy.
There are currently 263 patients being treated in hospital in England, of which 30 are in intensive care, down on the 371 (39 in intensive care) reported last week.
The number of deaths linked to the virus stands at 54, with almost half of those (25) having died in London.
A statement from the WHO said the new guidelines ''represent the consensus reached by an international panel of experts who reviewed all available studies on the safety and effectiveness of these drugs.
''Emphasis was placed on the use of oseltamivir and zanamivir to prevent severe illness and deaths, reduce the need for hospitalisation, and reduce the duration of hospital stays.
''Worldwide, most patients infected with the pandemic virus continue to experience typical influenza symptoms and fully recover within a week, even without any form of medical treatment.
''Healthy patients with uncomplicated illness need not be treated with antivirals.''
The guidance says serious cases should be treated immediately.
''Evidence reviewed by the panel indicates that oseltamivir, when properly prescribed, can significantly reduce the risk of pneumonia (a leading cause of death for both pandemic and seasonal influenza) and the need for hospitalisation.
''For patients who initially present with severe illness or whose condition begins to deteriorate, WHO recommends treatment with oseltamivir as soon as possible.
''Studies show that early treatment, preferably within 48 hours after symptom onset, is strongly associated with better clinical outcome.
''For patients with severe or deteriorating illness, treatment should be provided even if started later.
''Where oseltamivir is unavailable or cannot be used for any reason, zanamivir may be given.''
The guidance goes on to talk about at-risk groups, recommending they also receive the drugs.
''For patients with underlying medical conditions that increase the risk of more severe disease, WHO recommends treatment with either oseltamivir or zanamivir.
''These patients should also receive treatment as soon as possible after symptom onset, without waiting for the results of laboratory tests.
''As pregnant women are included among groups at increased risk, WHO recommends that pregnant women receive antiviral treatment as soon as possible after symptom onset.''
The document notes that an underlying medical condition does not always predict who will be most seriously affected by swine flu.
''Worldwide, around 40% of severe cases are now occurring in previously healthy children and adults, usually under the age of 50 years.
''Some of these patients experience a sudden and very rapid deterioration in their clinical condition, usually on day five or six following the onset of symptoms.
''Clinical deterioration is characterised by primary viral pneumonia, which destroys the lung tissue and does not respond to antibiotics, and the failure of multiple organs, including the heart, kidneys, and liver.
''These patients require management in intensive care units using therapies in addition to antivirals.
''Clinicians, patients and those providing home-based care need to be alert to warning signals that indicate progression to a more severe form of illness, and take urgent action, which should include treatment with oseltamivir.
''In cases of severe or deteriorating illness, clinicians may consider using higher doses of oseltamivir, and for a longer duration, than is normally prescribed.''
Looking at children, the WHO experts recommended ''prompt antiviral treatment for children with severe or deteriorating illness, and those at risk of more severe or complicated illness.''
They went on: ''This recommendation includes all children under the age of five years, as this age group is at increased risk of more severe illness.
''Otherwise healthy children, older than five years, need not be given antiviral treatment unless their illness persists or worsens.''
The WHO guidance says doctors, patients and carers "need to be alert to danger signs that can signal progression to more severe disease."
Watch on traumatised girl |
| OUR CORRESPONDENT |
Imphal, Aug. 20: Salam Bidyarani, the minor girl who was kept at a police station after her parents were found missing, was today admitted to the clinical psychology department of the Regional Institute of Medical Sciences (RIMS) for mental trauma. The 11-year-old’s relatives had brought her to the casualty department of RIMS last evening as she fainted frequently on reaching her home at Nongmaikhong under Mayang Imphal police station in Imphal West in the afternoon. The casualty department referred her to the clinical psychology department this morning for tests and treatment for mental trauma. “We have put the girl on observation. We will observe her for some time before carrying out a series of psychological tests to ascertain what caused her trauma. At this stage we cannot say anything about her mental condition,” M. Akshaykumar, the head of clinical psychology department, told The Telegraph. A psychologist attending on the girl said she could speak but could not complete a sentence. “She is in a state of shock. We are observing her constantly.” Akshaykumar said he would like to keep the girl in hospital for some days for the tests and treatment. Children’s rights activists in the state are up in arms against the picking up of and detention of a minor girl at a police station. They are likely to take legal action against the police. Senior superintendent of police L. Kailun, however, maintained that the police took the girl for medical treatment after she fainted when a police team arrived at her house looking for her parents. She was kept at the police station as no responsible family member came forward to claim her. A police team had come to her house on August 14 during the course of an operation launched in the area. Finding her father Salam Dewan and mother Memocha absent, they took her away and kept her at Mayang Imphal police station along with her grandmother. They left the police station on August 18 evening after local residents raised a hue and cry about the detention of a minor. The police picked up her parents yesterday morning on charges of helping cadres of the Peoples Liberation Army. They recovered a huge quantity of ammunition and gre-nades from near their house. A team of children’s rights activists visited the girl’s house yesterday. A team from the Childline also visited the hospital this morning. “We will hold a meeting with the Child Welfare Committee, Imphal West, and officials of the social welfare department to take a decision on what is to be done in the case,” Mala Lisam, the state co-ordinator of Childline, Imphal, said. Residents of Nongmaikhong, under the banner of joint action committee, took out a rally here today, demanding release of the girl’s parents. Police allowed a four-member delegation to meet local (Hiyanglam) MLA E. Dwijamani Singh. The delegation urged him to take up the matter with chief minister Okram Ibobi Singh for the release of her parents. A woman protester said the girl’s parents were innocent.
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Miss & hit: Rajiv stamp for scheme - Rural job plan offices named after ex-PM | ||||
| CITHARA PAUL | ||||
New Delhi, Aug. 20: The government couldn’t rename its flagship rural job scheme after Rajiv Gandhi, so it has settled for the second-best option. An assembly hall named Rajiv Gandhi Seva Kendra will be built in each of India’s 2.52 lakh panchayats for all official and semi-official work relating to the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS), indirectly stamping the programme with the former Prime Minister’s name. The rural development ministry made the announcement today coinciding with Rajiv’s 65th birth anniversary, handing the country its 176th welfare scheme named after a Nehru-Gandhi. “Every panchayat will have a Rajiv Gandhi Seva Kendra in three years’ time. It will play the role of a mini-secretariat where issues related to the development of the village will discussed,’’ rural development minister C.P. Joshi said. The Congress-led government had initially toyed with the idea of renaming the rural job scheme after Rajiv. But since the scheme had come into effect under an act of Parliament (the NREGA), it proved difficult to tinker with the name. So Joshi and his junior Pradip Jain Aditya — both said to be handpicked by Rahul Gandhi — thought of the seva kendra plan. “Although the NREGS was the brainchild of the previous UPA government, some in the Congress felt that others, including state governments (not run by the party) could hijack the scheme as their own. They believe that if a Gandhi stamp is stuck to it, the scheme would always remain the Congress’s,” a ministry official said. Each kendra will be a forum for discussion on the scheme, will keep records, and act as a single window to provide information on the scheme. All the kendras would be built as NREGS projects.
Further strengthening the link with Rajiv, the rural development ministry will carry out a review of the scheme on August 20 every year. It today organised a national workshop on the scheme on the occasion of Rajiv’s birth anniversary, with Rahul Gandhi as guest of honour. The ministry has struck a partnership with the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIAI), which will provide a Unique ID (UID) to all members of below-poverty-line (BPL) families that can be used for various purposes, including the opening of bank accounts. UIAI chief Nandan Nilekani said the UID would help eliminate “duplicate” job cards and authenticate workers’ presence at a job site. “It will also help the NREGS worker to have more mobility in the sense that he will be able to opt for NREGS work anywhere in the country,’’ Nilekani said. Ten new kinds of work will be brought under the scheme, now limited mainly to unskilled manual labour. Projects under the scheme may now be divided into two broad categories: social infrastructure and social services. Social infrastructure building will include the construction of roads, of houses and toilets for BPL families, of playgrounds, mini-stadiums and anganwadi schools. The social services category will include the cooking of midday meals at schools — and meals for children below three years at adjoining anganwadis — the running of crèches and the like. Since work under the social services category would not require “hard labour” and would be “more in the nature of part-time services”, it should be “reserved” for “old age persons with disability/destitution, preferably women, living alone without succour”, the ministry said. The Centre has taken several other decisions to improve the working of the scheme. One of them is to appoint permanent lok sevaks at every panchayat to safeguard the rights of NREGS workers, many of whom are illiterate. The lok sevaks will take up all the complaints and follow them up. http://www.telegraphindia.com/1090821/jsp/nation/story_11390405.jsp
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Tribute to an odyssey of toil - Indentured labour memorial plan awaits calcutta land | |
| JAYANTH JACOB | |
New Delhi, Aug. 20: The West Indies are India’s farthest diaspora, and the truth perhaps is that as a nation we are more connected to their cricket team than to the progeny from our shores. The Indian government is now trying to make symbolic amends to pay tribute to the ancestors of V.S. Naipaul and thousands of other nameless families from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar that braved long sea voyages and slavery to give themselves and their children a shot at a better life. It plans twin memorials — one in Calcutta, their port of embarkation, and another on Nelson Island, their port of disembarkation — to enshrine the historic, but mostly forgotten, odyssey of indentured labourers. When slavery was formally abolished across the British empire in 1834, cheap labour was required to work the colonial sugarcane plantations in the West Indies. Indians, chiefly lower caste families from impoverished parts of Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, were then shipped over — much like blacks before them from Africa — from the Calcutta and Madras ports. Nelson Island was the main entry point for over 147,000 labourers who arrived from eastern India to join what was virtually a slave force on the sugarcane plantations. The ministry of overseas Indian affairs has written to the Bengal government for acquiring land to erect a memorial near Calcutta port, from where thousands of indentured labourers, including Naipaul’s forefathers, left for Trinidad and Tobago. The ministry is also examining a slew of proposals, including those from Indian diaspora organisations, for a memorial on Nelson Island. “We are waiting for a response from the state government,” K. Mohandas, secretary of the ministry, told The Telegraph. “The ministry is in-principle agreement for setting up a memorial,” he added. Sources said there were still some issues in the way like the “high price of land” around the area where the memorial is sought to be built. “We learn that one plot which was identified had some problems as it was entangled in legal disputes. But we hope that some other plot can be made available,” a source said. Some diaspora groups have been sending proposals to the government for consideration and a final blueprint is expected to be firmed up soon. “We are going through various proposals and suggestions,” an official said. Fatel Razack, the ship that carried the indentured labourers, was owned by a merchant in Mumbai and was originally named Fath Al Razack, Victory of Allah the Provider. When the British decided they were going to bring Indians to Trinidad in 1845, most of the traditional British ship owners did not wish to be involved as it came after the ban on slavery. Indian Arrival Day, celebrated on May 30 in Trinidad and Tobago, commemorates the arrival of the first Indian indentured labourers from India to Trinidad in May 1845, on Fatel Razack. The ship left Calcutta in February 1845. But then the human cargo the Fatel Razack took to the West Indies was not merely a labour force. As history is witness, over time Indian communities became part of the cultural melting pot of the Caribbean, retaining their Indianness at the core but also merging into the cultural mosaic of those far islands. Although the event has been celebrated among the East Indian community in Trinidad and Tobago for many years, it was not until 1994 that it was made an official public holiday there. Soon, there will be a memorial to go to on that holiday, too. |
Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Vallabhbhai Jhaverbhai Patel | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Date of birth: | 31 October 1875(1875-10-31) |
| Place of birth: | Nadiad, Gujarat, India |
| Date of death: | 15 December 1950 (aged 75) |
| Place of death: | Mumbai, Maharashtra, India |
| Movement: | Indian Independence Movement |
| Major organizations: | Indian National Congress |
| Notable prizes: | Bharat Ratna (1991, posthumous) |
| Major monuments: | Sardar Patel National Memorial |
| Religion: | Hindu |
| Influences | Mahatma Gandhi |
Vallabhbhai Patel (Gujarati: વલ્લભભાઈ પટેલ, pronounced [ʋəlːəbʱːai pʌʈel] (
listen)) (31 October 1875 – 15 December 1950) was a political and social leader of India who played a major role in the country's struggle for independence and guided its integration into a united, independent nation. In India and across the world, he was often addressed as Sardar (Gujarati: સરદાર, [səɾdaɾ]), which means Chief in many languages of India.
Raised in the countryside of Gujarat and largely self-educated, Vallabhbhai Patel was employed in successful practice as a lawyer when he was first inspired by the work and philosophy of Mahatma Gandhi. Patel subsequently organised the peasants of Kheda, Borsad, and Bardoli in Gujarat in non-violent civil disobedience against oppressive policies imposed by the British Raj; in this role, he became one of the most influential leaders in Gujarat. He rose to the leadership of the Indian National Congress and was at the forefront of rebellions and political events, organising the party for elections in 1934 and 1937, and promoting the Quit India movement.
As the first Home Minister and Deputy Prime Minister of India, Patel organised relief for refugees in Punjab and Delhi, and led efforts to restore peace across the nation. Patel took charge of the task to forge a united India from the 565 semi-autonomous princely states and British-era colonial provinces. Using frank diplomacy backed with the option (and the use) of military action, Patel's leadership enabled the accession of almost every princely state. Hailed as the Iron Man of India, he is also remembered as the "Patron Saint" of India's civil servants for establishing modern all-India services. Patel was also one of the earliest proponents of property rights and free enterprise in India.
