Tribute to Sardar Patel

Author(s): Friends of Sardar Patel Awrd Association UCLA
Publisher: USA Friends of Sardar Patel Awrd Association UCLA

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Government which took its good time to relieve dis- Money Makes the Mare Go. After Bardoli, Patel tress. Patel initiated an unheard-of fund-raising drive became recognized as the Congress Party's chief orgafor the relief of the flood victims. Supplies were moved nizer and disciplinarian. He checked up on what into the flood areas by hundreds of volunteers wading Gandhi's followers ate, drank, and wore. He passed on through waist-deep water, carrying boxes and sacks on the party lists in provincial elections. He approved partytheir heads. When lumber was required for construct- sponsored legislation, and personally drafted much of ing small bridges or building houses, Patel arranged for it. No detail was too unimportant or sordid for Boss it all without making a single approach to the Govern- Patel. Recently he took charge of negotiations between ment. It seemed a miracle to Indians when all the lum- the Congress Party Ministry in Bombay and the Westber arrived on the scene in the needed sizes. By the time ern Indian Turf Association, which wanted to renew its the Bombay provincial representatives got there, no license for the Bombay racetrack. Patel, who has never official assistance was needed.
seen a horse race, knew what the traffic would bear. He Nothing like it had ever been seen before in India. upped the license fee from half a million rupees to three Here at last was organization by and for Indians. million.
Although he has handled millions in party funds, Somber Masterpiece. Now that India seems to Patel has no personal love of money. With his daughter require miracles of organization if its Government is to Maniben, who acts as his secretary (she has accompasurvive, Indians recall Patel's organizational masterpiece, nied him on most of his sojourns in British prisons), the Bardoli no-tax campaign of 1928. Despite the fact he now lives in a little suite in his son Dahyabhai's that crops had been bad for several years in the Bardoli Bombay house. He eats little, drinks no alcohol, quit district, a 25% tax increase was ordered by the Govern- smoking when he first went to jail. In recent years he ment assessors. This was precisely the opportunity has had serious stomach trouble. His only exercise is a Gandhi had been waiting for to launch the first real walk when he rises, at 4:30 a.m. His only recreation is experiment in mass civil disobedience.
bouncing a ball across the room to his grandchildren. Patel took charge. Dressed in simple dhoti and shirt, He has never seen a movie. He cares little about the he trudged from village to village, day after day, exhort- world outside his country. Of 300 books in his Bombay ing the peasants at every stop to stand fast and pay no library, every one is by an Indian, mostly about India.... taxes. “Some of you are afraid your land will be confiscated,” he said in one speech. "What is confiscation?
To bring under control this vast Will they take away your lands to England?” In another speech he set forth the principle that was to govern
interplay of seemingly irresistib every Congress struggle of the future: "Every home must forces and immovable bodies would be a Congress office and every soul a Congress organi
e take more than the fanaticism of zation." Under Patel's orders the peasants' buffaloes, which the Government might have taken, were brought
doslem Leaguer Mohamed Ali Jinna right into the peasants' houses. No servants would work
more than Jawaharlal Nehru's for the Government collectors. Nobody would sell them
i eloquent idealism more, perhaps, food or give them water. Some property was, of course, confiscated and sold, but bidders were few. In all Bardoli
than Gandhi's combination of a not one rupee was collected in direct taxes.
unysticism and manipulation. India A stunned Government finally asked Gandhi for
a needed an organizer. It had one. terms. The upshot was a 6/4%, not a 25% increase in taxes. Patel emerged from Bardoli with a new and ex
Gandhi listened to God and passed alted status. He received the unofficial title of “Sardar," on his political ideas to Vallabhbhai... meaning captain or leader, which he has carried ever
- TIME Magazine since. Jain Education Interational For Private i personal Use Only