Thursday, November 01, 2007

A Strange sense of Irony - Sardar Patel amar rahe

Isn't it ironic, that the day after we celebrate the birthday of a man who gave the concept of "India" a tangible identity, we celebrate the formation of atleast 2 separate states?

The man I am referring to is none other than Sardar Vallabhai Patel, India's "iron man", and I use that epithet quite respectfully. The states I refer to are Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh, which celerbate their formation day (amongst other states).

My admiration for Sardar, stems from his two great achievements (unification of India and the creation of the AIS), and the fact that he, not Nehru should have been India's first PM. As many Indians know, at the time of independence, India existed, only in terms of geography. There was no "tangible" country called India. It existed as a geographical region encompassing 565 states (which co-incidentally, is the number of seats in the Lok Sabha - people's house today). Sardar was given the daunting task of integrating as many of these as possible within the Indian Union. To his credit, 563 states were integrated into the Union, without a single shot being fired. Only in the cases of Hyderabad State and J&K was military action taken (Note that in the case of Hyderabad, it was police action against extremist terrorists led by the Razakars, rather than military action).

In this regard, I find that his comparison to Chancellor Bismarck of Germany, who also undertook a similar task as Sardar to be very much overstated . In the case of the latter, he only had to deal with 12 states, and took them all by force. However, as can be seen in the case of India, 563/565 were taken without any force at all, leading Kruschev on his visit to India to comment "You have liquidated the princely states, without liquidating the princes". Obviously the creation of the privy purse (Article 291 of the Indian constitution, repealed in 1971) helped to a certain extent. Indeed, before the starting of this work, Gandhi remarked to Sardar "The task of dealing with the princes was truly formidable, but I am convinced that the Sardar was the only person who could have coped with it." Furthermore, Sardar in his true style as the Iron Man of India, did not take kindly to words from Chruchill who remarked in the case of Hyderabad "an old and faithful ally of the Empire". Patel's reply was simple "It is only in goodwill spirit and not on the malice and venom of Mr Churchill's tongue that an enduring relationship can be built between India and Britain and other members of the Commonwealth."

The other aspect of his work was the creation of the All India Services, his trust in the espirit-de-corps of the AIS. M V Kamath, at the time of Independence had remarked that the Indian Civil Service "had neither been Indian nor Civil nor Service". In this situation, Patel, the seasoned politician, advocated the retention of ICS and IP and proposed the constitution of two new All-India Services; IAS, and IPS. It is no wonder that Indians refer to the IAS as the "steel frame of India" and AIS officers regard Patel as the "patron saint of the civil services". In a speech, which must be reckoned as historic in the arena of public administration in India, Patel said: "In point of patriotism, in point of sincerity and in point of ability, you cannot have a substitute... As a man of experience, I tell you, do not quarrel with the instruments with which you want to work. It is a bad workman who quarrels with his instruments"

Not only was he a great freedom fighter, but also a champion of property rights and free enterprise, both of which are severely limited in India today. Notwithstanding the progress India has made with Liberalization, it still takes 89 days to start a business in India, and unlike many other democratic nations in the world, one does not have the physical right to property in the world's largest democracy. Is it any wonder that we have problems such as Singur and Nandigram?

Right now when things in India are falling apart and the Union is tottering, the national leadership ought to take a leaf from Patel's book and show the same constructive vision and iron will which he showed at a critical juncture of our history.

(Inspired by the Daily Pioneer op-ed by Mr.Jagmohan on Oct 31 2007. Some parts of this are also taken from that article)