[edit] Early life
Vallabhbhai Jhaverbhai Patel was born at his maternal uncle's house in Nadiad, Gujarat. His actual date of birth was never officially recorded—Patel entered 31 October as his date of birth on his matriculation examination papers.[1] He was the fourth son of Jhaverbhai and his wife Ladba Patel. They lived in the village of Karamsad, in the Kheda district where Jhaverbhai owned a homestead. Somabhai, Narsibhai and Vithalbhai Patel (also a future political leader) were his elder brothers. He had a younger brother, Kashibhai and a sister, Dahiba. As a young boy, Patel helped his father in the fields and bimonthly kept a day-long fast, abstaining from food and water—a Hindu cultural observance that enabled him to develop physical toughness.[2] When he was eighteen years old, Patel's marriage was arranged with Jhaverba, a young girl of twelve or thirteen years from a nearby village. As per custom, the young bride would continue to reside with her parents until her husband started earning and could establish their household.
Patel travelled to attend schools in Nadiad, Petlad and Borsad, living self-sufficiently with other boys. He reputedly cultivated a stoic character—a popular anecdote recounts how he lanced his own painful boil without hesitation, even as the barber supposed to do it trembled.[3] Patel passed his matriculation at the late age of 22; at this point, he was generally regarded by his elders as an unambitious man destined for a commonplace job. But Patel himself harboured a plan—he would study to become a lawyer, work and save funds, travel to England and study to become a barrister.[4] Patel spent years away from his family, studying on his own with books borrowed from other lawyers and passed examinations within two years. Fetching Jhaverba from her parents' home, Patel set up his household in Godhra and enrolled at the bar. During the many years it took him to save money, Vallabhbhai—now a pleader—earned a reputation as a fierce and skilled lawyer. His wife bore him a daughter, Manibehn, in 1904 and later a son, Dahyabhai, in 1906. Patel also cared for a friend suffering from Bubonic plague when it swept across Gujarat. When Patel himself came down with the disease, he immediately sent his family to safety, left his home and moved into an isolated house in Nadiad (by other accounts, Patel spent this time in a dilapidated temple); there, he recovered slowly.[5]
Patel practised law in Godhra, Borsad and Anand while taking on the financial burdens of his homestead in Karamsad. When he had saved enough for England and applied for a pass and a ticket, they arrived in the name of "V. J. Patel," at Vithalbhai's home, who bore the same initials. Having harboured his own plans to study in England, Vithalbhai remonstrated to his younger brother that it would be disreputable for an older brother to follow his younger brother. In keeping with concerns for his family's honour, Patel allowed Vithalbhai to go in his place.[6] He also financed his brother's stay and began saving again for his own goals.
In 1909, Patel's wife Jhaverba was hospitalised in Mumbai (then Bombay) to undergo a major surgical operation for cancer. Her health suddenly worsened and despite successful emergency surgery, she died in the hospital. Patel was given a note informing him of his wife's demise as he was cross-examining a witness in court. As per others who witnessed, Patel read the note, pocketed it and continued to intensely cross-examine the witness and won the case. He broke the news to others only after the proceedings had ended.[7] Patel himself decided against marrying again. He raised his children with the help of his family and sent them to English-medium schools in Mumbai. At the age of 36, he journeyed to England and enrolled at the Middle Temple Inn in London. Finishing a 36-month course in 30 months, Patel topped his class despite having no previous college background. Returning to India, Patel settled in the city of Ahmedabad and became one of the city's most successful barristers. Wearing European-style clothes and urbane mannerisms, he also became a skilled bridge player. Patel nurtured ambitions to expand his practise and accumulate great wealth and to provide his children with modern education. He had also made a pact with his brother Vithalbhai to support his entry into politics in the Bombay Presidency, while Patel himself would remain in Ahmedabad and provide for the family.[8]
[edit] Fighting for independence
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At the urging of his friends, Patel won an election to become the sanitation commissioner of Ahmedabad in 1917. While often clashing with British officials on civic issues, he did not show any interest in politics. Upon hearing of Mohandas Gandhi, he joked to Mavlankar that Gandhi would "ask you if you know how to sift pebbles from wheat. And that is supposed to bring independence."[9] But Patel was deeply impressed when Gandhi defied the British in Champaran for the sake of the area's oppressed farmers. Against the grain of Indian politicians of the time, Gandhi wore Indian-style clothes and emphasised the use of one's mother tongue or any Indian language as opposed to English—the lingua franca of India's intellectuals. Patel was particularly attracted to Gandhi's inclination to action—apart from a resolution condemning the arrest of political leader Annie Besant, Gandhi proposed that volunteers march peacefully demanding to meet her.
Patel gave a speech in Borsad in September 1917, encouraging Indians nationwide to sign Gandhi's petition demanding Swaraj—independence—from the British. Meeting Gandhi a month later at the Gujarat Political Conference in Godhra, Patel became the secretary of the Gujarat Sabha—a public body which would become the Gujarati arm of the Indian National Congress—at Gandhi's encouragement. Patel now energetically fought against veth—the forced servitude of Indians to Europeans—and organised relief efforts in wake of plague and famine in Kheda.[10] The Kheda peasants' plea for exemption from taxation had been turned down by British authorities. Gandhi endorsed waging a struggle there, but could not lead it himself due to his activities in Champaran. When Gandhi asked for a Gujarati activist to devote himself completely to the assignment and Patel volunteered, much to Gandhi's personal delight.[11] Though his decision was made on the spot, Patel later said that his desire and commitment came after intensive personal contemplation, as he realised he would have to abandon his career and material ambitions.[12]
[edit] Satyagraha in Gujarat
Supported by Congress volunteers Narhari Parikh, Mohanlal Pandya and Abbas Tyabji, Vallabhbhai Patel began a village-to-village tour in the Kheda district, documenting grievances and asking villagers for their support for a statewide revolt by refusing the payment of taxes. Patel emphasised potential hardships with the need for complete unity and non-violence despite any provocation. He received enthusiastic responses from virtually every village.[13] When the revolt was launched and revenue refused, the government sent police and intimidation squads to seize property, including confiscating barn animals and whole farms. Patel organised a network of volunteers to work with individual villages—helping them hide valuables and protect themselves during raids. Thousands of activists and farmers were arrested, but Patel was not. The revolt began evoking sympathy and admiration across India, including with pro-British Indian politicians. The government agreed to negotiate with Patel and decided to suspend the payment of revenue for the year, even scaling back the rate. Patel emerged as a hero to Gujaratis and admired across India.[14] In 1920, he was elected president of the newly formed Gujarat Pradesh Congress Committee—he would serve as its president till 1945.
Patel supported Gandhi's Non-cooperation movement and toured the state to recruit more than 300,000 members and raise over Rs. 1.5 million in funds.[15] Helping organise bonfires of British goods in Ahmedabad, Patel threw in all his English-style clothes. With his daughter Mani and son Dahya, he switched completely to wearing khadi. Patel also supported Gandhi's controversial suspension of resistance in wake of the Chauri Chaura incident. He worked extensively in the following years in Gujarat against alcoholism, untouchability and caste discrimination, as well as for the empowerment of women. In the Congress, he was a resolute supporter of Gandhi against his Swarajist critics. Patel was elected Ahmedabad's municipal president in 1922, 1924 and 1927—during his terms, Ahmedabad was extended a major supply of electricity and the school system underwent major reforms. Drainage and sanitation systems were extended over all the city. He fought for the recognition and payment of teachers employed in schools established by nationalists (out of British control) and even took on sensitive Hindu-Muslim Issues.[16] Sardar Patel personally led relief efforts in the aftermath of the intense torrential rainfall in 1927, which had caused major floods in the city and in the Kheda district and great destruction of life and property. He established refuge centres across the district, raised volunteers, arranged for supply of food, medicines and clothing, as well as emergency funds from the government and public.[17]
When Gandhi was in prison, Sardar Patel was asked by Congressmen to lead the satyagraha in Nagpur in 1923 against a law banning the raising of the Indian flag. He organised thousands of volunteers from all over the country in processions hoisting the flag. Patel negotiated a settlement that obtained the release of all prisoners and allowed nationalists to hoist the flag in public. Later that year, Patel and his allies uncovered evidence suggesting that the police were in league with local dacoits in the Borsad taluka even as the government prepared to levy a major tax for fighting dacoits in the area. More than 6,000 villagers assembled to hear Patel speak and supported the proposed agitation against the tax, which was deemed immoral and unnecessary. He organised hundreds of Congressmen, sent instructions and received information from across the district. Every village in the taluka resisted payment of the tax, and through cohesion, also prevented the seizure of property and lands. After a protracted struggle, the government withdrew the tax. Historians believe that one of Patel's key achievements was the building of cohesion and trust amongst the different castes and communities, which were divided on socio-economic lines.[18]
In April 1928, Sardar Patel returned to the freedom struggle from his municipal duties in Ahmedabad when Bardoli suffered from a serious predicament of a famine and steep tax hike. The revenue hike was steeper than it had been in Kheda even though the famine covered a large portion of Gujarat. After cross-examining and talking to village representatives, emphasizing the potential hardship and need for non-violence and cohesion, Patel initiated the struggle—complete denial of taxes.[19] Sardar Patel organised volunteers, camps and an information network across affected areas. The revenue refusal was stronger than in Kheda and many sympathy satyagrahas were undertaken across Gujarat. Despite arrests, seizures of property and lands, the struggle intensified. The situation reached a head in August, when through sympathetic intermediaries, he negotiated a settlement repealing the tax hike, reinstating village officials who had resigned in protest and the return of seized property and lands. It was during the struggle and after the victory in Bardoli that Patel was increasingly addressed by his colleagues and followers as Sardar.[20]
[edit] Leading the Congress
As Gandhi embarked on the Dandi Salt March, Patel was arrested in the village of Ras and tried without witnesses, with no lawyer or pressman allowed to attend. Patel's arrest and Gandhi's subsequent arrest caused the Salt Satyagraha to greatly intensify in Gujarat—districts across Gujarat launched an anti-tax rebellion until and unless Patel and Gandhi were released.[21] Once released, Patel served as interim Congress president, but was re-arrested while leading a procession in Mumbai. After the signing of the Gandhi-Irwin Pact, Patel was elected Congress president for its 1931 session in Karachi—here the Congress ratified the pact, committed itself to the defence of fundamental rights and human freedoms, and a vision of a secular nation, minimum wage and the abolition of untouchability and serfdom. Patel used his position as Congress president in organising the return of confiscated lands to farmers in Gujarat.[22] Upon the failure of the Round Table Conference in London, Gandhi and Patel were arrested in January 1932 when the struggle re-opened, and imprisoned in the Yeravda Central Jail. During this term of imprisonment, Patel and Gandhi grew close to each other, and the two developed a close bond of affection, trust, and frankness. Their mutual relationship could be described as that of an elder brother (Gandhi) and his younger brother (Patel). Despite having arguments with Gandhi, Patel respected his instincts and leadership. During imprisonment, the two would discuss national and social issues, read Hindu epics and crack jokes. Gandhi also taught Patel Sanskrit language. Gandhi's secretary Mahadev Desai kept detailed records of conversations between Gandhi and Patel.[23] When Gandhi embarked on a fast-unto-death protesting the separate electorates allocated for untouchables, Patel looked after Gandhi closely and himself refrained from partaking of food.[24] Patel was later moved to a jail in Nasik, and refused a British offer for a brief release to attend the cremation of his brother Vithalbhai, who had died in 1934. He was finally released in July of the same year.
Patel's position at the highest level in the Congress was largely connected with his role from 1934 onwards (when the Congress abandoned its boycott of elections) in the party organization. Based at an apartment in Mumbai, he became the Congress's main fund-raiser and chairman of its Central Parliamentary Board, playing the leading role in selecting and financing candidates for the 1934 elections to the Central Legislative Assembly in New Delhi and also for the Provincial elections of 1936.[25] As well as collecting funds and selecting candidates, he would also determine the Congress stance on issues and opponents.[26] Not contesting a seat for himself, Patel nevertheless guided Congressmen elected in the provinces and at the national level. In 1935, Patel underwent surgery for hemorrhoids, yet guided efforts against plague in Bardoli and again when a drought struck Gujarat in 1939. Patel would guide the Congress ministries that had won power across India with the aim of preserving party discipline—Patel feared that the British would use opportunities to create conflicts among elected Congressmen, and he did not want the party to be distracted from the goal of complete independence.[27] But Patel would clash with Nehru, opposing declarations of the adoption of socialism at the 1936 Congress session, which he believed was a diversion from the main goal of achieving independence. In 1938, Patel organized rank and file opposition to the attempts of then-Congress president Subhash Bose to move away from Gandhi's principles of non-violent resistance. Patel considered Bose to be authoritarian and desirous of more power over the party. He led senior Congress leaders in a protest, which resulted in Bose's resignation. But criticism arose from Bose's supporters, socialists and other Congressmen that Patel himself was acting in an authoritarian manner in his defense of Gandhi's authority.
[edit] Quit India
When World War II broke out, Patel supported Nehru's decision to withdraw the Congress from central and provincial legislatures, contrary to Gandhi's advice, as well as an initiative by senior leader Chakravarthi Rajagopalachari to offer Congress's full support to Britain if it promised Indian independence at the end of the war and install a democratic government right away. Gandhi had refused to support Britain on the grounds of his moral opposition to war, while Subhash Chandra Bose was in militant opposition to the British. The British rejected Rajagopalachari's initiative, and Patel embraced Gandhi's leadership again.[28] He participated in Gandhi's call for individual disobedience, and was arrested in 1940 and imprisoned for nine months. He also opposed the proposals of the Cripps' mission in 1942. Patel lost more than twenty pounds during his period in jail.
