Sardar Patel Death Anniveasary: 20 facts about him everyone should know!

New Delhi: Vallabhbhai Jhaverbhai Patel, popularly known as Sardar Patel, played a major role in Indian freedom movement and persuasion of princely states to accede in India after the country got freedom from the British rule in 1947.

For this role and commitment towards national integration, Sardar Patel earned the sobriquet ‘Iron Man of India’. He was a lawyer by profession who grew up to become the first Deputy Prime Minister of India. He was also the founding father of the Republic of India. In 2014, the government declared his birthday, October 31, as Rashtriya Ekta Diwas (National Unity Day).

As the first Home Minister and Deputy Prime Minister of India, Patel organised relief efforts for refugees fleeing from Punjab and Delhi and worked to restore peace across the nation. He led the task of forging a united India, successfully integrating into the newly independent nation those British colonial provinces that had been “allocated” to India.

He is also affectionately remembered as the “Patron saint of India’s civil servants” for having established the modern all-India services system. He is also called the Unifier of India.

On Sardar Patel’s death anniversary today, leaders including prime minister Narendra Modi and Congress president Rahul Gandhi paid homage to the patriot.

Here are facts about Sardar Patel that you should know:

His life and legacy

1. He Born to a Gujarati family in the village of Karamsad, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel was the fourth of the six children of his father, Jhaveribhai. He had three elder brothers, and a younger brother and sister.
2. Ever since the young age, Vallabhbhai showed veins of being tough and physically strong. Twice a month, he would indulge in day-long fast, abstaining from food and water.
3. Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel tied the knot at the age of 18, to Jhaverba, who was twelve years of age then. The couple was blessed with a daughter, Manibehn, in 1904, and a son, Dahyabhai, two years later.
4. Patel’s health started declining in the summer of 1950. Though he was taken care of intensely, his health worsened. To recuperate, he was flown to Mumbai, where he lodged at the Birla House.
5. Sardar Patel breathed his last on December 15, 1950 after a massive heart attack. He was cremated at Sonapur – the ceremony was attended by a million people, including Prime Minister Nehru, Rajagopalachari and President Prasad.
   Posthumously, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel was awarded India’s highest civilian award, Bharat Ratna in 1991. His birthday, which falls on October 31, is celebrated as Sardar Jayanti.
6. While his home in Karmsad has been preserved in his memory, in 1980 Sardar Patel National Memorial was established, which has a museum, a gallery of portraits and historical pictures and a library.
7. A number of educational institutes in India have been named after him, including the nation’s premier institutes Sardar Vallabhbhai National Institute of Technology, Sardar Patel University, and Sardar Patel Vidyalaya,

Role in quite India movement

1.  A supporter of Gandhi, Vallabhbhai Patel took active participation in the Gandhi-led Quit India Movement. He believed that the mass civil disobedience would compel the British to leave the nation like in Singapore and Burma.
2.  Under the pressure of Gandhi and Patel, the All India Congress Committee launched the mass civil disobedience in the form of Quit India Movement on August 7, 1942.
3.  Patel influenced the large crowd that had assembled to take part in the civil disobedience, which included the forced shutdown of the civil services and refusal to pay taxes. It was his powerful speech that electrified nationalist, even those who were skeptical about the rebellion.
4. Vallabhbhai Patel was arrested two days later on August 9 and was released after three years on June 15, 1945. Strikes, protests and revolutionary activities ruled India and Indians during this time with the result turning out in the country’s favour, as British decided to leave India and transfer the power to Indians.

Role in partition

1. In the 1946 election for the Congress Presidency, Patel was nominated as the candidate for the elections. However, he refused the position on the advice of Gandhi, which was eventually taken over by Jawaharlal Nehru. The election was important in terms of the fact that the elected President would lead-free India’s first Government.
2. Patel was free India’s first Home Minister and Minister of Information and Broadcasting. He was also the first of the Congress leaders to support the partition of India, as a solution to curb the rising communal violence and Muslim separatist movement, led by Mohammad Jinnah.
3. He managed to lobby for the partition successfully, by making Nehru, Gandhi and other Congress leaders accept the proposal. He represented India on the Partition Council, and oversaw the division of public assets. Though Patel argued to have agreed for the partition to cease communal violence, little did he anticipate the bloody violence and population transfer that would take place as a result of it.

Role in India’s integration

1. At the time of independence, India was divided into three parts. The first was the one directly under control of the British Government, the second was the territories ruled by hereditary rulers and third was the territory colonized by France and Portugal.
2. Patel had realized that the dream for a unified and free India could only be achieved if the three territories were integrated as one. Blessed with practical acumen, great wisdom and political foresight, he took up the uphill task of unifying India.
3. He began lobbying with the princes and monarchs of the separate states to accede to the government in full faith, who were given two choices by the British – either to join India or Pakistan or stay independent.
4. Patel’s untiring efforts and relentless appeals reaped fruitful result as he successfully persuaded 565 states, except the three states of Jammu and Kashmir, Junagadh, and Hyderabad. He used the tactics of invoking patriotism in the Indian rulers and proposed favorable terms for the merger
5. Junagadh, on the other hand, had acceded to Pakistan. With more than 80% population as Hindu and its distance from Pakistan, Patel forced the Nawab of Junagadh to accede to India. Hyderabad too joined the Indian Union by force, after the Razakar forces failed to match up to the Indian army.
6. As for Kashmir, it was during the Pakistani invasion of Kashmir in September 1947 that Kashmir’s monarch acceded to India. Patel then oversaw India’s military operations to secure Srinagar and the Baramulla Pass. In the days to follow, Indian forces retrieved much territory from the invaders.