Biography of Sardar Patel

• Sardar Vallbhbhai Patel, one of the builders of India, spent greater part of his life for the cause of India’s independence, as Gandiji’s disciple and comrade-in-arms. However, his lasting contribution to the making of the Indian Nation is the integration of Princely States into the Indian Union.


• Vallabhbhai was born on 31 October, 1875 in a peasant family at Nadiad In 1900, he passed the pleader’s examination and became a flourishing criminal lawyer. His meeting with Gandhiji in 1917 drew him into freedom struggle. Thereafter he never looked back and participated in all the movements led by Gandhiji, After waging many a struggle, such as kheda and Borsad he showed his metal as an organizer in the Bardoli Satyagraha in 1928, where he led the peasants to undoubted success. No wonder, he was called the ‘Sardar’. Bardoli put him on the Centre stage of Indian politics.


• In 1931, he was elected the President of the Indian National Congress. It was under presidency that the resolution on “Funamental Rights”, incorporating basic economic and social rights, was passed. As Chairman of the Congress Parliamentary Board, he saw to it that Congress Governments in the provinces, during 1937-39, worked in a disciplined manner. The Quit India movement found him in Ahmednagar Fort prison form where he and his comrades were released in 1945.


• The next five years were full of events, Negotiations with the British Government and the subsequent partition of India put a great strain on the Congress leadership. But it will be fair to say that the Congress under the given circumstances handled the situation with tact, patience and firmness.


• Independence in 5th August 1947 when he swarned as a deputy Prime Minister Of India brought in its wake new problems. The very existence of the New State was in danger. The Sardar as Home Minister and Minister for States tried to arrest communal riots on the one hand and successfully integrate 562 of Princely States into India on the other. It was an amazing feat. Without the Sardar India would not have been, territorially, what it is today.


• Welfare of India was always in his mind. He wrote to a friend: “Ere I leave this world, it is my earnest desire to lay the country on the firmest footings.”


• Sardar was on arm-chair politician or an idle visionary. He was a man of action. He accomplished in less than four what others would have achieved in decades.


• Through contemporary photographs and documents, an attempt has been mede to depict the Sardar’s great life and achievements.