While Nehru, Rajagopalachari and Maulana Azad initially criticized Gandhi's proposal for an all-out campaign of civil disobedience to force the British to Quit India, Patel was its most fervent supporter. Arguing that the British would retreat from India as they had from Singapore and Burma, Patel stressed that the campaign start without any delay.[29] Though feeling that the British would not quit immediately, Patel favored an all-out rebellion which would galvanize Indian people, who had been divided in their response to the war, In Patel's view, an all-out rebellion would force the British to concede that continuation of colonial rule had no support in India, and thus speed power transfer to Indians.[30] Believing strongly in the need for revolt, Patel stated his intention to resign from the Congress if the revolt was not approved.[31] Gandhi strongly pressured the All India Congress Committee to approve of an all-out campaign of civil disobedience, and the AICC approved the campaign on 7 August 1942. Though Patel's health had suffered during his stint in jail, Patel gave emotional speeches to large crowds across India, .[32] asking people to refuse paying taxes and participate in civil disobedience, mass protests and a shutdown of all civil services. He raised funds and prepared a second-tier of command as a precaution against the arrest of national leaders.[33] Patel made a climactic speech to more than 100,000 people gathered at Gowalia Tank in Bombay (Mumbai) on 7 August:
"The Governor of Burma boasts in London that they left Burma only after reducing everything to dust. So you promise the same thing to India?... You refer in your radio broadcasts and newspapers to the government established in Burma by Japan as a puppet government? What sort of government do you have in Delhi now?...When France fell before the Nazi onslaught, in the midst of total war, Mr. Churchill offered union with England to the French. That was indeed a stroke of inspired statesmanship. But when it comes to India? Oh no! Constitutional changes in the midst of a war? Absolutely unthinkable...The object this time is to free India before the Japanese can come and be ready to fight them if they come. They will round up the leaders, round up all. Then it will be the duty of every Indian to put forth his utmost effort—within non-violence. No source is to be left untapped; no weapon untried. This is going to be the opportunity of a lifetime."[34]
Historians believe that Patel's speech was instrumental in electrifying nationalists, who had been skeptical of the proposed rebellion. Patel's organising work in this period is credited by historians for ensuring the success of the rebellion across India.[35] Patel was arrested on 9 August and was imprisoned with the entire Congress Working Committee from 1942 to 1945 at the fort in Ahmednagar. Here he spun cloth, played bridge, read a large number of books, took long walks, practised gardening. He also provided emotional support to his colleagues while awaiting news and developments of the outside.[36] Patel was deeply pained at the news of the deaths of Mahadev Desai and Kasturba Gandhi later in the year.[37] But Patel wrote in a letter to his daughter that he and his colleagues were experiencing "fullest peace" for having done "their duty."[38] Even though other political parties had opposed the struggle and the British had employed ruthless means of suppression, the Quit India movement was "by far the most serious rebellion since that of 1857," as the viceroy cabled to Winston Churchill. More than one hundred thousand people were arrested and thousands killed in police firings. Strikes, protests and other revolutionary activities had broken out across India.[39] When Patel was released on 15 June 1945 he realised that the British were preparing proposals to transfer power to Indian hands.
[edit] Independence, integration and Role of Gandhi
In the 1946 election for the Congress presidency, Patel stepped down in favor of Nehru at the request of Gandhi. The election's importance stemmed from the fact that the elected President would lead free India's first Government. Gandhi asked all 16 states representatives and Congress to elect the right person and Sardar Patel's name was proposed by 13 states representatives out of 16, but Patel respected Gandhi's request to not be the first prime minister. As a Home Minister, Patel merged all parts of India under federal control but Jammu and Kashmir was left out because of Nehru.
After the election of Nehru as the party's president, Patel began directing the Congress campaign for the general elections of the Constituent Assembly of India.
In the elections, the Congress won a large majority of the elected seats, dominating the Hindu electorate. But the Muslim League led by Muhammad Ali Jinnah won a large majority of Muslim electorate seats. The League had resolved in 1940 to demand Pakistan—an independent state for Muslims—and was a fierce critic of the Congress. The Congress formed governments in all provinces save Sindh, Punjab and Bengal, where it entered into coalitions with other parties.
[edit] Cabinet mission and partition
When the British mission proposed two plans for transfer of power, there was considerable opposition within the Congress to both. The plan of 16 May 1946 proposed a loose federation with extensive provincial autonomy, and the "grouping" of provinces based on religious-majority. The plan of 16 June 1946 proposed the partition of India on religious lines, with over 600 princely states free to choose between independence or accession to either dominion. The League approved both plans, while the Congress flatly rejected the 16 June proposal. Gandhi criticised the 16 May proposal as being inherently divisive, but Patel, realizing that rejecting the proposal would mean that only the League would be invited to form a government, lobbied the Congress Working Committee hard to give its assent to the 16 May proposal. Patel engaged the British envoys Sir Stafford Cripps and Lord Pethick-Lawrence and obtained an assurance that the "grouping" clause would not be given practical force, Patel converted Nehru, Rajendra Prasad and Rajagopalachari to accept the plan. When the League retracted its approval of the 16 May plan, the viceroy Lord Wavell invited the Congress to form the government. Under Nehru, who was styled the "Vice President of the Viceroy's Executive Council," Patel took charge of the departments of home affairs and information and broadcasting. He moved into a government house on 1, Aurangzeb Road in Delhi—this would be his residence till his death in 1950.
Vallabhbhai Patel was one of the first Congress leaders to accept the partition of India as a solution to the rising Muslim separatist movement led by Muhammad Ali Jinnah. He had been outraged by Jinnah's Direct Action campaign, which had provoked communal violence across India and by the viceroy's vetoes of his home department's plans to stop the violence on the grounds of constitutionality. Patel severely criticised the viceroy's induction of League ministers into the government, and the revalidation of the grouping scheme by the British without Congress approval. Although further outraged at the League's boycott of the assembly and non-acceptance of the plan of 16 May despite entering government, he was also aware that Jinnah did enjoy popular support amongst Muslims, and that an open conflict between him and the nationalists could degenerate into a Hindu-Muslim civil war of disastrous consequences. The continuation of a divided and weak central government would in Patel's mind, result in the wider fragmentation of India by encouraging more than 600 princely states towards independence.[40] Between the months of December 1946 and January 1947, Patel worked with civil servant V. P. Menon on the latter's suggestion for a separate dominion of Pakistan created out of Muslim-majority provinces. Communal violence in Bengal and Punjab in January and March 1947 further convinced Patel of the soundness of partition. Patel, a fierce critic of Jinnah's demand that the Hindu-majority areas of Punjab and Bengal be included in a Muslim state, obtained the partition of those provinces, thus blocking any possibility of their inclusion in Pakistan. Patel's decisiveness on the partition of Punjab and Bengal had won him many supporters and admirers amongst the Indian public, which had tired of the League's tactics, but he was criticised by Gandhi, Nehru, secular Muslims and socialists for a perceived eagerness to do so. When Lord Louis Mountbatten formally proposed the plan on 3 June 1947, Patel gave his approval and lobbied Nehru and other Congress leaders to accept the proposal. Knowing Gandhi's deep anguish regarding proposals of partition, Patel engaged him in frank discussion in private meetings over the perceived practical unworkability of any Congress-League coalition, the rising violence and the threat of civil war. At the All India Congress Committee meeting called to vote on the proposal, Patel said:
| “ | I fully appreciate the fears of our brothers from [the Muslim-majority areas]. Nobody likes the division of India and my heart is heavy. But the choice is between one division and many divisions. We must face facts. We cannot give way to emotionalism and sentimentality. The Working Committee has not acted out of fear. But I am afraid of one thing, that all our toil and hard work of these many years might go waste or prove unfruitful. My nine months in office has completely disillusioned me regarding the supposed merits of the Cabinet Mission Plan. Except for a few honourable exceptions, Muslim officials from the top down to the chaprasis (peons or servants) are working for the League. The communal veto given to the League in the Mission Plan would have blocked India's progress at every stage. Whether we like it or not, de facto Pakistan already exists in the Punjab and Bengal. Under the circumstances I would prefer a de jure Pakistan, which may make the League more responsible. Freedom is coming. We have 75 to 80 percent of India, which we can make strong with our own genius. The League can develop the rest of the country.[41] | ” |
Following Gandhi's and Congress' approval of the plan, Patel represented India on the Partition Council, where he oversaw the division of public assets, and selected the Indian council of ministers with Nehru. However, neither he nor any other Indian leader had foreseen the intense violence and population transfer that would take place with partition. Patel would take the lead in organising relief and emergency supplies, establishing refugee camps and visiting the border areas with Pakistani leaders to encourage peace. Despite these efforts, the death toll is estimated at between five hundred thousand to a million people.[42] The estimated number of refugees in both countries exceeds 15 million.[43] Understanding that Delhi and Punjab policemen, accused of organising attacks on Muslims, were personally affected by the tragedies of partition, Patel called out the Indian Army with South Indian regiments to restore order, imposing strict curfews and shoot-at-sight orders. Visiting the Nizamuddin Auliya Dargah area in Delhi, where thousands of Delhi Muslims feared attacks, he prayed at the shrine, visited the people and reinforced the presence of police. He suppressed from the press reports of atrocities in Pakistan against Hindus and Sikhs to prevent retaliatory violence. Establishing the Delhi Emergency Committee to restore order and organising relief efforts for refugees in the capital, Patel publicly warned officials against partiality and neglect. When reports reached Patel that large groups of Sikhs were preparing to attack Muslim convoys heading for Pakistan, Patel hurried to Amritsar and met Sikh and Hindu leaders. Arguing that attacking helpless people was cowardly and dishonourable, Patel emphasised that Sikh actions would result in further attacks against Hindus and Sikhs in Pakistan. He assured the community leaders that if they worked to establish peace and order and guarantee the safety of Muslims, the Indian government would react forcefully to any failures of Pakistan to do the same. Additionally, Patel addressed a massive crowd of an estimated 200,000 refugees who had surrounded his car after the meetings:
| “ | Here, in this same city, the blood of Hindus, Sikhs and Muslims mingled in the bloodbath of Jallianwala 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 of living in Lahore. The butchery of innocent and defenceless men, women and children does not behove brave men... I am quite certain that India's interest lies in getting all her men and women across the border and sending out all Muslims from East Punjab. I have come to you with a specific appeal. Pledge the safety of Muslim refugees crossing the city. Any obstacles or hindrances will only worsen the plight of our refugees who are already performing prodigious feats of endurance. If we have to fight, we must fight clean. Such a fight must await an appropriate time and conditions and you must be watchful in choosing your ground. To fight against the refugees is no fight at all. No laws of humanity or war among honourable men permit the murder of people who have sought shelter and protection. Let there be truce for three months in which both sides can exchange their refugees. This sort of truce is permitted even by laws of war. Let us take the initiative in breaking this vicious circle of attacks and counter-attacks. Hold your hands for a week and see what happens. Make way for the refugees with your own force of volunteers and let them deliver the refugees safely at our frontier.[44] | ” |
Following his dialogue with community leaders and his speech, no further attacks occurred against Muslim refugees, and a wider peace and order was re-established soon over the entire area. However, Patel was criticised by Nehru, secular Muslims and taxed by Gandhi over his alleged wish to see Muslims from other parts of India depart. While Patel vehemently denied such allegations, the acrimony with Maulana Azad and other secular Muslim leaders increased when Patel refused to dismiss Delhi's Sikh police commissioner, who was accused of discrimination. Hindu and Sikh leaders also accused Patel and other leaders of not taking Pakistan sufficiently to task over the attacks on their communities there, and Muslim leaders further criticised him for allegedly neglecting the needs of Muslims leaving for Pakistan, and concentrating resources for incoming Hindu and Sikh refugees. Patel clashed with Nehru and Azad over the allocation of houses in Delhi vacated by Muslims leaving for Pakistan—Nehru and Azad desired to allocate them for displaced Muslims, while Patel argued that no government professing secularism must make such exclusions. However, Patel was publicly defended by Gandhi and received widespread admiration and support for speaking frankly on communal issues and acting decisively and resourcefully to quell disorder and violence.
[edit] Political integration of India
This event formed the corner-stone of Patel's popularity in post-independence era and even today, he is remembered as the man who united India. He is, in this regard, compared to Otto von Bismarck of Germany, who did the same thing in 1860s. Under the 3 June plan, more than 600 princely states were given the option of joining either India or Pakistan, or choosing independence. Indian nationalists and large segments of the public feared that if these states did not accede, a vast majority of the people and territory would be fragmented. The Congress as well as senior British officials considered Patel the best man for the task of achieving unification of the princely states with the Indian dominion. Gandhi had said to Patel "the problem of the States is so difficult that you alone can solve it".[45] He was considered a statesman of integrity with the practical acumen and resolve to accomplish a monumental task. Patel asked V. P. Menon, a senior civil servant with whom he had worked over the partition of India, to become his right-hand as chief secretary of the States Ministry. On 6 May 1947, Patel began lobbying the princes, attempting to make them receptive towards dialogue with the future Government and trying to forestall potential conflicts. Patel used social meetings and unofficial surroundings to engage most monarchs, inviting them to lunch and tea at his home in Delhi. At these meetings, Patel stated that there was no inherent conflict between the Congress and the princely order. Nonetheless, he stressed that the princes would need to accede to India in good faith by 15 August 1947. Patel invoked the patriotism of India's monarchs, asking them to join in the freedom of their nation and act as responsible rulers who cared about the future of their people. He persuaded the princes of 565 states of the impossibility of independence from the Indian republic, especially in the presence of growing opposition from their subjects. He proposed favourable terms for the merger, including creation of privy purses for the descendants of the rulers. While encouraging the rulers to act with patriotism, Patel did not rule out force, setting a deadline of 15 August 1947 for them to sign the instrument of accession document. All but three of the states willingly merged into the Indian union—only Jammu and Kashmir, Junagadh, and Hyderabad did not fall into his basket.
