Tribute to Sardar Patel

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

Page 13

Sometimes a comparison is made between Sardar Patel and Bismarck, the creator of German unity. The comparison is inept and inaccurate. Germany...was an ag glomeration of numerous states...and they had to be suppressed by a policy of "Blood and Iron." Bismarck had to fight three wars to accomplish unity; India escaped such a catastrophe owing to the skill of her statesman, Sardar Patel, and the patriotism of her princes. India's problem was of a vaster magnitude; the German problem pales into insignificance before it.
Ishwari Prasad, Eminent Historian
In welding together the Indian states into the Indian Union, Sardar Patel had, within the shortest span of a year or two, covered the track of centuries and accomplished what even Ashoka and Akbar had attempted and failed.
- Alladi Krishnaswami Ayyar, Member Constituent Assembly
Courageous, resourceful, powerful in his preferences and prejudices, realist to his fingertips, he [Sardar] built the edifice of India's strength and stability stone by stone.... But behind this power and strength was a peasant's simplicity which nothing would corrupt, the loyalty to those to whom he gave his affection; and an untamable spirit...dedicated to the cause of the Motherland.
-Kanhaiyalal (KM) Munsbi, Eminent lawyer jurist, author, statesman, and founder, Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan
The great Emperor Samudragupta was styled "Sarvarajochcheta" - the uprooter of Kings. Parshurama, the incarnation of Vishnu, was distinguished for having destroyed kings, but no one knows whether the Kings he destroyed prayed for the long life of their destroyer. In the case of Sardar Patel, however, every ruler so uprooted prayed for the destroyer's long life.
K.M. Munshi
...Sardar had that sixth sense of spotting the right man for the right job and then totally relying on him to deliver the goods. This paid rich dividends in administrative efficiency. Nobody who worked under Sardar suffered for want of confidence. Sardar gave confidence in the fullest measure and got in return unflinching loyalty in an equally good measure....
There were a good number of political prophets who believed that the liquidation of 556 and odd Princely States would be a task so stupendous that it would take a few years before India was consolidated as a single nation under one flag. Sardar almost performed a miracle in getting all these states to agree to his proposals. This could not have been achieved merely by getting tough and applying stern measures. Sardar's supposed toughness was happily blended with a sense of humour which was so infectious that everybody around him was almost mesmerized by it...
Although he deprived the Princely States of many of their rights and privileges yet I have hardly. come across a prince who has anything but love and reverence for Sardar. They all said and even say today that he was a man of his word and he could get things by persuasion rather than by coercion. -SK Patil, President, Bombay Pradesh Congress Committee and Central Government Cabinet Minister, India
What Sardar Patel did to unify India by integrating the Princely States in the Indian Union is an achievement without parallel in India's history, and with few parallels in the history of other countries. Its uniqueness lies in its wholly pacific character, for not a shot was fired to effect the change, of which the importance to the strength and prosperity of India is truly incalculable. What vision, what combination of patience, persuasion and persistence went into the creation of this new unity... That fulfillment...will be a worthy monument to what, in the perspective of history will, perhaps, stand out as his greatest service to the new India. -Girija Shankar Bajpai, First Secretary-General, Ministry of External Affairs, & Ambassador of India to the US So far as the interests of the country, the self-respect of the Nation, loyalty to Bapu and the Congress were concerned, he was an iron man: he would not compromise these with anybody or allow the opponent any quarters.
G.V. Mavlankar
For Private 13 ersonal Use Only