"Who is Sardar Patel?"

“Who is Sardar Patel?” the wife asked.

I looked at her with incredulity and glee. “You don’t know who Sardar Patel was?” My superior wife had finally come a cropper, and that too on something every child knows.

“Of course, I do, Idiot,” she said, with disdain. “What I am saying, is who the hell was he that the BJP and Congress are fighting over him?”

“He was a great leader and unified India,” I bleated.

“Anyone in his place would have got credit for that. He was the home minister, and that is what home ministers are supposed to do,” the wife said. “In fact, there were many occasions when he didn’t know what to do, and Nehru had to intervene.”

“And, mind you Patel did not like that,” she continued. “He wanted sole control over the Home Ministry and didn’t want the PM to have any say.”

“So, you think he had no special role in history?” I asked her, with a hint of sarcasm in my voice. The wife thinks that just because she studied Sociology she knows everything better than everyone else.

“I am sure he had. So do you,” she said, matching sarcasm for sarcasm. “What I mean is that the circumstances made him take certain decisions. Some decisions were good, some bad.”

“Some people say, if Patel had been India’s first prime minister, things would have been very different,” I said.

“Thank god, you didn’t say that every Indian still regrets that Sardar Patel didn’t become India’s first PM!” the wife said. “Patel was a man with a provincial mindset, who was no match to Nehru’s experience and learning. Nehru was as liberal as one could be in those days, Patel was essentially a conservative.”

“What’s wrong with being conservative?” I asked. “Why do you always use that word as if it were some sort of gaali? Patel was just a strong guy, not a namby-pamby, wishy-washy liberal like your Nehru.”

“Don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against Sardar Patel,” the wife said, softening her tone slightly. “He was just like any other Congress leader of the national movement. He was part of the right-wing in the Congress and played a major role in undermining labour activists in the party. Patel was the darling of pro-capitalist elements like you.”

“Well, capitalism has stood the test of time. Nehru’s socialism has destroyed us,” I said. I was now on stronger ground. When it comes to discussing economics, I am second to none. I have an MBA from the US.

“Your idiocy astounds me,” said the wife. “Nehru’s socialism was limited to minor land reforms. What you call Nehruvian socialism was nothing but state capitalism – the state investing in roads, electricity, to make life easier for India’s industrialists. The only difference is that if Patel had been PM, even the land reforms would have been stalled.”

“Patel’s biggest difference with Nehru is on what secularism means. Patel was opposed to the Hindu Rashtra that your friends seem to want nowadays,” the wife said, “but at the same time, he was one of the staunchest supporters of partition. He protected muslims during the riots, but at the same time was opposed to giving Pakistan the compensation due to it." 

"He was close to the softline Hindu congressis like Rajendra Prasad and Purushottam Das Tandon, but opposed the call for a Hindu state. He rebulit the Somnath temple* to please hindu right-wing sentiments, yet believed that Kashmir should be handed over to Pakistan. He supported the ban on the RSS in 1948 and at the same time believed they were all patriots. Sardar Patel's internal inconsistencies make it so easy for him to be appropriated by both the Congress and the BJP”

“At the end of the day, Patel was simply not a patch on Nehru,” the wife said with a sense of finality. “He was simply not tall enough as a leader.”

“And, no amount of record-breaking tall statues can change that basic fact.”   

* The wife got this wrong. An erudite friend who read this blog has pointed out, Sardar Patel only ordered that the Somnath temple be rebuilt, but died before actual work could begin. Gandhi backed this project, but said the money should be raised by the people and not given by the government. Rajendra Prasad presided over the installation ceremony of the temple. Nehru, who believed that this was a sign of Hindu revivalism, was thoroughly livid.