Junagadh was especially important to Patel, since it was in his home state of Gujarat. The Nawab had under pressure from Sir Shah Nawaz Bhutto acceded to Pakistan. It was however, quite far from Pakistan and 80% of its population was Hindu. Patel combined diplomacy with force, demanding that Pakistan annul the accession, and that the Nawab accede to India. He sent the Army to occupy three principalities of Junagadh to show his resolve. Following widespread protests and the formation of a civil government, or Aarzi Hukumat, both Bhutto and the Nawab fled to Karachi, and under Patel's orders, Indian Army and police units marched into the state. A plebiscite later organised produced a 99.5% vote for merger with India.[46] In a speech at the Bahauddin College in Junagadh following the latter's take-over, Patel emphasised his feeling of urgency on Hyderabad, which he felt was more vital to India than Kashmir:
| “ | If Hyderabad does not see the writing on the wall, it goes the way Junagadh has gone. Pakistan attempted to set off Kashmir against Junagadh. When we raised the question of settlement in a democratic way, they (Pakistan) at once told us that they would consider it if we applied that policy to Kashmir. Our reply was that we would agree to Kashmir if they agreed to Hyderabad.[46] | ” |
Hyderabad was the largest of the princely states, and included parts of present-day Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, and Maharashtra states. Its ruler, the Nizam Osman Ali Khan was a Muslim, although over 80% of its people were Hindu. The Nizam sought independence or accession with Pakistan. Muslim forces loyal to Nizam, called the Razakars, under Qasim Razvi pressed the Nizam to hold out against India, while organising attacks with militant Communists on people on Indian soil. Even though a Standstill Agreement was signed due to the desperate efforts of Lord Mountbatten to avoid a war, the Nizam rejected deals and changed his positions.[47] In September 1948, Patel emphasised in Cabinet meetings that India should take no more, and reconciled Nehru and the Governor-General, Chakravarti Rajgopalachari to military action. Following preparations, Patel ordered the Indian Army to integrate Hyderabad (in his capacity as Acting Prime Minister) when Nehru was touring Europe.[48] The action was termed Operation Polo, in which thousands of Razakar forces had been killed, but Hyderabad was comfortably secured into the Indian Union. The main aim of Mountbatten and Nehru in avoiding a forced annexation was to prevent an outbreak of Hindu-Muslim violence. Patel insisted that if Hyderabad was allowed to continue with its antics, the prestige of the Government would fall and then neither Hindus nor Muslims would feel secure in its realm. After defeating Nizam, Patel retained him as the ceremonial chief of state, and held talks with him.[49]
[edit] Leading India
Governor General Chakravarti Rajagopalachari, Nehru and Patel formed the triumvirate which ruled India from 1948 to 1950. Prime Minister Nehru was intensely popular with the masses, but Patel enjoyed the loyalty and faith of rank and file Congressmen, state leaders and India's civil services. Patel was a senior leader in the Constituent Assembly of India and was responsible in a large measure for shaping India's constitution.[50] Patel was a key force behind the appointment of Dr. Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar as the chairman of the drafting committee, and the inclusion of leaders from a diverse political spectrum in the process of writing the constitution.[50]
Patel was the chairman of the committees responsible for minorities, tribal and excluded areas, fundamental rights and provincial constitutions. Patel piloted a model constitution for the provinces in the Assembly, which contained limited powers for the state governor, who would defer to the President—he clarified it was not the intention to let the governor exercise power which could impede an elected government.[50] He worked closely with Muslim leaders to end separate electorates and the more potent demand for reservation of seats for minorities.[51] Patel would hold personal dialogues with leaders of other minorities on the question, and was responsible for the measure that allows the President to appoint Anglo-Indians to Parliament. His intervention was key to the passage of two articles that protected civil servants from political involvement and guaranteed their terms and privileges.[50] He was also instrumental in the founding the Indian Administrative Service and the Indian Police Service, and for his defence of Indian civil servants from political attack, he is known as the "patron saint" of India's services. When a delegation of Gujarati farmers came to him citing their inability to send their milk production to the markets without being fleeced by middlemen, Patel exhorted them to organise the processing and sale of milk by themselves, and guided them to create the Kaira District Co-operative Milk Producers' Union Limited, which preceded the Amul milk products brand. Patel also pledged the reconstruction of the ancient but dilapidated Somnath Temple in Saurashtra—he oversaw the creation of a public trust and restoration work, and pledged to dedicate the temple upon the completion of work (the work was completed after Patel's death, and the temple was inaugurated by the first President of India, Dr. Rajendra Prasad).
When the Pakistani invasion of Kashmir began in September 1947, Patel immediately wanted to send troops into Kashmir. But agreeing with Nehru and Mountbatten, he waited till Kashmir's monarch had acceded to India. Patel then oversaw India's military operations to secure Srinagar, the Baramulla Pass and the forces retrieved a lot of territory from the invaders. Patel, along with Defence Minister Baldev Singh administered the entire military effort, arranging for troops from different parts of India to be rushed to Kashmir and for a major military road connecting Srinagar to Pathankot be built in 6 months.[52] Patel strongly advised Nehru against going for arbitration to the United Nations, insisting that Pakistan had been wrong to support the invasion and the accession to India was valid. He did not want foreign interference in a bilateral affair. Patel opposed the release of Rs. 55 crores to the Government of Pakistan, convinced that the money would go to finance the war against India in Kashmir. The Cabinet had approved his point but it was reversed when Gandhi, who feared an intensifying rivalry and further communal violence, went on a fast-unto-death to obtain the release. Patel, though not estranged from Gandhi, was deeply hurt at the rejection of his counsel and a Cabinet decision.[53]
In 1949, a crisis arose when the number of Hindu refugees entering West Bengal, Assam and Tripura from East Pakistan climbed over 800,000. The refugees in many cases were being forcibly evicted by Pakistani authorities, and were victims of intimidation and violence.[54] Nehru invited Liaquat Ali Khan, Prime Minister of Pakistan to find a peaceful solution. Despite his aversion, Patel reluctantly met Khan and discussed the matters. Patel strongly criticised, however, Nehru's intention to sign a pact that would create minority commissions in both countries and pledge both India and Pakistan to a commitment to protect each other's minorities.[55] Syama Prasad Mookerjee and K.C. Neogy, two Bengali ministers resigned and Nehru was intensely criticised in West Bengal for allegedly appeasing Pakistan. The pact was immediately in jeopardy. Patel however, publicly came out to Nehru's aid. He gave emotional speeches to members of Parliament, and the people of West Bengal, and spoke with scores of delegations of Congressmen, Hindus, Muslims and other public interest groups, persuading them to give peace a final effort. The pact was approved and within a year, most of the Hindu refugees had returned to East Pakistan.[56]
[edit] Gandhi's death and relations with Nehru
Patel was intensely loyal to Gandhi and both he and Nehru looked to him to arbitrate disputes. However, Nehru and Patel sparred over national issues. When Nehru asserted control over Kashmir policy, Patel objected to Nehru's sidelining his home ministry's officials.[57] Nehru was offended by Patel's decision-making regarding the states' integration, having neither consulted him nor the cabinet. Patel asked Gandhi to relieve him of his obligation to serve, knowing that he lacked Nehru's youth and popularity. He believed that an open political battle would hurt India. After much personal deliberation and contrary to Patel's prediction, Gandhi on 30 January 1948 told Patel not to leave the government. A free India, according to Gandhi, needed both Patel and Nehru. Patel was the last man to privately talk with Gandhi, who was assassinated just minutes after Patel's departure.[58] At Gandhi's wake, Nehru and Patel embraced each other and addressed the nation together. Patel gave solace to many associates and friends and immediately moved to forestall any possible violence.[59] Within two months of Gandhi's death, Patel suffered a major heart attack; the timely action of his daughter, his secretary and nurse saved Patel's life. Speaking later, Patel attributed the attack to the "grief bottled up" due to Gandhi's death.[60]
Criticism arose from the media and other politicians that Patel's home ministry had failed to protect Gandhi. Emotionally exhausted, Patel tendered a letter of resignation, offering to leave the government. Patel's secretary convinced him to withhold the letter, seeing it as fodder for Patel's political enemies and political conflict in India.[61] However, Nehru sent Patel a letter dismissing any question of personal differences and his desire for Patel's ouster. He reminded Patel of their 30-year partnership in the freedom struggle and asserted that after Gandhi's death, it was especially wrong for them to quarrel. Nehru, Rajagopalachari and other Congressmen publicly defended Patel. Moved, Patel publicly endorsed Nehru's leadership and refuted any suggestion of discord. Patel publicly dispelled any notion that he sought to be prime minister.[61] Though the two committed themselves to joint leadership and non-interference in Congress party affairs, they would criticise each other in matters of policy, clashing on the issues of Hyderabad's integration and UN mediation in Kashmir. Nehru declined Patel's counsel on sending assistance to Tibet after its 1950 invasion by the People's Republic of China and ejecting the Portuguese from Goa by military force.[62]
When Nehru pressured Dr. Rajendra Prasad to decline a nomination to become the first President of India in 1950 in favour of Rajagopalachari, he thus angered the party, which felt Nehru was attempting to impose his will. Nehru sought Patel's help in winning the party over, but Patel declined and Prasad was duly elected. Nehru opposed the 1950 Congress presidential candidate Purushottam Das Tandon, a conservative Hindu leader, endorsing Jivatram Kripalani instead and threatening to resign if Tandon was elected. Patel rejected Nehru's views and endorsed Tandon in Gujarat, where Kripalani received not one vote despite hailing from that state himself.[63] Patel believed Nehru had to understand that his will was not law with the Congress, but he personally discouraged Nehru from resigning after the latter felt that the party had no confidence in him.[64]
[edit] Death
On 29 March 1949, authorities lost radio contact with a plane carrying Patel, his daughter Maniben and the Maharaja of Patiala. Engine failure caused the pilot to make an emergency landing in a desert area in Rajasthan. With all passengers safe, Patel and others tracked down a nearby village and local officials. When Patel returned to Delhi, thousands of Congressmen gave him a resounding welcome. In Parliament, MPs gave a long, standing ovation to Patel, stopping proceedings for half an hour.[65] In his twilight years, Patel was honoured by members of Parliament and awarded honorary doctorates of law by the Punjab University and Osmania University.
Patel's health declined rapidly through the summer of 1950. He later began coughing blood, whereupon Maniben began limiting his meetings and working hours and arranged for a personalised medical staff to begin attending to Patel. The Chief Minister of West Bengal and doctor Bidhan Roy heard Patel make jokes about his impending end, and in a private meeting Patel frankly admitted to his ministerial colleague N. V. Gadgil that he was not going to live much longer. Patel's health worsened after 2 November, when he began losing consciousness frequently and was confined to his bed. He was flown to Mumbai on 12 December to recuperate at his son Dahyabhai's flat—his condition deemed critical, Nehru and Rajagopalachari came to the airport to see him off.[66] After suffering a massive heart attack (his second), he died on 15 December 1950. In an unprecedented and unrepeated gesture, on the day after his death more than 1,500 officers of India's civil and police services congregated to mourn at Patel's residence in Delhi and pledged "complete loyalty and unremitting zeal" in India's service.[67] His cremation in Sonapur, Mumbai, was attended by large crowds, Nehru, Rajagopalachari, President Prasad.
[edit] Criticism and legacy
During his lifetime, Vallabhbhai Patel received criticism of an alleged bias against Muslims during the time of partition. He was criticised by nationalist Muslims such as Maulana Azad as well as Hindu nationalists for readily plumping for partition. Patel was criticised by supporters of Subhash Bose for acting coercively to put down politicians not supportive of Gandhi. Socialist politicians such as Jaya Prakash Narayan and Asoka Mehta criticised him for his personal proximity to Indian industrialists such as the Birla and Sarabhai families. Some historians have criticised Patel's actions on the integration of princely states as undermining the right of self-determination for those states.
However, Patel is credited for being almost single-handedly responsible for unifying India on the eve of independence. He won the admiration of many Indians for speaking frankly on the issues of Hindu-Muslim relations and not shying from using military force to integrate India. His skills of leadership and practical judgement were hailed by British statesmen—his opponents in the freedom struggle—such as Lord Wavell, Cripps, Pethick-Lawrence and Mountbatten. Some historians and admirers of Patel such as Rajendra Prasad and industrialist J.R.D. Tata have expressed opinions that Patel would have made a better prime minister for India than Nehru. Nehru's critics and Patel's admirers cite Nehru's belated embrace of Patel's advice regarding the UN and Kashmir and the integration of Goa by military action. Proponents of free enterprise cite the failings of Nehru's socialist policies as opposed to Patel's defence of property rights and his mentorship of the Amul co-operative project.
Among Patel's surviving family, Manibehn Patel lived in a flat in Mumbai for the rest of her life following her father's death; she often led the work of the Sardar Patel Memorial Trust—which organises the prestigious annual Sardar Patel Memorial Lectures—and other charitable organisations. Dahyabhai Patel was a businessman who eventually was elected to serve in the Lok Sabha (the lower house of the Indian Parliament) as an MP in the 1960s.
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For many decades after his death, there was a perceived lack of effort from the Government of India, the national media and the Congress party regarding the commemoration of Patel's life and work.[69] However, Patel is lionised as a hero in Gujarat and his family home in Karamsad is still preserved in his memory. Patel was officially awarded the Bharat Ratna, India's highest civilian honour posthumously in 1991. Patel's birthday, 31 October, is celebrated nationally in India as Sardar Jayanti. The Sardar Patel National Memorial was established in 1980 at the Moti Shahi Mahal in Ahmedabad. It comprises a museum, a gallery of portraits and historical pictures and a library, which stores important documents and books associated with Patel and his life. Amongst the exhibits are many of Patel's personal effects and relics from various periods of his personal and political life.
Patel is the namesake of many public institutions in India. A major initiative to build dams, canals and hydroelectric power plants on the Narmada river valley to provide a tri-state area with drinking water, electricity and increase agricultural production was named the Sardar Sarovar. Patel is also the namesake of the Sardar Vallabhbhai National Institute of Technology, the Sardar Patel University and the Sardar Patel Vidyalaya, which are among the nation's premier institutions. India's national police training academy is also named after him. In Richard Attenborough's Gandhi (1982), actor Saeed Jaffrey portrayed Patel. In 1993, the biopic Sardar was produced and directed by Ketan Mehta and featured noted Indian actor Paresh Rawal as Patel; it focused on Patel's leadership in the years leading up to independence, the partition of India, India's political integration and Patel's relationship with Gandhi and Nehru.
