Today happens to be Indira Gandhi’s death anniversary and Sardar Patel’s birthday. I grew up learning Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru’s birthdays and then Indira Gandhi’s birthday. By the time Rajiv Gandhi became the Prime Minister, I lost interest in the Nehru family and I had moved into college so thankfully never learnt his birthday. I am told today’s school children also learn about Rahul Gandhi …. I wonder where they found anything worthwhile about him besides the date he was born on.
The point is, the Congress party and the Nehru dynasty ensured that post independence generations only knew about the first family and no other leader !!
The idea of India that Rahul Gandhi spouted mindlessly was created by Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel. He would have turned his face away in the spirit world when this phrase was used by the great grandson of his compatriot Nehru. It seems like an amazing coincidence by the Universe that two really tough people came and left on the same date. I wrote the following blog last year on Sardar Patel and I was lamenting the fact that we didn’t have tall leaders like him anymore. Thank God for our current PM, Narendra Modi – no one can call him a wimp and whatever his detractors might say, the man is genuinely committed to making India a glorious nation. His methods will be criticized, he will be criticized, and it’s good – we need differing thoughts, but atleast he is visible, he is making significant changes, he has brought enthusiasm and hope and he doesn’t have a dynasty that he can perpetuate.
Our PM has also brought some of our past leaders out of the dusty corners of history and suddenly we realise that it wasn’t Gandhiji and Nehru alone who managed to win us the freedom from the British, but countless other true leaders who also led crucial movements. I am hoping that these leaders also regain their prime places in the modern history of India, and their contributions acknowledged because they have really put their heart and soul into making our nation.
Remembering Indira Gandhi and Sardar Patel today. Jai Hind.
Written on July 31, 2013
From Iron Man to the wimps 🙁
Yesterday all the news channels were showing 10, Janpath and the group of important congress leaders with the PM and Madam Sonia Gandhi deciding about splitting Andhra Pradesh into AP and Telangana. And for some reason I started thinking of Sardar Patel.
There are two stories of the “Iron” man of India – one when he was in high school and protested against the teacher who insisted on students to buy books only from his store and the other was part of my school syllabus. Vallabh Bhai Patel had to undergo a painful stomach surgery and asked the doctor to go ahead without any anaesthesia, he just read a book through the process and that’s how the name “iron” man came about. This man with the help of V P Menon created the Indian Union from 500+ princely states ….
Read more Wikipedia – Vallabh bhai Patel
Cut to yesterday – a sad group of ministers huddled around a table deciding to split yet another state and take the count to 29 … Not because it was the right thing to do, but because there is political gain to be had. And the central character is Nehru’s grand-daughter-in-law !! Nehru and Patel never saw eye to eye – one was a giant of a man, the other was of middling stature but the blue eyed poster leader of the nation. A strange twist of fate.
Can even one of the motley crowd yesterday at 10 Janpath, stand scrutiny of the tiniest kind into their records ? Sardar Patel could without hesitation. He gave up a lucrative law practice for the nation and yes, today’s generation cannot do that, but can we atleast not loot from the nation that was won through honest sweat, tears, blood and finally sacrifice by great men like Sardar Patel. The “iron” man had steel in his spine and would stand up with moral right even when he was a little boy and today the group that divides his beloved nation, are wimps that stand for nothing.
I don’t like looking back and different times call for different measures – but at all times ethics and values remain the true north. But what will spineless people know of steely right resolve ?
Sardar Patel, Why did you agree to step down as the President of the congress party in 1946 and make us subjects of the new royal family ???