[edit] Notes
- ^ Gandhi, Rajmohan (1990). Patel: A Life. India: Navajivan. pp. 3. OCLC 25788696.
- ^ Gandhi, Rajmohan. Patel: A Life. pp. 7.
- ^ Gandhi, Rajmohan. Patel: A Life. pp. 14.
- ^ Gandhi, Rajmohan. Patel: A Life. pp. 13.
- ^ Gandhi, Rajmohan. Patel: A Life. pp. 16.
- ^ Gandhi, Rajmohan. Patel: A Life. pp. 21.
- ^ Gandhi, Rajmohan. Patel: A Life. pp. 23.
- ^ Gandhi, Rajmohan. Patel: A Life. pp. 33.
- ^ Patel, R. Hind Ke Sardar. pp. 33.
- ^ Gandhi, Rajmohan. Patel: A Life. pp. 43.
- ^ Parikh. Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel (1). pp. 55.
- ^ Patel, R. Hind Ke Sardar. pp. 39.
- ^ Gandhi, Rajmohan. Patel: A Life. pp. 65.
- ^ Gandhi, Rajmohan. Patel: A Life. pp. 66–68.
- ^ Gandhi, Rajmohan. Patel: A Life. pp. 91.
- ^ Gandhi, Rajmohan. Patel: A Life. pp. 134.
- ^ Gandhi, Rajmohan. Patel: A Life. pp. 138–141.
- ^ Gandhi, Rajmohan. Patel: A Life. pp. 119–125.
- ^ Gandhi, Rajmohan. Patel: A Life. pp. 149–151.
- ^ Gandhi, Rajmohan. Patel: A Life. pp. 168.
- ^ Gandhi, Rajmohan. Patel: A Life. pp. 193.
- ^ Gandhi, Rajmohan. Patel: A Life. pp. 206.
- ^ Gandhi, Rajmohan. Patel: A Life. pp. 221–222.
- ^ Gandhi, Rajmohan. Patel: A Life. pp. 226–229.
- ^ Brass, Paul R.. Patel, Vallabhbhai Jhaverbhai (1875/6–1950), politician in India, in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (2004).
- ^ Gandhi, Rajmohan. Patel: A Life. pp. 248.
- ^ Gandhi, Rajmohan. Patel: A Life. pp. 266.
- ^ Parikh. Patel (2). pp. 434–436.
- ^ Parikh. Patel (2). pp. 447–479.
- ^ Gandhi, Rajmohan. Patel: A Life. pp. 311–312.
- ^ Nandurkar. Sardarshri Ke Patra (2). pp. 301.
- ^ Gandhi, Rajmohan. Patel: A Life. pp. 313.
- ^ Parikh. Patel (2). pp. 474–477.
- ^ Parikh. Patel (2). pp. 477–479.
- ^ Gandhi, Rajmohan. Patel: A Life. pp. 316.
- ^ Sitaramayya. Feathers and Stones. pp. 395.
- ^ Sitaramayya. Feathers and Stones. pp. 13.
- ^ Nandurkar. Sardarshri Ke Patra (2). pp. 390.
- ^ Gandhi, Rajmohan. Patel: A Life. pp. 318.
- ^ Gandhi, Rajmohan. Patel: A Life. pp. 395–397.
- ^ Menon, V. P.. Transfer of Power in India. pp. 385.
- ^ French, Patrick (1997). Liberty and Death: India's Journey to Independence and Division. London: HarperCollins. pp. 347–349.
- ^ "Postcolonial Studies" project, Department of English, Emory University. ""The Partition of India"". http://www.english.emory.edu/Bahri/Part.html. Retrieved 2006-04-20.
- ^ Shankar, Vidya. Reminiscences (1). pp. 104–05.
- ^ Gandhi, Rajmohan. Patel: A Life. pp. 406.
- ^ a b Gandhi, Rajmohan. Patel: A Life. pp. 438.
- ^ Gandhi, Rajmohan. Patel: A Life. pp. 480.
- ^ Gandhi, Rajmohan. Patel: A Life. pp. 481–482.
- ^ Gandhi, Rajmohan. Patel: A Life. pp. 483.
- ^ a b c d UNI. "Sardar Patel was the real architect of the Constitution". Rediff.com. http://www.rediff.com/freedom/22patel.htm. Retrieved 2006-05-15.
- ^ Munshi, K.M.. Pilgrimage. pp. 207.
- ^ Gandhi, Rajmohan. Patel: A Life. pp. 455.
- ^ Gandhi, Rajmohan. Patel: A Life. pp. 463.
- ^ Gandhi, Rajmohan. Patel: A Life. pp. 497.
- ^ Gandhi, Rajmohan. Patel: A Life. pp. 498.
- ^ Gandhi, Rajmohan. Patel: A Life. pp. 499.
- ^ Gandhi, Rajmohan. Patel: A Life. pp. 459.
- ^ Gandhi, Rajmohan. Patel: A Life. pp. 467.
- ^ Gandhi, Rajmohan. Patel: A Life. pp. 467–469.
- ^ Gandhi, Rajmohan. Patel: A Life. pp. 472–473.
- ^ a b Gandhi, Rajmohan. Patel: A Life. pp. 469–470.
- ^ Gandhi, Rajmohan. Patel: A Life. pp. 508–512.
- ^ Gandhi, Rajmohan. Patel: A Life. pp. 523–524.
- ^ Gandhi, Rajmohan. Patel: A Life. pp. 504–506.
- ^ Gandhi, Rajmohan. Patel: A Life. pp. 494–495.
- ^ Gandhi, Rajmohan. Patel: A Life. pp. 530.
- ^ Panjabi, Indomitable Sardar, pp. 157–58
- ^ Gandhi, Rajmohan. Patel: A Life. pp. 533.
- ^ Gandhi, Rajmohan. Patel: A Life. pp. ix.
[edit] References
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[edit] External links
Definitions from Wiktionary
Textbooks from Wikibooks
Quotations from Wikiquote
Source texts from Wikisource
Images and media from Commons
News stories from Wikinews
Learning resources from Wikiversity- Sardar Patel National Informatics Centre
- National Integration of India IndianChild.com
- Operation Polo Bharat Rakshak.com
- Sardar Patel Sarvadharma.org
- Sardar Patel - Builder of a steel strong India Press Information Bureau, Government of India
- Works by Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel (public domain in Canada)
- Iron Man, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel
| |||||
| |||||||
| Persondata | |
|---|---|
| NAME | Patel, Vallabhbhai |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | |
| SHORT DESCRIPTION | Political and social leader of India |
| DATE OF BIRTH | 31 October 1875 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Nadiad, Gujarat, British India |
| DATE OF DEATH | 15 December 1950 |
| PLACE OF DEATH | Mumbai, Maharashtra, India |
Mainstream, Vol XLVII, No 35, August 15, 2009 (Independence Day Special)
Was Partition of India Inevitable?
Wednesday 19 August 2009, by
This article was sent to us quite sometime back but could not be used earlier for unavoidable reasons. —Editor
On the black Saturday evening my family and I switched on the TV and heard the black and sad news of Pakistan coming under emergency rule, which meant Martial Law. We changed channels but all channels were telecasting the same news. I said, to the great annoyance of my wife, for she does not like my criticism of Gandhi, in Hindi, “Yeh sab Gandhi ki meharbani hai.” What I wanted to say is narrated below.
If Gandhi and the Congress had accepted the Cripps’ offer, the country would not have been partitioned. There are two aspects to this observation: one, that partition could have been prevented; two, whether or not unified India would have been a better place to live in. I am dealing with the first issue. One thing is clear, namely, that if there were no partition, Gandhi would not have been assassinated in 1948 and there would have been no Kashmir war. The main grievance of the few Hindu nationalist militants who had been planning to kill Gandhi was that Gandhi was pro-Pakistan and pro-Muslim. The Kashmir war that has been going on since 1947 in one form or another has cost us a lot of money, which could have been used for social development and welfare. The immediate provocation to give a fresh look at this question was provided by the black and sad news of Pakistan coming under emergency rule (Martial Law). One can be reasonably sure that if India were not partitioned, this situation, and also that Pakistan has been under more or less perpetual military rule, would not have arisen.
Instead Gandhi launched the ‘Quit India’ movement. One fails to understand why Gandhi scholars like Prof Bhikhu Parikh and Raj Mohan Gandhi do not analyse as to why Gandhi resorted to starting the ‘Quit India’ movement in spite of opposition from his colleagues like Maulana Azad. Earlier in 1924 and 1939 Gandhi was rattled in that he lost his position of supreme leadership of the Congress party. In 1924 during the Ahmedabad session of the All India Congress Committee Gandhi was rattled by the Swarajists led by Motilal Nehru and C.R. Das. Gandhi had declared that if his programme and also resolution declaring the members who did not spin for half-an-hour a day and did not observe the five-fold boycott of legislative councils, law courts, government schools, titles and mill made cloth would have to resign from the All India Congress Committee. This resolution, if carried, would have automatically excluded the Swarajists from power. Speaking for the Swarajists Pandit Motilal Nehru said: “We decline to make a fetish of the spinning wheel or to subscribe to the doctrine that only through that wheel can we obtain Swaraj. Discipline is desirable but it is not discipline for the majority to expel the minority. We are unable to forget our manhood and our self-respect and to say that we are willing to submit to Gandhi’s orders. That Congress is as much ours as our opponents and we will return with greater majority to sweep away those who stand for this resolution.” With these words Pandit Nehru and Desh-bandhu Chittaranjan Das left the hall taking with them 55 Swarajists. One hundred and ten members remained when the resolution was put to the vote and was carried against 37 with six per cent abstentions. This apparent victory of Gandhians was not a genuine win. Had the Swarajists remained in the hall, the resolution would have been defeated by about 20 votes. However, Gandhi recognised his defeat and dropped his resolution on compulsory spinning and the five-fold boycott by the workers making it only advisory in nature. And with this and other concessions the Swarajists were persuaded to rejoin the Congress. About the 1939 issue M.N. Roy wrote in an article: “The second defeat came when a much younger man than Gandhi, Subhash Chandra Bose, defeated Gandhi’s nominee, Dr. Pattabhi Sitaramayya, in the Congress Presidential election. Gandhi’s tormented soul made him acknowledge after the election ‘Pattabhi’s defeat is my defeat’. Gandhi and his disciples brought a charge of indiscipline against Subhash Bose. One would fail to understand what act of indiscipline Bose had committed except that he contested the election against Gandhi’s nominee. But for the immoral political practice adopted by Gandhi and his followers in throwing out Subhash Bose from the Congress, things might have been different in the sense that Gandhi might not have remained the absolute leader for a long time.” It would not be wrong to suggest that Gandhi expected to regain the supremacy of his position in the Congress through a movement like the ‘Quit India’ movement.
•
LET us give a quick look at what happened to the movement. One heroic figure of the Congress, Aruna Asaf Ali, wrote: “We know ours is the voice of lost souls that championed a lost cause.” Another heroic figure of the Socialist Party, Achyut Patwardhan, told the veteran journalist, Kuldeep Nayar, that it was not necessary to have the ‘Quit India’ movement to attain India’s independence. Patwardhan repeated this in a speech at Gowalia Tank in Mumbai on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the ‘Quit India’ movement. The residents of the nearby residential complex, ‘Nirmal Niwas’, heard his speech in Marathi. Gowalia Tank is the venue from where the ‘Quit India’ movement had started. Maulana Abul Kalam Azad writes in his book India Wins Freedom that from many serious considerations he had tried to dissuade Gandhi from launching the ‘Quit India’ movement. But Gandhi then wrote to him to resign from the Presidentship of the Congress and also withdraw from its Working Committee. It was, however, Patel, having no special love for Azad though, who pressurised Gandhi to withdraw the letter.
The well-known historian, R.C. Majumdar, has written in his book The History of Freedom Movement in India: “That the Movement was crushed within two to three months and that it failed to achieve any tangible result not to speak of the end for which it was launched, admits no doubt.”
On another occasion when Lord Wavell became the Viceroy of India, he met Jinnah. What the British Government wanted to do in India was to install an interim government in Delhi, which would have the support of the Muslim League, that is, Jinnah and the Congress, that is, Gandhi; so that the British could transfer power to this government in Delhi after World War-II (after defeating the Axis powers). So when Lord Wavell met Jinnah, his main demand was that Muslim Ministers in the proposed government would be nominated by the Muslim League and by nobody else. Wavell then met Gandhi and asked him to show statesmanship** and accept Jinnah’s demand for the sake of peace but Gandhi would not. If Gandhi had accepted Wavell’s plea united India would not have suffered any loss except that men like Maulana Abul Kalam Azad and Rafi Ahmed Kidwai, who were the Congress’ Muslim candidates for Ministership and would in no case have been nominated for the post by the Muslim League led by Jinnah, would not have become Ministers. But in that case the partition of India would have been avoided and thousands of people would not have become victims of that tragedy. In 1939, the Congress Ministries in the provinces resigned. Instead of resigning if the Congress had invited the Muslim League to join the Congress to form coalition Ministries, the British rulers would have got a clear signal that the Muslim League and the Congress had come together. Neither Gandhi nor Jinnah made any effort in this regard. On the contrary Jinnah announced that the resignation of the Congress Ministries be celebrated as the deliverance day.
A young friend of mine, who was till recently a card-holding member of the CPI-M, one day asked me what has been Jyoti Basu’s contribution to the politics and government of Bengal that he has been the uncrowned king of West Bengal for such a long time. I said that the most important contribution made by him is that he was a party to the decision to partition Bengal. As you know all the Hindu members in the Bengal Assembly, including the Communist members, voted for the partition. The reason was that in the united Bengal a Muslim would almost always have become the Chief Minister, and the bhadralok Hindus did not want to live under a Muslim Chief Minister.
This reminds me of my very kind friend, the late Justice Dorab Patel of Pakistan, making a comment at lunch at my place in Delhi, that the whole tragedy was that we did not have any statesman in pre-partition India and that we had only clever and crafty politicians.
Jinnah did not want India to be partitioned. Let me quote M.N. Roy in this context.
Unfortunately Jinnah’s coming to the front rank of politics synchronised with desecularisation of nationalism, which doubtful development introduced communalism in politics. If distrust and hatred of the British were the hallmark of patriotism, Jinnah was always a strong patriot as any other Indian. In the General Council meeting of the League held in the Imperial Hotel of New Delhi to endorse the plan of partition, Jinnah concluded his speech by declaring, “I have won Pakistan for you. Now do what you can do with it.”
If Jinnah had known that his men would rule Pakistan through emergency and Martial Law he would have perhaps given a second thought to the idea. What I suggest in this brief article is that Partition could have been avoided and undivided India would have been a less unhappy place than what these two countries are today.
It was not Jinnah but the Hindutvavadi leader Sarvarkar who first propounded the two-nation theory. Veer Sarvarkar, while presiding over the 1937 session of the Hindu Mahasabha, said in plain and simple words, advocating the two-nation theory:
I warn the Hindus that the Mohammedans are likely to prove dangerous to our Hindu nation. India cannot be assumed today to be a Unitarian and homogeneous nation. On the contrary there are two nations in the main, the Hindus and the Muslims in India. (Source—Mohandas by Raj Mohan Gandhi, p. 411)
Another important thing, which has prompted me to give a fresh look at this question, is to explore the possibility of bringing about peace between India and Pakistan. (In fact, the matter came up in a short discussion at a meeting organised by the Jamia Millia Islamia University under the aegis of the Academy of Third World Studies recently.) I don’t believe, like some Gandhian and RSS ideologues, that there can be peace between India and Pakistan only if Pakistan joins India in a confederation. What a well-known Gandhian and others like him want to say is that the partition should be undone, then only there would be peace and there is nobody to question him as to why Gandhi did not prevent partition when he was in a position to do so as I have argued in this article. Also there is nobody to question him: is India truly a federation? That Gandhian intellectual wrote an article in a national daily, wherein he pleaded for Pakistan to join India in a confederation. Subsequently, while presiding over one session of an annual conference of the Indian Radical Humanist Association he advanced the same argument. I questioned him and wanted his permission to speak on the subject. Later in the course of private discussion I asked him why was it that Gandhi did not accept Jinnah’s demand? What harm would have befallen if Jinnah’s demand had been accepted except that people like Maulana Abul Kalam Azad and Rafi Ahmed Kidwai would have found no place in the Council of Ministers of the Government of India? This intellectual dismissed the question saying that these are all old issues mixed up with the question beginning with the two-nation theory. I, therefore, add some information which is not generally known even to the Gandhivadis.
•
IT is for intellectuals like the one I have referred to above to enlighten us on how Gandhi reacted to one ruler of a Muslim majority state signing the treaty of accession with India, and also when Jinnah wanted to go to Kashmir for a holiday, why the Maharaja said that he would not allow Jinnah to enter Kashmir. It was only after this that Pakistani leaders had a meeting and decided to send infiltrators as secret agents to Kashmir to evaluate the situation and determine the Maharaja’s real intentions.
This was one of the greatest tragedies in Indian history and I have to say with the deepest regret that a large part of the responsibility for this development rests on Jawaharlal Nehru.
Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel was India’s quin-tessential politician. He ran the machinery of the Congress party. I was surprised when Patel said that whether we like it or not there were two nations in India. He was now convinced that Muslims and Hindus could not be united into one nation. It was better to have one clean fight and then separate than have bickerings. It was surprising that Patel was now an even greater supporter of the two-nation theory than Jinnah. Jinnah may have raised the flag of partition but now the real flag-bearer was Patel. Jawaharlal Nehru, the firm opponent of partition, had become, if not a supporter, at least acquiescent to the idea. (Source – Crisis in the Indian Subcontinent: Can it be Undone by Lal Khan, Aakar Books, New Delhi- 91) So far as Gandhi was concerned, Mountbatten told Gandhi that the Congress was not with him, it was with Mountbatten to which Gandhi replied that the Congress might not be with him, but the country was with him.
In fact those in India who advocate directly or indirectly that the partition be undone may read this book. It is a well-researched and scholarly book. The book has relevant quotations, for example, Trotsky’s critical comments on Gandhi and relevant quotations from Abul Kalam Azad’s book India Wins Freedom. One such important quotation, which relates to Sardar Patel and his advocacy of the two-nation theory, has been referred to above.
My article may be read in the context of recently published book The Great Partition: the Making of India and Pakistan by Yasmeen Khan, a book backed by massive scholarship and massive research. The main thesis of the book is that the partition of India in 1947 promised its people both political freedom and a future free of religious strife. Instead, the geographical divide brought about an even greater schism exposing huge numbers of the population to devastating consequences. Thousands of women were raped. At least one million people were killed and 10 to 15 million were forced to leave their homes, to live as refugees. It was the bloodiest event of decolo-nisation in the 20th century. My thesis is that Gandhi could have stopped this devastation.
FOOTNOTE
** I can’t define statesmanship but I would refer to two instances of great statesmanship.
1. When Hitler attacked the Soviet Union, Churchill announced on the BBC that he would fight with Stalin in the air, on the sea and on land and destroy the common enemy of human culture, civili-sation and democracy. Some of his friends asked him how he could do so for he had been opposed to the Soviet Union and Communism all his life. Churchill replied that if Hitler attacked Hell, his friend should not be surprised if he were in alliance with the Devil to destroy the evil.
2. A few months before Abraham Lincoln was tragically assassinated in a theatre hall, some of his friends asked him about his views on the system of slavery to which his reply was that his first concern was the Union, and to keep it steady and if to that effect he was required to support slavery he would do that and if he was required to oppose it he would do that.
Editor of PUCL Bulletin, Dr R.M. Pal is a former editor of The Radical Humanist and former President of Delhi State PUCL. He has co-edited with G.S. Bhargava the volume Human Rights of Dalits, proceedings of a conference held in Chennai organised by the National Human Rights Commission in collaboration with the Dalit Liberation Trust, Chennai. The initiative for this conference was taken by Dr Pal. Dr Pal has also co-edited with Mrs. Meera Verma the volume Power to the People, the Political Thought of Gandhi, M.N. Roy and Jaiprakash Narayan, published by Gyan Books, New Delhi (in two volumes).
The Partition of India
"A moment comes, which comes but rarely in history, when we step out from the old to the new, when an age ends, and when the soul of a nation, long suppressed, finds utterance." -Jawarhalal Nehru
14 August, 1947, saw the birth of the new Islamic Republic of Pakistan. At midnight the next day India won its freedom from colonial rule, ending nearly 350 years of British presence in India. During the struggle for freedom, Gandhi had written an appeal "To Every Briton" to free their possessions in Asia and Africa, especially India (Philips and Wainwright, 567). The British left India divided in two. The two countries were founded on the basis of religion, with Pakistan as an Islamic state and India as a secular one.
Whether the partition of these countries was wise and whether it was done too soon is still under debate. Even the imposition of an official boundary has not stopped conflict between them. Boundary issues, left unresolved by the British, have caused two wars and continuing strife between India and Pakistan.
The partition of India and its freedom from colonial rule set a precedent for nations such as Israel, which demanded a separate homeland because of the irreconcilable differences between the Arabs and the Jews. The British left Israel in May 1948, handing the question of division over to the UN. Un-enforced UN Resolutions to map out boundaries between Israel and Palestine has led to several Arab-Israeli wars and the conflict still continues.
Timeline
1600-British East India Company is established.
1857-The Indian Mutiny or The First War of Independence.
1858-The India Act: power transferred to British Government.
1885-Indian National Congress founded by A. O. Hume to unite all Indians and strengthen bonds with Britain.
1905-First Partition of Bengal for administrative purposes. Gives the Muslims a majority in that state.
1906-All India Muslim League founded to promote Muslim political interests.
1909-Revocation of Partition of Bengal. Creates anti-British and anti-Hindu sentiments among Muslims as they lose their majority in East Bengal.
1916-Lucknow Pact. The Congress and the League unite in demand for greater self-government. It is denied by the British.
1919-Rowlatt Acts, or black acts passed over opposition by Indian members of the Supreme Legislative Council. These were peacetime extensions of wartime emergency measures. Their passage causes further disaffection with the British and leads to protests. Amritsar Massacre. General Dyer opens fire on 20,000 unarmed Indian civilians at a political demonstration against the Rowlatt Acts. Congress and the League lose faith in the British.
1919-Montagu-Chelmsford Reforms (implemented in 1921). A step to self-government in India within the Empire, with greater provincialisation, based on a dyarchic principle in provincial government as well as administrative responsibility. Communal representation institutionalised for the first timeas reserved legislative seats are allocated for significant minorities.
1920-Gandhi launches a non-violent, non-cooperation movement, or Satyagraha, against the British for a free India.
1922-Twenty-one policemen are killed by Congress supporters at Chauri -Chaura. Gandhi suspends non-cooperation movement and is imprisoned.
1928-Simon Commission, set up to investigate the Indian political environment for future policy-making, fails as all parties boycott it.
1929-Congress calls for full independence.
1930-Dr. Allama Iqbal, a poet-politician, calls for a separate homeland for the Muslims at the Allahabad session of the Muslim League. Gandhi starts Civil Disobedience Movement against the Salt Laws by which the British had a monopoly over production and sale of salt.
1930-31-The Round Table conferences, set up to consider Dominion status for India. They fail because of non-attendance by the Congress and because Gandhi, who does attend, claims he is the only representative of all of India.
1931-Irwin-Gandhi Pact, which concedes to Gandhi's demands at the Round Table conferences and further isolates Muslim League from the Congress and the British.
1932-Third Round Table Conference boycotted by Muslim League. Gandhi re-starts civil disobedience. Congress is outlawed by the British and its leaders.
1935-Government of India Act: proposes a federal India of political provinces with elected local governments but British control over foreign policy and defence.
1937-Elections. Congress is successful in gaining majority.
1939-Congress ministries resign.
1940-Jinnah calls for establishment of Pakistan in an independent and partitioned India.
1942-Cripps Mission o India, to conduct negotiations between all political parties and to set up a cabinet government. Congress adopts Quit India Resolution, to rid India of British rule. Congress leaders arrested for obstructing war effort.
1942-43-Muslim League gains more power: ministries formed in Sind, Bengal and North-West Frontier Province and greater influence in the Punjab.
1944-Gandhi released from prison. Unsuccessful Gandhi-Jinnah talks, but Muslims see this as an acknowledgment that Jinnah represents all Indian Muslims.
1945-The new Labour Government in Britain decides India is strategically indefensible and begins to prepare for Indian independence. Direct Action Day riots convince British that Partition is inevitable.
1946-Muslim League participates in Interim Government that is set up according to the Cabinet Mission Plan.
1947-Announcement of Lord Mountbatten's plan for partition of India, 3 June. Partition of India and Pakistan, 15 August. Radcliffe Award of boundaries of the nations, 16 August.
1971-East Pakistan separates from West Pakistan and Bangladesh is born.
Reasons for Partition
By the end of the 19th century several nationalistic movements had started in India. Indian nationalism had grown largely since British policies of education and the advances made by the British in India in the fields of transportation and communication. However, their complete insensitivity to and distance from the peoples of India and their customs created such disillusionment with them in their subjects that the end of British rule became necessary and inevitable.
However, while the Indian National Congress was calling for Britain to Quit India, the Muslim League, in 1943, passed a resolution for them to Divide and Quit. There were several reasons for the birth of a separate Muslim homeland in the subcontinent, and all three parties-the British, the Congress and the Muslim League-were responsible.
The British had followed a divide-and-rule policy in India. Even in the census they categorised people according to religion and viewed and treated them as separate from each other. They had based their knowledge of the peoples of India on the basic religious texts and the intrinsic differences they found in them instead of on the way they coexisted in the present. The British were also still fearful of the potential threat from the Muslims, who were the former rulers of the subcontinent, ruling India for over 300 years under the Mughal Empire. In order to win them over to their side, the British helped establish the M.A.O. College at Aligarh and supported the All-India Muslim Conference, both of which were institutions from which leaders of the Muslim League and the ideology of Pakistan emerged. As soon as the League was formed, they were placed on a separate electorate. Thus the idea of the separateness of Muslims in India was built into the electoral process of India.
There was also an ideological divide between the Muslims and the Hindus of India. While there were strong feelings of nationalism in India, by the late 19th century there were also communal conflicts and movements in the country that were based on religious communities rather than class or regional ones. Some people felt that the very nature of Islam called for a communal Muslim society. Added to this were the memories of power over the Indian subcontinent that the Muslims held on to, especially those in the old centers of Mughal rule. These memories might have made it exceptionally diffficult for Muslims to accept the imposition of colonial power and culture. They refused to learn English and to associate with the British. This was a severe drawback for them as they found that the Hindus were now in better positions in government than they were and thus felt that the British favored Hindus. The social reformer and educator, Sir Syed Ahmed Khan, who founded M.A.O. College, taught the Muslims that education and cooperation with the British was vital for their survival in the society. Tied to all the movements of Muslim revival was the opposition to assimilation and submergence in Hindu society. Sir Syed Ahmed Khan was also the first to conceive of a separate Muslim homeland.
Hindu revivalists also deepened the chasm betweent he two nations. They resented the Muslims for their former rule over India. Hindu revivalists rallied for a ban on the slaughter of cows, a cheap source of meat for the Muslims. They also wanted to change the official script form the Persian to the Hindu Devanagri script, effectively making Hindi rather than Urdu the main candidate for the national language.
Congress made several mistakes in their policies which further convinced the League that it was impossible to live in a undivided India after freedom from colonial rule because their interests would be completely suppressed. One such policy was the institution of the "Bande Matram," a national anthem which expressed anti-Muslim sentiments, in the schools of India where Muslim children were forced to sing it.
The Muslim League gained power also due to the Congress. The Congress banned any support for the British during the Second World War. However the Muslim League pledged its full support, which found favour form them from the British, who also needed the help of the largely Muslim army. The Civil Disobedience Movement and the consequent withdrawal of the Congress party from politics also helped the league gain power, as they formed strong ministries in the provinces that had large Muslim populations. At the same time, the League actively campaigned to gain more support from the Muslims in India, especially under the guidance of dynamic leaders like Jinnah.
There had been some hope of an undivided India, with a government consisting of three tiers along basically the same lines as the borders of India and Pakistan at the time of Partition. However, Congress' rejection of the interim government set up under this Cabinet Mission Plan in 1942 convinced the leaders of the Muslim League that compromise was impossible and partition was the only course to take.
Impact and Aftermath of Partition
"Leave India to God. If that is too much, then leave her to anarchy." --Gandhi, May 1942
The partition of India left both India and Pakistan devastated. The process of partition had claimed many lives in the riots. Many others were raped and looted. Women, especially, were used as instruments of power by the Hindus and the Muslims; "ghost trains" full of severed breasts of women would arrive in each of the newly-born countries from across the borders.
15 million refugees poured across the borders to regions completely foreign to them, for though they were Hindu or Muslim, their identity had been embedded in the regions where there ancestors were from. Not only was the country divided, but so were the provinces of Punjab and Bengal, divisions which caused catastrophic riots and claimed the lives of Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs alike.
Many years after the partition, the two nations are still trying to heal the wounds left behind by this incision to once-whole body of India. Many are still in search of an identity and a history left behind beyond an impenetrable boundary. The two countries started of with ruined economies and lands and without an established, experienced system of government. They lost many of their most dynamic leaders, such as Gandhi, Jinnah and Allama Iqbal, soon after the partition. Pakistan had to face the separation of Bangladesh in 1971. India and Pakistan have been to war twice since the partition and they are still deadlocked over the issue of possession of Kashmir. The same issues of boundaries and divisions, Hindu and Muslim majorities and differences, still persist in Kashmir.
Literature and Film Dealing with the Partition of India
Bhalla, Alok, ed. Stories About the Partition of India. 3 vols. New Delhi: Harper Collins, 1994.
Desai, Anita. Clear Light of Day. New York: Penguin, 1980.
Garam Hawa ('Hot Air'). Dir. M.S. Sathyu. With Balraj Bahni, Geeta Siddarth, Jalal Agha, and Farouque Shaikh. Unit 3 MM, 1973.
Ghosh, Amitav. The Shadow Lines. New York: Oxford UP, 1995.
Kesavan, Mukul. Looking Through Glass. New York: Farrar, Strauss, and Giroux, 1995.
Manto, Sadaat Hassan. Best of Manto. Ed. and Trans. Jai Ratan. Lahore: Vanguard, 1990.
Rushdie, Salman. Midnight's Children. New York: Penguin, 1991.
Sahni, Bhisham. Tamas. New Delhi: Panguin, 1974.
Sidhwa, Bapsi. Cracking India. Minneapolis: Milkweed Editions, 1991.
Singh, Khushwant. Train to Pakistan. New York: Grove Press, 1956.
Related Websites
Brittanica Online: India. http://www.eb.com:180/cgi-bin/g?DocF=macro/5003/4/toc.html
History Today: India and the British http://www.historytoday.com/today/0997/main.stm
Itihaas: Chronology-Modern India-1757 AD to 1947 AD http://www.itihaas.com/modern/index.html
Celebrating 50 Years of Freedom http://www.indiaconnect.com/freedom/jun0347.htm
Indolink Analysis: The Ideology of Pakistan http://www.indolink.com/Analysis/pakIdlgy.html
TIME Essay: Hurrying Midnight http://www.pathfinder.com/time/magazine/1997/int/970811/spl.midnight.html
Hindu and Muslim: The Gospel of Hate http://electron.rutgers.edu/~myadav/war71/wall/dec6c.html
The Salt Lake Tribune: Train to Pakistan deals with Early days of Indian Independence http://www.sltrib.com/97/aug/081097/arts/31245.htm
India at Five-O http://www.ifa.hawaii.edu/~sonali/rushdie.html
Light at a Half Century's End? http://archive.abcnews.com/sections/world/indiapak814/index.html
Fragments of Imagination: Rethinking the Literary in Historiography through Narratives of India's Partition http://152.1.96.5/jouvert/issue2/Didur.htm
Contemporary Conflicts: Kashmir http://www.cfcsc.dnd.ca/links/wars/kash.html
BBC News Online: World Analysis Arab-Israeli Partition: a Middle East Milestone http://news.bbc.co.uk/low/english/world/analysis/newsid_35000/35484.stm
Print Sources
Azad, Maulana Abul Kalam. India Wins Freedom. New York: Longmans, Green and Co., 1960.
Hasan, Mushirul, ed. India's Partition: Process, Strategy and Mobilization. New York: Oxford UP, 1993.
Kanitkar, V.P. The Partition of India. East Sussex: Wayland, 1987.
Lord Birdwood. India and Pakistan: A Continent Decides. New York: Frederick A. Praeger, 1954.
Philips and Wainwright, eds. The Partition of India: Policies and Perspectives 1935-1947. Cambridge, MA: MIT, 1970.
Sharma, Kamalesh. Role of Muslims in Indian Politics (1857-1947). New Delhi: InterIndia, 1985.
Author: Shirin Keen (skeen@emory.edu), Spring 1998.
Links within this site
Postcolonial Studies at Emory
Introduction Authors Theorists Terms & Issues
(Image of an "Homme Carrefour" from Donald J. Cosentino's Sacred Arts of Haitian Vodou [Los Angeles: UCLA Fowler Museum of Cultural History, 1995].)
| History of India | . | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| by Vikas Kamat
The partition of Indian subcontinent in 1947, following World War II is perhaps the most tragic of all political events to affect India in its long political history. The partition divided Hindus and Muslims who had lived together for hundreds of years. It led to endless boundary disputes, three wars between the two neighbors, a nuclear powered arms race, and state sponsored terrorism. The agony and horrors of partition also gave rise to a new genre of moving art and literature of India. Reasons for Partition
Creation of PakistanIn what is termed as the greatest human migration, some 15 million people were displaced from their homes as a result of the partition with Hindus in Pakistan moving to areas in Punjab and other bordering areas. Many Muslims left India to succeed in Pakistan ("Land of the Pure") especially many writers and intellectuals. The partition was marred by large scale violence with death of a million (some estimate it up to 1.5 million) citizens and countless others suffering. K.L.Kamat While Gandhi himself was opposed to partition of India, in the end, he could not stop the unfolding of the history and many Hindus blamed his Muslim-appeasement stance. A Hindu fanatic assassinated Gandhi in 1948 in the aftermath of the partition. Mohammed Ali Jinnah, the "Father of Pakistan", himself passed away barely an year after India's partition. Creation of BangladeshAs can be seen from the map above, the newly created Pakistan had two wings --thousands of miles apart with an arch enemy in between. This was recipe for conflict. After all, the people of other wing had more commonality with their neighbors in India ( Bengal) than with the Government in Islamabad. The bickering between the two wings caused political and refugee problems for India and in 1971, Indira Gandhi had to act to free the East Pakistan and a new nation -- Bangladesh was created.
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Top Article: Epic Exaggerations
Premen Addy
The India-Pakistan civilisation divide was too elemental to bridge. Over the years, India has defied the prognostications of doomsayers, who proclaimed famine, war, and dissolution to a world unconvinced of India’s permanence. Would India be where it is without partition?
How best to make sense of the Indian paradox requires rigorous logic and transcendent intuition. A nation state and a civilisation, it encapsulates contrasting time scales: Medievalist mindsets and modernity exist cheek by jowl, as do feudalism, nascent and advanced industrialisation, underpinned by sophisticated science and technology. This, in sum, is a society of diverse tongues and ethnicities in transition on a grand scale held together by a political system seemingly born before its time, if one is to use the yardstick of the Western and Japanese experiences, where epochal material and social advances preceded the arrival of universal adult franchise and its concomitant. English journalist Ian Jack relates an encounter with an Indian railway official in Dhanbad, a colliery town in Jharkhand, overseeing freight traffic to all corners of the country. The man asked: Could he, the foreign traveller, think of “any country, at any time in its history, which had achieved these three things simultaneously: One, a dynamic economy; two, a redistribution of wealth and justice; three, a fair and law-abiding democracy?” The jury is still out.
I was drawn to the subject by a radio discussion on the present state on the Arab world. The United Nations had requested a panel of distinguished Arabs to draw up an assessment. Their report was damning: The region was hobbled by the highest unemployment rate of any in the world; its education system was the poorest and its gender inequalities the widest. Asked for his comments, Mr Amr Moussa, the Secretary General of the Arab League, blamed the Israeli occupation, before the impatient BBC interlocutor cut him short, his vacuity impossible to digest.
‘Hindu India’ commenced its long journey to recovery from its historic wounds in the early years of the 19th century: Social reform, cultural renewal and the denouement of political emancipation led to an invigorated search for liberation in its truest sense, one that is far from over, yet provides hope for the future even amid the travails of the present. So democracy was tried in the first hours of India’s bloodstained birth, and who would deny that it hasn’t worked well, warts and all. The foundations of a modern industrialised economy were laid through trial and error; and the establishment of science and technology became a visionary exercise that has repaid the initial investment many times over. Much of politics and the media are vaudeville, admittedly, but more to the point, India has defied the prognostications of the doomsayers, who seeing through their glass, darkly, proclaimed famine, war, and dissolution to a world unconvinced of India’s permanence.
India’s leaders at independence laid down the navigational chart for the cross-currents and myriad obstructions of international politics. Non-Alignment was simply code for the national interest: Ends have justified the means, as India surmounts the challenges that face it. Reviewing former US diplomat Teresita Schaffer’s book, India and the United States in the 21st Century: Reinventing Partnership, the Financial Times correspondent in America, Edward Luce, writes: “With a hint of admiration, of the the advantages accruing to India in the Indo-US civilian nuclear accord, of President Obama’s inability or unwillingness to roll-back those of its provisions out of sync with his NPT instincts”. As an unnamed White House adviser put it: “On almost every global challenge you look at, whether it is climate change, combating terrorism, managing the rise of China, building the G20, or reforming international finance, India is one of our five most important interlocutors.”
Despite deepening Indo-US ties, “India is no budding UK, and any US policymaker who believes New Delhi will act as a lieutenant for US interests has been smoking something herbal,” comments Mr Luce wryly.
The sixty-four thousand dollar question is, would India be where it is without partition? Highly unlikely, I would say. The Indo-Pakistan civilisation divide was too elemental to bridge. Consider Lebanon’s Constitution drawn up in 1943: The confessional paradigm vested the office of President in the Maronite Christian community, the Prime Minister with the Sunni Muslims, and the speaker of Parliament with the Shias. The country has been reduced today to competing confessional anarchies. A similar fate surely would have befallen undivided India.
The Pakistan-inspired Pathan tribal invasion of Kashmir in 1947 was a foretaste of the future that awaited the country. “(They) entering our church desecrated it, destroying all the sacred images, the tabernacle, vestments and candles... They carried all sorts of implements — guns, swords, knives and axes and bayonets, and the tips of their spears and bayonets dripped with blood...” (Frank Moraes, Times of India, April 14, 1957, recounting a nun’s tale).
A quarter century later, followed the Pakistani genocide in East Pakistan (Bangladesh) and the war with India, hailed at the time (December 1971) as a jihad. An aide in the presidential secretariat, in Islamabad, informing Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, the principal of that conflict, that he would soon be Prime Minister “to our great delight” went on to advise that “once the back of Indian forces has been broken in the East, Pakistan should occupy the whole of eastern India and make it a permanent part of East Pakistan... This will also provide a link with China... Sikh Punjab should be turned into Khalistan.”
The deluded Bhutto ranted: “Great and terrible scourges have come to India from this side... every invasion from this side has defeated India... Thus the terror, fear and habit of defeat cannot be wiped out of their national memory overnight... And we have ruled them for eight centuries... the Indian masses are just now struggling against the legacy of superstition, religious intolerance, caste system, racial animosities... poverty, backwardness... ignorance, deceit and the unconquerable habit of servility and submission.” (From the Bhutto archive quoted in Stanley Wolpert’s biography)
VP Menon, Sardar Vallabbhai Patel’s senior-most aide, warned the Indian Government in 1947 in the aftermath of the Kashmir invasion: “The raiders are a grave threat to the integrity of India. Ever since the time of Mahmud of Ghazni... Srinagar today, Delhi tomorrow! A nation that forgets its history and its geography does so at its peril.”
Partition, not its bloodbath, saved India. Charles Martel defeated the invading Saracens at Tours in 732 and rescued France for Europe and civilisation; the Polish king Jan Sobieski, rendered a similar service in 1683 on the outskirts of Vienna, where he turned the Turkish Ottoman tide with his rout of Kara Mustapha’s marauding horde. It signalled the beginning of the Ottoman Empire’s terminal decline. India’s victory over Pakistan at the gates was also a nemesis for barbarism.
http://www.dailypioneer.com/196691/Partition-saved-India.html
Coming, US heavy metal - Iraq warhorse to be deployed in India for drill | ||
| SUJAN DUTTA | ||
New Delhi, Aug. 20: The US is shipping 17 Strykers, its most modern fighting vehicles which lead many ground operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, to India for the largest joint army exercise between the two countries. This will be the largest deployment of Strykers by the US outside Iraq and Afghanistan. The exercise will be the latest in a series of drills called Yudh Abhyas that has so far been wargamed on counter-insurgency themes. The deployment of the Stryker armoured fighting vehicles — designed to be more agile but with the firepower of tanks — alongside a formation of the Indian armoured corps suggests the level and intensity of Yudh Abhyas is being scaled up. The Strykers will be shipped from Hawaii, the headquarters of the US Pacific Command, to Mumbai and then taken either by air or road to Babina near Jhansi in Uttar Pradesh. Babina is the headquarters of the Indian Army’s 31 armoured division. The division is an element of the 21 Strike Corps and trained to lead ground operations in desert and semi-desert terrain on the India-Pakistan border. The 31 division has T-72 Russian-origin tanks and is currently being re-equipped with the later-generation T-90 tanks. Yudh Abhyas-09, scheduled for the second fortnight of October, will coincide with a major India-US Air Forces’ exercise that will be centred in Agra. The US will deploy C-130J Hercules for the latest edition of the Cope India series of wargames. Six of the Lockheed Martin-made aircraft for medium cargo lifts and special forces operations have been contracted by the Indian Air Force. The US will also fly in the much bigger C-17 Globemaster made by Boeing. The Indian Air Force has projected a need for a heavy lift transport aircraft in the category of the Globemaster. But the government has not yet called for proposals from prospective sellers. The Agra base is home to the Indian Air Force’s transport and refueller aircraft and to the special forces’ Parachute Training School. An army source said the configuration of the Indian deployment for the land forces’ exercise, most likely to be held in the field firing ranges near Babina, was still being worked out. The US Stryker has replaced or is replacing most of the Bradley fighting vehicles that, along with the M1A1 Abrams tanks, the Humvee and the Hummer, led the charge into Iraq from Kuwait in 2003. Subsequently, the US army chief, General Eric Shinseki, formulated the idea of Stryker Brigade Combat Teams that are the mobile land components in the wars. The Stryker is capable of carrying 11 troops in its infantry-carrying version. But it can also be used for heavier mobile firepower and mounted with cannons and mortars. It is also used for medical evacuation and as a mobile command centre. |
Extra time for VIP quota |
| CHARU SUDAN KASTURI |
New Delhi, Aug. 20: Admissions to Kendriya Vidyalayas have been extended by a month — only for students applying through the discretionary quota of human resource development minister Kapil Sibal. The Kendriya Vidyalaya Sangathan (KVS) has directed all its schools to admit the minister’s nominees till August 31 — the last date was July 31 — after Sibal was unable to nominate enough candidates to fill his quota on time, top officials told The Telegraph. Other students who may have missed the admission deadline, however, have not been provided any succour in the directive issued on August 13. “Strict instructions be given to all principals of your region not to refuse admission under special dispensation scheme of HRM (human resource minister) on the ground that the last date (31st July) for admission is over,” the directive said. The HRD minister, under rules upheld by the Supreme Court, is allowed a quota of 1,200 seats at the KVs every year. The country has over 1,000 KVs with close to 1.2 million students. Ministry sources independently confirmed the KVS directive but clarified that Sibal had personally made no such request. The move appears to be a departure from the propriety-conscious approach of the HRD ministry under Sibal. “The directive effectively widens the gap in admission opportunities for ordinary students and the minister’s nominees. Now, a student nominated by the minister need not even meet the deadline,” a source complained. The ministry sources said the minister had been busy trying to meet 100-day targets, allowing him little time to shortlist nominees. Sibal is learnt to be opposed to the concept of a quota for the minister. But the minister is known to be burdened with hundreds of applications for admissions to the KVs — from aides, party workers and acquaintances. Requests for admissions through the minister’s quota, however, start several months in advance. Sibal’s predecessor in the ministry, Arjun Singh, had nominated close to 1,000 of the 1,200 students in the minister’s quota for the 2009-10 academic session before he quit office. |
Stuck in a time warp, RSS is pulling BJP backwards
The crude manner in which Jaswant Singh was expelled reflects the tightening grip of the RSS over the BJP, which does not augur well for the future of a party which positions itself as a mainstream, national alternative to the Congress. The credibility of the BJP has been severely dented because its leadership has of late turned increasingly towards the RSS for guidance or to curry favour.
Jaswant Singh's summary expulsion is just the latest example of poor judgment shown by the BJP leadership. There should surely have been more important issues on the agenda of the Chintan Baithak at Shimla than Jaswant Singh's book. True, Singh's views on Jinnah, Sardar Patel and the status of Muslims in India is at variance with the party's long standing ideology but the BJP could have dealt effectively with a leader of such longstanding as Singh by adopting a more civilized, sane and sensitive approach. The abrupt manner in which the party came down like a ton of bricks on a shell shocked and teary eyed Jaswant Singh sent out the message that the BJP is intellectually intolerant, obscurantist and out of tune with the times.
Jaswant boot upsets Atal - Party bypassed ailing veteran | |||
| SANJAY K. JHA | |||
New Delhi, Aug. 20: The unceremonious exit of Jaswant Singh has saddened his original benefactor Atal Bihari Vajpayee. Jaswant, who returned from Shimla this evening, plans to call on Vajpayee soon to explain his position. Sources revealed that Vajpayee, who communicates through gestures to close aides because of poor health, had conveyed his anguish at Jaswant’s expulsion for writing a book on Mohammad Ali Jinnah. Jaswant, who said he would certainly meet Vajpayee, declined to say if he had communicated with the former Prime Minister. He said: “I would rather not answer this question.” Asked if he would have been treated shabbily by the party had Vajpayee been active in BJP politics, Jaswant said: “I cannot guess what would have happened then. This is a hypothetical question.” Vajpayee is not in a position to change the course of BJP politics at this juncture but the party used to consult him on big decisions. Both L.K. Advani and Rajnath Singh earlier chose to sound out Vajpayee before any major political event, including national executive meetings. But this time, they chose to ignore Vajpayee even though the ongoing chintan baithak at Shimla is being held at the time of a grave crisis in the party. Vajpayee is known for his consensual approach and had yielded to Advani’s pressure on the question of removing Narendra Modi after the Gujarat riots but the BJP Parliamentary Board, of which the former Prime Minister is still a member, did not consult him while taking this decision to sack Jaswant. Jaswant also expressed his sense of hurt at Advani’s reluctance to defend him. At a media conference in Delhi this evening, Jaswant recalled how he had stood up against the treatment meted out to Advani during the earlier Jinnah controversy in 2005. “You should forget the favour you do to others but never forget the favour done to you by others,” he said. Jaswant also contested the charge, articulated by Arun Jaitley in Shimla today, that he had attacked “the core” of the BJP’s ideology. “Which part of the core I have attacked I don’t know. Had they read the book, they would have learnt I refuted Jinnah’s philosophy and I said his intractability led to Partition… and what is so core about Sardar Patel? He was the first person to ban the RSS.” Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel had banned the RSS after Mahatma Gandhi’s assassination and cracked down on its leaders — a detail the BJP has chosen to forget while adopting him as an icon to dilute Jawaharlal Nehru’s stardom. Asked why a Jaswant Singh cannot have a place in the BJP if the ideology is so stretchable as to accommodate those who demolish mosques, he said: “I don’t know. Perhaps I am too uncomfortable a presence for some of them.” Campaign attack At the BJP’s Shimla introspection, many delegates have identified the party’s Advani-centric Lok Sabha campaign as the prime reason for the poll defeat.
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DIFFERENT CONCLUSIONS - The BJP’s decision to expel Jaswant Singh is comic and crass | |
| Swapan Dasgupta | |
There is something both comic and crass about a political party first censuring and then expelling one of its most senior members for an exercise in revisionist history, and that too with astonishing gracelessness. It is comic because Indians, particularly Hindus, are temperamentally loath to see history as something distinct from mythology and even fiction; and crass because it reveals an inability to come to terms with non-conformism. To be fair, the sharpness of the Bharatiya Janata Party’s response to his latest book, Jinnah: India-Partition-Independence, released last Monday in Delhi, should not come as a complete surprise to Jaswant Singh. It was well known in political circles that, at the request of some senior leaders, the author kept the publication of the book in abeyance for some months to ensure that it didn’t become an embarrassment during the campaign for the Lok Sabha elections. As someone who had a ringside view of the convulsions that gripped the BJP after L.K. Advani’s display of political heresy in Pakistan four years ago, Singh must have also known that there is political price to pay for challenging orthodoxy and conventional wisdom. Not least when it involves the founder of Pakistan, a subject where demonology is the prevailing nationalist consensus. Yet, there are important differences between what Advani argued in Karachi and what Singh has proffered in more than 600 pages of print. Advani based his perception of Mohammed Ali Jinnah’s supposedly enlightened vision of Pakistan on a single speech made by the Qaid-e-Azam to the Pakistan constituent assembly on August 11, 1947. In that speech, a supremely self-confident Jinnah, wallowing in his success in securing a “moth-eaten” Pakistan, abruptly reverted to his pre-1937 liberal constitutionalism and advocated a non-denominational citizenship for a confessional nation-state that had just been established. Having belatedly discovered that speech, Advani told his Karachi audience they had erred by deviating from Jinnah’s original vision for the Muslim homeland. Advani’s bid to gloss over the complexities of Jinnah and hone in on his constitutionalism alone may have been over-simplistic. But it had a definite political purpose. In trying to court acceptability in Pakistan where he was perceived as the “hidden hand” which wrecked the Agra summit, Advani assumed he was also sending a message to India’s Muslims who remain implacably hostile to the BJP. The assumption was based on the premise that the resolution of the Indo-Pakistan problem would facilitate the end of Hindu-Muslim problems. Ironically, this was exactly how Jinnah presented his case for Pakistan to a sceptical Congress in 1946-47. From the Hindu nationalist perspective, Advani was guilty of heresy. Apart from giving Jinnah a certificate of greatness, his endorsement of Jinnah’s August 11 speech signalled his tacit acceptance of the two-nation theory and the repudiation of the Akhand Bharat ideal. Now, it could be argued that Atal Behari Vajpayee took the first step in this direction in his Minar-e-Pakistan speech in 1999. It could also be argued with conviction that whatever the past, Indians would be prudent to settle for the reality of Pakistan. Advani certainly believed so. By contrast, Jaswant arrived at the conclusion that Jinnah’s bid to redraw borders, divide communities and fragment a common heritage was a monumental failure. Jinnah had believed that Partition would end the minority problem in both countries and create national citizens of India and Pakistan. Instead, more than six decades after Partition, the problems of minorityism have unsettled both countries and fostered a greater fragmentation of society through reservations and affirmative action. He concluded that Jinnah’s separatist idea had solved nothing and Partition had been a curse on all the three countries of the sub-continent. This indictment of the two-nation theory, couched in excessive romanticism and nostalgia, can fit in with the Akhand Bharat principle of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh with only minor modifications. However, Jaswant also concluded that Jinnah was at heart a decent chap — which he undoubtedly was — and had been cornered into accepting Partition by a venal imperial power and a pig-headed Congress leadership committed to a centralized India. To those familiar with the intricacies of the negotiations over India’s political future, Jaswant, it would seem, was in basic sympathy with those who preferred a loose political arrangement to replace the British raj. The first of these was obviously the Muslim League, whose priorities were deftly articulated by Jinnah. The Muslims, believing themselves to be a separate nation from the Hindus, sought maximum provincial autonomy — it would earn them political power in north-western India, Bengal and, maybe, Assam, and a guaranteed share of the seats in a central legislature. This is basically what Jinnah sought from the Motilal Nehru committee in 1928, from the Round Table conferences and the last-ditch Cabinet Mission. Had he secured these and had his ego been assuaged by the Congress agreement of his “sole spokesman” claim, Jinnah was more than willing to be a partner in a united India defined by a minimal Centre. But it wasn’t Jinnah alone who was frustrated by the Congress determination to create a modern India on conventional nationalist lines. The 600 princely states, where nearly 25 per cent of Indians lived, were also opposed to any all-India federation that didn’t guarantee their separateness. As a feudatory of the Maharaja of Jodhpur, Jaswant had reason to imbibe the displeasure of the princes at Sardar Patel’s arm-twisting over integration into India, the anger over Indira Gandhi’s peremptory abolition of titles, privileges and privy purses in 1971, and the final collapse of a charming world built on custom, deference, obligations and entitlements. In many ways, Jaswant has a quirky view of India. His Toryism blends with an intellectual acceptance of the formulation that India is a multinational aggregation. This is quite different from the prevailing RSS orthodoxy that Bharat is a Hindu rashtra that must aspire to a streamlined, efficient, modern state. In another age, Jaswant may have been at home with the pre-Independence Liberals — a grouping that suited the Bombay gentleman in Jinnah. Alternatively, he may have been a stalwart in C. Rajagopalachari and Minoo Masani’s Swatantra Party, a mix of squirearchy and free enterprise. He has announced after his expulsion that his next project will be a political biography of Rajaji. Jaswant was an important figure in a BJP that was formed in 1980 as a wholesome version of the discredited Janata Party. It was a party that attempted to incorporate different political traditions, apart from the Jana Sangh which made up the core. At an individual level, Jaswant never amounted to much. He never had either a caste base or a mass following. He was ill at ease with constituency politics. But his symbolic presence signalled the BJP’s readiness to be a broad church for non-Congress, nationalist tendencies. With his expulsion, this space has shrunk symbolically. The BJP may recognize that its future in a cocky, younger India may lie in pursuing reasonable, moderate politics devoid of shrillness. However, if the leadership is unwilling to countenance the heresy of an amateur historian, how will it appeal to an India to which Akhand Bharat is fanciful nonsense? From initial reports, it would seem that Jaswant’s expulsion was widely endorsed by BJP workers for whom he was the symbol of the shameful capitulation in Kandahar. Unfortunately, elections are not won by the votes of paid-up political workers. Does the truncation of the political imagination appeal to those who are BJP’s potential voters? The jury is still out. |
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